According to Newsweek magazine, we’re all socialists now, and it’s a good thing. The mainstream media are celebrating the destruction of the world’s greatest country, its system of beliefs, it ideals and personal guarantees. They proudly trumpet the sad fact that we now join the ranks of ’sophisticated’ socialist states such as those in Western Europe. This, as the rest of the world struggles to throw off the chains of socialism where it exists. As president Obama waxes eloquently about impending doom, clueless citizens rejoice at the news that Congress has passed a monumental spending bill masquerading as relief for the economy. The morons who support Obama are shedding tears of joy, convinced that they no longer have to pay for their gasoline or make their mortgage payments. Obama will make that all go away. Hallelujah. Let’s dance in the streets.

The ‘economic stimulus’ package contains very litte in the way of economic stimuli, and lots in the way of future payoffs for organized labor and other government-centric constituencies. It goes a long way toward making Democrats voter-proof at every level of government, with generous handouts focused on those groups that can deliver Congressional votes two years from now and for Obama’s re-election bid four years out. But handouts, pork, growing government to 30% of GDP and the usual Democratic shenanigans aren’t the most troubling part of this legislation. It’s the darker, scarier stuff buried in the fine print.

Tom Daschle may not be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, but his dreary vision of nationalized healthcare will be implemented to the letter. He advocates the establishment of a national policy review board that literally holds life and death power over every American, regardless of their insurance coverage. This is important - regardless of their insurance coverage. This review board will distributed ’scarce’ healthcare resources on a ‘fair and equitable’ basis whether you have insurance coverage or not. In other words, a small, unaccountable, unelected group of federal bureaucrats will now decide whether or not you get a badly needed heart bypass operation, even if you can afford to pay for it out of your own pocket. Oh, but there’s more: If you don’t fit their demographic of a ‘deserving’ recipient for that bypass, your insurance premium dollars are confiscated and used to pay for that other person’s more politically correct bypass. You, the working stiff who paid for all this, can just go and die.

This is not exaggeration nor hyperbole. Al Gore is not writing this article. The above-mentioned mechanism to ration and direct healthcare resources is in the economic stimulus package Congress just approved. The federal government now has direct control of your life, your health and therefore, your economic output. Why it’s there is anyone guess. But, that kind of monstrous legislation is why Obama and the Congressional Democrats are in such a big hurry to get it passed. By invoking the potential for calamity, by spreading fear and rattling the economy, Obama and his puppeteers will turn us away from a free-market democracy and put us firmly into the clutches of socialism. And, according to Newsweek, it’s a good thing…

During his candidacy and his first few days in office, Barack Obama has made both public and private comments regarding the use and cost of various forms of energy. He famously whispered that as president he would attempt to bankrupt the coal companies and the utilities dependent on coal for power generation. Quite recently, he said that $5 per gallon gasoline would be good for the country. Because he’s never held a real job,  commuted an hour to work, wrestled with the problems of a small business or assumed personal reponsibility for a profit/loss statement, Mr. Obama knows nothing about the realities of life here in these United States of America. He wasn’t concerned about helping Mother Earth when these comments were made. He was talking about controlling the lives of Americans through the availability, cost and appropriate use of energy. With the dollar nearly valueless, energy is now the new currency. By constricting supply, redirecting its flow or outlawing certain uses, Obama and his puppeteers can now control the entire US economy.

The carbon credit cap-and-trade scheme provides no direct benefit to the environment, the economy or the citizenry. It does, however, give the government dictatorial powers to control industrial output, personal mobility, even the flow of information. All of it requires energy. Starve a certain economic activity of energy, and it disappears. Provide cheap, abundant energy to another sector, and it will flourish. That’s called a planned economy. See Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez. Even if the carbon credit tax scheme (yes, of course it raises taxes) doesn’t come to be, Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have a dozen other means to achieve nearly identical results. Energy, like money, can be used to reward political allies and punish opponents. Energy, like money, evokes strong emotions of envy, entitlement and greed.

