Good Morning Middle America, your weekend addition of the King of Simple News is on the air.

As I attempt to give you a glimpse of the future, there are so many things spinning in my mind that it becomes difficult to pick a single subject.

I decided that gaining and retaining knowledge and perspective that focuses on the cause of our current demise is of the ultimate importance. We must be grounded in reality in order not to drift with the strong currents of television nonsense.

So then, a clear vision of the “cause” that brought us to this unfortunate juncture is necessary in order to find a solution. Therefore, I am re-running an article that I originally wrote nearly a year ago.

I have a 52 page booklet that I have read many times from cover to cover. The title is “The Chief Cause Of This And Other Depressions.” The author is Leonard P. Ayres, Vice President of the Cleveland Trust Company.

Mr. Ayres wrote the booklet at the request of Josiah W. Bailey, Senator, North Carolina.

The read is nothing less than astounding, the perspective, nothing less than amazing. I won’t bore you with the base content, as only deranged people like me enjoy the nuts and bolts of economics. I will however give you Mr. Ayres synopsis which states that certain guidelines should be adhered to, should the U.S. choose to avoid a repeat of 1929.

“Operating in a stable and predicable environment is the key to our economic woes”, Mr. Ayres stated. “That kind of fundamental stability is the product of the drab and un-dramatic exercise of national integrity and self-restraint.” In other words, we have already failed the first principal.

Following are the points that Mr. Ayers suggests would keep our economy on an even keel. He begins, “It involves persistent adherence to at least seven national policies.”

1. Peace, and the enduring prospect of peace.
2. A sound money in which both our citizens and those of other countries have full confidence.
3. Balanced national budgets.
4. A sound banking system, independent of political influence.
5. The limitation of bank credit to loans fully justified by the demonstrated earning power of the assets on which the loans are based.
6. The restriction of speculation financed by credit.
7. Such negative regulation of business operations as experience may have proved necessary to prevent abuses, dishonest competition, and exploitation, but with a minimum of positive regulation designed to control wage and price competition, or to favor special group interest.

Let’s grade our federal politicians on adherence to these seven policies. It seems that they have scored an F-, failing miserably in all seven policies and in fact, creating the exact opposites.

All of these polices suggested by Leonard Ayres are brilliant, but please go back and read number seven one more time.

What do you think of Mr. Ayres advice? Seems like he knows what he is talking about to me. It also seems that we wouldn’t be in this terrible predicament if we had followed his well thought principals.

Oh, did I tell you that Leonard Ayres wrote his book in 1935? Six years into the longest and most severe depression that this county has ever known.

So then is recession coming? Or is the “D” word rearing its ugly head? I’m going to assume that if you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs and homes in 2007 and 2008, that depression is already a fact of life.

When I originally wrote this piece, Ron Paul had thrown his hat into the ring along with the multitudes of others, to which I wrote, “Which of our candidates for President of the U.S. adheres to these policies? Which one suggests that we return to national integrity and self-restraint? Just one…Ron Paul. The others are still trying to figure out what went wrong in 1929.”

Amazin’ what a year can do for clarity isn’t it? I’ll leave you with the words of Dave Barry. “No matter what hurdles are placed in our way ─ somehow we always find a way, even in the darkest hour, to make things worse. It’s a miracle, really. You read about the events of one year and you think, ‘There is no possible way that human beings can get any stupider than that.’ Then you read what we did the next year, and darned if we didn’t pull it off!”