If you’ve ever watched one of those post-apocalyptic movies that hit theaters every now and then, you can’t help but notice that almost every film, energy is highly prized. Everyone fights over the available energy source, be it ancient fuel depot or swine flatulence, to stay alive or to impose their will over others. The leftist wing of the Democratic Party senses this. The private foundations and academic loonies have been touting this as the ultimate means of control for decades. But, how to get Americans to relinquish their standard of living and personal mobility - both possible only with cheap and abundant energy?

Enter the bogeyman - Al Gore, with an alarming vision of an environmental Armaggedon, replete with celebrity endorsements, Bruce Springsteen playing background music and thousands of militant morons flooding into the streets.  And so, Big Al and the environuts have trotted out their shameless scam of global warming to scare gullible Americans into scaling back their energy use and accepting the exhorbitant tax schemes that are being layered into energy costs. The environmental bogeyman frightens Americans into giving up their personal mobility, scaling back their standard of living and limiting their economic freedoms.

The media play along. In recent days, Exxon was again lambasted for its ‘obscene’ 2008 profits of $45 billion - a one time event. No one in the mainstream media bothered to report that over half of this profit was confiscated by the US government in the form of corporate income tax. Nor did they mention that Exxon actually collected nearly $300 billion in federal gasoline taxes for the government and turned it over within a few hours of collecting it. It costs Exxon lots of money to collect those taxes, do the reporting and transfer funds collected from thousands of gasoline stations and credit card issuers. Exxon was not reimbursed. The government expended no effort in collecting those taxes, other than to call the bank to see if they were deposited. And then, moments later, our government spent it. Out the door. Up in smoke. Never to be seen again. At some point, if voters allow it to happen, the government will take control of the oil and coal industries to ‘protect’ us from price gouging, when in fact it’s the hidden taxes in energy prices that are making them unaffordable to working Americans.  Once the means of production are controlled (Hugo Chavez playbook, p. 1), the government can impose its will as it sees fit. Whomsoever controls the levers of power, now controls each and every one of us.

So, when the brownouts start happening on a regular basis, when local radio stations featuring conservative talk show hosts are put on a limited broadcasting schedule to conserve power, and when your monthly electric bill is roughly equal to your mortgage payment, remember who started it all - Obama and his cronies in Congress. Their dreary utopia of equally shared misery is the best that socialists can offer.

This is the weekly home page article. For daily blogs, please click on Recent Postings at screen right

Think of parasites as an organizational pyramid or multilevel marketing enterprise. Maybe a better descriptor is Ponzi scheme. At the top of the pyramid are the liberal elite, the union bosses, trial lawyers, environmental gurus and political hacks that exhort Americans to sacrifice more, tighten their belts and stop complaining about higher taxes, loss of personal freedoms and economic opportunity.

At the bottom are the stupid schmucks that support and believe in the parasite elite, expecting to get something out of this whole pyramid scheme. They usually get the short end of the stick - a few handouts and some useless programs. The middle class gets stuck paying for handouts to the parasites, including the very top of the pyramid.

Let’s use trial lawyers as an example. When one of these parasites is advertising for slip and fall injuries or asbestos-related disease on television, they’re aiming at the bottom of the pyramid. They promise to get their clients big money awards with no fees and no risk. Obviously, they neglect to tell these poor folks, who indeed may have a legitimate claim, that they’ll receive just a small fraction of any award. The trial lawyers aren’t advertising to the upper middle class (aka the taxpayers). No self-respecting small business owner, corporate exec, doctor or professional would even consider representation by an ambulance-chaser. The trial lawyers aim their advertising at the poor, unemployed, hopeless and desperate. They are typically in financial trouble, uneducated and unfamiliar with how these legal parasites work their game. So, they end up signing away their rights in a class action suit or bundled case, and receive far less than they deserve. The trail lawyers, on the other hand, make millions, usually by overwhelming the court or the accused with hundreds of simultaneous claims. Just to the clear the docket, many judges will urge the accused to settle, even if they’re completely blameless.

Obviously, trial lawyers resist any legal reforms that would stop this gravy train. They invest heavily in the Democratic Party, donating millions. In fact, in most states, trial lawyers are the largest political donors. They have enormous influence.

Politicians work the system in a similar manner. They promise the poor, uneducated, hopeless or shiftless just about anything to get elected, knowing full well they can’t possibly deliver on those promises. Once in office, they create programs and laws that take money from working Americans and redistribute it to those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves. But, the government is incredibly inefficient in the redistribution of wealth. For every dollar collected in taxes, only 20 cents actually makes it to the person who needs it. The other 80 cents is used up by the government to ‘administer’ the redistribution. Wouldn’t we be better off with private charities doing this work? After all, even the least efficient private charity still delivers 70 cents of every donated dollar to the proper recipient.

Socialist politicians masquerading as Democrats don’t really want private charities to exist because they are competition. Instead, they want government to assume the roles of benefactor, parent, guidance counselor, personal financier, doctor and therapist in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘compassion’. What’s really going on is that socialist politicians have been able to manipulate the poor and working class to their own advantage, creating a powerful voting bloc. That voting bloc is kept motivated by promises of even more government handouts at the expense of the ‘rich’, who truly don’t deserve their wealth no matter how hard they worked for it. By inciting class warfare, they keep themselves in office.

Much like the trial lawyers who promise big cash awards and instead grab most of it for themselves, politicians promise the poor and working class handouts and special privileges, knowing they can’t deliver. Instead, that money is absorbed by the politicians’ real constituency - huge government bureaucracies, the labor unions representing them and politically connected government contractors who are themselves unionized or generously underwrite liberal causes. There is one other, very important beneficiary of the redistribution game - activist organizations that directly engage with the poor, the disenfranchised and working poor or pretend to represent them in some way. Many, like the ACLU and A.C.O.R.N., receive direct government funding so that they can continue to foment class hatred and despair among millions of Americans, instilling in them a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of empowerment.

But it’s not just the poor and working class Americans who look to government handouts. Wall Street has snagged billions in taxpayer money to prop up billionaires and a culture of entitlement. Unlike the millions of poor and working poor that have only one vote to cast, the relatively small number of Wall Street honchos and financiers write big campaign donation checks. They buy their political clout, just like trial lawyers. Ask Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. When the Wall Street people overstep their bounds, when they truly screw up, these cobras lean on the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer is completely unaware that the government, steered by politicians, dispenses money based on political considerations above all else. So, if billions are handed out to the poor, millions of poor each get a couple bucks. If billions are handed out on Wall Street, millions of bucks go to just a few people. The top of the parasite pyramid generally gets the same amount of money as the bottom of the pyramid - it’s just spread out among fewer people. And they have no problem taking it. After all, it’s free!

And the people were singing. They clapped and hollered, danced in the streets and stood in line at the porta-potties filling the Mall. They were happy and hopeful, trusting and naive. And, they had no idea why they were there except what the media told them. This was a historic occasion, indeed. But then, what precisely is historic about Obama’s ascendancy? Was this blend of Kenya and Kansas, this product of affirmative action and racial politics, the best black president we could have elected? Were other black candidates with more experience, credentials and qualifications pushed aside simply because they were more conservative, or too overtly radical?  Was it because Obama happened to be a person of color and therefore, regardless of his actual qualifications, experience and political ideology, was propelled into office? Did Obama get elected because of his skin color or in spite of it? What role did the news and entertainment cabal play in amplifying and distorting race issues in America, in effect paving the road for the Obama candidacy? 

55% of voting Americans have no idea who they elected as president. That critical 5% margin will no doubt be characterized as the tipping point in our nation’s history, when we descended into the grim and ghastly grasp of socialism. The Orwellian aspects of an Obama presidency are just too obvious to ignore. Our new president likes to strike poses reminiscent of FDR and JFK, and the media obliges with lavish coverage. But it’s the carefully crafted language that Obama uses to describe his dreary utopia that should make the average Joe a little nervous. When President Obama announces that ’a private Wall Street can no longer threaten Main Street’, just what the heck does he mean? There are at least two potential meanings - either Wall Street will be nationalized, or Wall Street will be so heavily regulated that it won’t be able sell a single security without direct government control. Neither is very good for America. This phrase is but one in hundreds of similarly cryptic pronouncements that Obama made prior to and after the election. He means to change things. Let’s all hope that he doesn’t make things worse, like FDR did.

Unfortunately, Obama appears to be headed down the same road to ruin that FDR, LBJ and Jimmy Carter previously trod. It’s a foregone conclusion that a huge increase in government and government spending will breeze through Congress. This ’stimulus’ package contains every single earmark and pet project ever dreamed up by any left wing loon in the Democratic Party. Every single stupid idea and wasteful government project ever devised is now enshrined in this pork barrel bonanza masquerading as help for a stricken economy. Much like FDR deepened and prolonged the Depression with ridiculous and harmful government intervention, Obama, along with his co-conspirators Pelosi and Reid, intend to repeat history. We will be thrust into a deep abyss, cheered on by the mindless mobs who think that a few government handouts will solve all their problems.

The mainstream media will go along with the hype and cover up the true nature of the proceedings. Our Constitution will be quickly disassociated from government and legislation. The normal checks and balances that prevent our government from running away with both the treasury and the law will be eradicated. Under the pretense of an economic recession, we will be stripped of our basic rights and the opportunity to prosper through our own efforts. The parasites will be in firm control of the government and the engines of wealth creation. The rest of us will work for the government, either directly or indirectly. The wealthy will escape this dreary existence, just as they have in Europe and elsewhere. The barriers to new wealth creation will be fortified, and the barriers between classes made impenetrable. It won’t matter how hard you work, or how well-intentioned your efforts may be.

If you’re born working-class, you’ll die working-class. That is unless you sell your soul to the Party - the only way out. That’s how it worked in the Soviet Union and Communist China. Welcome, comrade, to the era of hope and change.

It’s like opening up your credit card statement and gasping at the amount due. Someone had gotten hold of your credit card number and charged up thousands of dollars at a seamy strip club. You call the credit card company. They refuse to reverse the charges and insult you by implying that you were in fact the strip club patron. And then, they jack up your interest rates to 33% because you exceeded your credit limit, too. You complain to various state and local agencies. No one can help. You’re stuck paying thousands of dollars at exhorbitant interest rates over the next few years. Every month, as you write that check, you’re burning up inside. If you ever find the parasite who did this to you…

Well, it’s about time American taxpayers did the same thing to politicians and bureaucrats. These people have looted us time and again. They’ve lied to us, they’ve cheated us and they’ve defrauded us. They are the ultimate parasites and prostitutes. And given the level of suffering they’ve created, it’s even more infuriating to find that they’re cheap prostitutes to boot. Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd stonewalled the Bush administration’s efforts to investigate and regulate both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as lenders like the now bankrupt Countrywide Mortgage which gave both Frank and Dodd special VIP loans with terms that neither will disclose. In other words, for a few hundred thousand dollars in bribes, they started the ball rolling on the entire credit meltdown mess. It will cost Americans trillions in new taxes.

This is reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s deal with China. Al Gore was sent to San Francisco to pick up a bag of cash from a Buddhist temple, ostensibly from a Chinese general back on the mainland. In short order, China was granted Most Favored Nation trading status, which opened up our financial system to Communist China. The Chinese were able to open up banks in the US, establish foreign currency exchanges and participate fully in the international credits and payments system through the direct efforts of Bill Clinton. Interestingly enough, an Arkansas corporation - WalMart, became China’s largest trading partner. Walmart used the pricing advantage to destroy its competition in the US, most notably KMart and Sears, among thousands of smaller enterprises. All of this for a measly $450,000 in cash.

Barack Obama shamelessly accepted more than $38 million in untraceable, unaccountable prepaid credit card contributions from nameless donors and millions more from unknown oversease donors. All of this is illegal and specifically prohibited by law. It didn’t matter. No one was going to investigate the matter because to do so would imply a ‘racist’ motivation.

There’s plenty of precedent to indicate that most politicians and bureaucrats don’t work in the public’s interest. In fact, they’ll burn billions of dollars in exchange for a relatively modest campaign contribution. It’s anyone’s guess what Barack Obama has promised in private to whoever it was that provided millions in untraceable campaign donations. But, rest assured it will cost the taxpayer many times that figure.

Most Americans think that corruption is just a little bite, a piece of the action, that lubricates the political system. The problem is that corruption creates huge economic impacts that usually mean more taxes or less purchasing power. That’s because bribes and influence peddling is necessary to push something that’s completely illogical, economically suicidal or totally inequitable through the legislature or the executive branch. And that wasteful or economically destructive initiative, be it oversized government programs or special exemptions, must be paid for in some manner. And politicians always make sure it’s the taxpayer picking up the tab.

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently appeared on a Discovery Channel program that attempted to explain economics and capitalism. Reich, a seemingly well-educated man, kept referring to capitalism as simply dressed-up greed. In his fevered mind, there appeared to be no place for capitalism in the world, because it was based on greed. He referred to the writings of Adam Smith as proof that greed was the underlying motivation for capitalism - not personal achievement or bettering one’s life, not even providing the best for one’s family. It was just simple greed. Reich is not an idiot, but he is a demagogue. He’s entitled to his opinions, but when they are amplified and broadcast across the country, his extremist views influence others. The program provided no opposing views or commentary. This insult to our open, free-market economic system went unanswered, as do many other such insults.

Contrast Reich’s opinions with the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French writer and political scientist who toured America in the early 1800s. He was struck by the incredible energy and vitality of everyday Americans - simple men and women who worked doggedly at improving their lot in life. He observed that this was possible only in America, because only in America did hard work pay off for the common man. Therefore, it wasn’t ‘greed’ that motivated Americans over the last 200 years, it was the possibility, the certainty, that if they worked really hard, no one could take their newly found prosperity away from them. It energized them, it gave them hope for a better tomorrow. And yes, a very few people became very rich doing so. But, the more important point is that hundreds upon thousands became very prosperous - much more so than if they’d remained in Europe. It was the growth and political stability of a solid middle class that distinguished America from any other nation at any other time.

This has always been the central argument against capitalism — the poor are exploited by the greedy rich. In Europe, the poor had been exploited by the rich and powerful for centuries, well before capitalism existed. And, there were proportionately more poor people in Europe during the 1800s than in America. They were held back by social barriers, denied education and opportunity, prohibited from relocating to areas with better economic conditions. This was the reality of life in England and Europe. Slavery was abolished in the United States by presidential decree in 1861. But only after pressure was applied by other European governments did Russia finally abolish serfdom for Ukrainian peasants in 1862, freeing hundreds of thousands from centuries of bondage. The lack of opportunity and incentive was a fact of life for millions of Europeans.

In America, those who escaped the rigid social and economic structure of Europe were becoming landowners, opened small businesses and sent their children to universities. This was impossible anywhere else in the world and in many places is still impossible today. What America’s largely classless society was able to accomplish was the marvel of the modern world - a relatively well functioning capitalist system with minimal interference by aristocrats, autocrats and bureaucrats. Was it perfect? No. Did excesses and failures occur? Yes. But, it’s still the best system ever devised by man. The irony is that the liberal elite who preach against a free-market economy and capitalism have benefited most from its bounty.

Take Robert Reich as an example -  he attended Dartmouth College and won a Rhodes scholarship to study in England. The Rhodes scholarship was endowed by Cecil Rhodes, a capitalist and diamond merchant. Reich then taught at Harvard University, the wealthiest educational institution in the world. Harvard endowments exceed $45 billion, most of them gifts from capitalist alumni. At Brandeis University he was the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economy Policy at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management. He’s currently a professor at UC Berkley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. Maurice Hexter, Florence Heller, Richard and Rhoda Goldman are philanthropists who endowed the institutions that paid Reich’s salary. Where did their money come from? Capitalism. This ingrate, along with his former girlfriend Hillary Clinton and thousands of other liberals, have no problem taking money from capitalists only to turn around and bite the hand that feeds them.

But then, this is what liberals do. They resent the fact that someone else has worked harder, worked smarter or had the good fortune to accumulate wealth. Envy is a powerful emotion. It’s corrosive, destructive and insidious. Envy, dressed up as public policy, is what threatens free market capitalism. Demagogues like Reich and Obama have used envy to whip up class warfare, turning it to their own advantage. Socialism is their choice of socio-political structure, not because it’s inherently better than capitalism, but because it can be easily controlled by a small elite. That’s right: Socialist activists like Reich and Obama firmly believe in their own superior intellect and abilities, and they’re more than happy to impose their ideology on the rest of America. The average American can’t seem to grasp this. Why would someone dedicate their lives to telling other people what to do? There doesn’t seem to be any profit in it. And that’s the key - Americans are so conditioned to a direct linkage between effort and material reward that the desire to accumulate personal power is totally foreign.

They don’t understand it because they’ve never lived under despotic rulers or communist totalitarianism. Josef Stalin murdered millions and destroyed entire civilizations. He controlled the Soviet Unions economy with an iron fist. As the supreme ruler, he could have any material thing he wanted. And yet, he lived like a pauper. This is unfathomable to the average American. Unfortunately, Americans will need to get used to it. Obama’s monstrous plan to grow government means that all Americans will be working for the government, whether they understand it or not and whether they like it or not.

Reich, Obama and other well-educated liberal elites have no problem taking money from capitalists to feather their own nests. They have no problem taking money from taxpayers, either. Using our tax dollars, they will build a utopia in their own image and likeness. And, they’ll do it in the name of ‘fairness’. At some point, Americans will wake up and find themselves yoked to a huge and unyielding machine that sucks the life out of them. But it will be too late. Betrayed by liberal ideals, Americans will have allowed the most despotic form of government to take hold. They will have thrown away their freedoms and their future.

The 20th century was certainly America’s greatest age - the first half, at least. The bitter and divisive Reconstruction Era of the 1870s and 1880s transitioned into a more or less cohesive national perspective on America’s place in the world by 1900. The Spanish American war, concluded successfully just two years earlier, gave American military leaders confidence in their abilities to wage war on a global scale. And so, when World War I erupted, president Woodrow Wilson wasn’t intimidated by Germany’s U-boat attacks and quickly mobilized a huge army that effectively won the war in Europe and elsewhere. World War II was a repeat performance on a larger scale. America emerged from WWII as a superpower. The armed forces executed their missions superbly. But it was the home front that made overwhelming victory possible - the manufacturing might of America’s relatively new steel and automotive industries, as well as shipbuilders and munition makers, was the key strategic factor. It wasn’t the Roosevelt administration or government bureucrats who were responsible for developing this overwhelming advantage. It was America’s entrepreneurs and business leaders. For example, under direct Army supervision, aircraft makers were turning out one B-17 bomber every four days. Under direct Ford Motor Company’s supervision, the output was increased to one B-17 bomber every four hours. America didn’t become a superpower on just the courage and dedication of its military personnel. Our military entered combat with more armor, more firepower, more munitions, more fuel, more food and more technology than any other armed forces on land, sea or in the air. It’s a position of strength we’ve never relinquished.

After WWII, the former Russian Empire, run by Josef Stalin and his thugs, emerged as an unintentional and adversarial superpower. They were a brutish, unsophisticated and xenophobic bunch. Soviet Russia was a superpower only in a military sense, and even that was questionable. Much of the government’s resources were consumed in keeping their own citizens under control. Russia’s non-military economy was a tiny fraction of even a war-ravaged Europe, much less that of the United States. In the end, Soviet Russia collapsed not because it couldn’t maintain an iron grip on its subjects and not because it couldn’t compete technologically with US weapons systems. It collapsed because America could out-manufacture and out-spend the Russians 10 to 1 and they couldn’t keep up.

Ronald Reagan realized this when he was developing his political platform in the late 1960s. America’s manufacturing muscle was our de facto arsenal of democracy. Not only did we have the latest and best weapons systems, we had more of everything than anyone else. Once he was elected President, Reagan put his strategy into action. Without firing a shot, Ronald Reagan was able to destroy Russian rule over its conquered neighbors by simply outspending the Soviets on every level. They couldn’t keep up. And once their economy  started to crumble, the political machinery unraveled as well. Soviet Russia was unable to keep an iron grip on its conquests. Millions of Belorus, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Kazakhs, Georgians, Armenians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Prussians, Ossetians, Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Tartars, Uzbecks and a dozen more ethnic groups now had a chance at freedom and self-determination.

Our manufacturing sector was responsible for ending the Cold War. Unfortunately, that manufacturing sector has been under attack for the last two decades. Poorly considered free trade policies, unscrupulous trading partners like Japan, India and China, the raping of corporate assets by trial lawyers, unrelenting pressure from environmental groups and a massive expansion of government have combined to deal a mortal blow to domestic manufacturing. Our own government has carried on a relentless assault, literally driving manufacturers out of business, some of whom were critical to national security. For example, our government drove the last domestic manufacturer of hand grenade detonators out of business by allowing non-US companies to bid on US military contracts. The only company in the world that can supply those detonators is located in Switzerland. When the US invaded Iraq, the owners of that private company refused to supply grenade detonators to the US and any other country that entered the war as part of the coalition. This is only the tip of the iceberg. No one knows how many mission-critical parts and pieces are manufactured in countries that aren’t particularly concerned with our national security. And no one within the government is talking.

From a military and national security perspective, it’s absolutely stupid to put American companies out of business and outsource critical technical components to China, Japan, India or just about anywhere but here. The US military relies heavily on foreign sources of microchips, memory and logic controllers. It is unbelievably easy to compromise weapons and communications systems with a little bit of re-engineering that’s almost impossible to detect. This is not paranoia. The China government sanctions and funds daily cyber attacks on Department of Defense servers from so-called ‘military academies’ and institutes within China. And, China has already leapfrogged American Internet technology by embracing TCP/IP and mobile protocols at least two generations ahead of our current versions.

From an economic stability perspective, it’s absolutely stupid to beggar our skilled and unskilled manufacturing workers by pitting them against workers in other countries who live and work in unbearable conditions. Unemployed Americans in the hundreds of thousands create economic instability and political problems. In their desperation, they fall prey to demagogues and panderers who promise them hope and handouts in exchange for their votes. If the government is going to ‘invest’ in America, the first place to make that investment is in revitalizing the manufacturing sector, and specifically, the repatriation of defense manufacturing. Every nut, bolt and screw should be made in America, not because it’s a trade protectionist urge, but because it truly protects the country to do so. Given the astounding level of waste, greed, corruption and inefficiency in government, rebuilding our domestic manufacturing capability is a low-cost, high-return investment.

Champagne corks are popping in Detroit’s most exclusive clubs and watering holes. George W. Bush, anxious for a positive lift at the end of his presidency, skirted Congress and even his own Treasury Secretary to dole out taxpayer funds to money-hungry carmakers. For the moment, GM’s chairman and his hapless crew can hold on to their jobs, while across town Chrysler’s crippled top management breathes a sigh of relief. The $14 billion dollars is a stop-gap, a temporary plug for a sinking ship. Imagine what that $14 billion could have done in the hands of thousands of small entrepreneurs and business owners. But, that’s neither here nor there. The management and non-union staff of the domestic carmakers aren’t really going to benefit much from the handout. Neither will George Bush’s legacy or the American taxpayer.

Given that labor unions will be the single largest beneficiaries of the auto bailout, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger acted like a typical union ingrate when the handout was announced. He figuratively spat in George W. Bush’s face, defiantly announcing that the union will sacrifice absolutely nothing in exchange for the money. This in spite of the fact that Bush’s gift merely suggested some concessions. Gettelfinger went on to say that his union would revisit the deal once Obama and the new Congress were installed. This isn’t suprising. It’s not even outrageous by union standards. It’s a cancer that’s been growing for decades. And with Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling Congress, the UAW and its sister unions are poised for a comeback.

The unions have in fact given up absolutely nothing, while asking everyone else, including their own members, to make sacrifices, however modest. It’s important to understand that the union organization itself is a separate entity. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger’s salary and benefits are not being threatened. Neither are those of union local presidents, union administrators, benefits planners, money managers and other union employees. The dues-paying ‘members’ are employees of the carmakers, not the union itself. And they do need to be reminded of that occassionally. It’s not the UAW or the AFL-CIO that created their manufacturing jobs. It was a for-profit corporation.

One can always condemn the unions for their reprehensible behavior and the fact that union leadership encourages the rank and file to work as little as possible for the highest pay rate possible. But, the blame for that union attitude rests squarely with GM, Ford and Chrysler management, as does pretty much everything else that ails the auto industry. It’s the short-sighted, self-serving and chaotic management style of this insular and clannish business community that’s wreaked havoc with hundreds of supplier companies, the lives of thousands and now threatens the greater economy.

At the height of the bailout crisis just days before the Bush announcement, GM management ordered its EDS supplier to prepare a company-wide email blast that all bonuses and raises for 2009 would be cancelled. Once the Bush bailout money was announced, that email blast was cancelled. In other words, the taxpayer money would allow GM to continue with business as usual. One would think that given this is taxpayer money, those bonuses and raises would be curtailed as a responsible measure to safeguard the public’s interest. No way. That’s not how Detroit works.

GM and Chrysler will burn through the money that the labor unions allow them to keep in about 60 days. They will return to Washington for another Oscar-winning performance. One would think these captains of industry abhor the notion of groveling in front of Congress for money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t assume that these guys are entrepreneurs or capitalists. They are neither. These auto execs are bureaucrats and politicians as skilled as those facing them in Congressional chambers. They don’t have the vision, the guts or the leadership skills to pull these automakers out of the mess they themselves created. They have the savvy and decision-making skills of a potted palm. And the American taxpayer is going to make sure that they, along with their union counterparts, enjoy the ride.

Appearances are deceiving. It may look like Republican senators are unwilling to help fellow Americans keep their jobs and save an ailing industry. That’s how the mainstream media outlets play the story. Inconvenient facts like Ted Kennedy abstaining or that a nearly equal number of Republicans and Democrats voted against the measure are ignored. Americans don’t need to know that. They only need to know that rich and elitist Republicans voted against it. George W. Bush, a virtual recluse soon to be evicted from the White House, is scrambling around for a few spare billion. In the end, the automakers will get their money. Democrats will declare victory. Union members will continue to hate George W. Bush, dutifully following their leaders. The media will continue to bash Republicans even though most of them wanted to see a successful bailout bill.

But then, what about the money? $14 billion or $36 billion, the number really doesn’t matter, is basically a transfer payment to the UAW and skilled trade unions. GM and Chrysler execs will take a small cut for distributing the money in the form of paychecks. Union employees of GM and Chrysler will accept those paychecks, pay 35% in federal, state and local taxes, and then cough up another 4% to their respective unions. Who exactly benefited from this? Why government at all levels, of course. Taxpayer money given to the automakers comes back in the form of income, excise and sales tax paid by auto workers. Secondly, the union is guaranteed its income in the form of dues and management fees for retirement contributions and benefits taken from auto workers’ paychecks. And then, of course, auto execs can expect a little something under the Christmas tree this year for their heart-wrenching performance at the hearings.

The bailout money won’t be used to make the automakers more competitive, more stylish, more valuable or more environmentally friendly. The bailout will allow automakers and the labor unions to continue on as before, except that the government is now covering part of the horrendous operating losses. In order to be ‘responsible’ with taxpayer money, government bureaucrats will demand operating efficiencies from the car companies. And in response, the bureaucrats running those car companies will announce major cost-cutting programs designed to squeeze money out of everything and everyone.

Who gets hurt? Those who can least afford it. Stockholders have already been hammered, including GM retirees who held onto GM shares as part of their retirement programs. Banks and finance companies that have extended credit to GM and Chrysler are in a constant turmoil, re-stacking the loans and turning over paper so they don’t have to officially call in loans or notify the government that both firms are falling down on their obligations. GM and Chrysler employees who don’t belong to a union will take an awful drubbing. Many have already lost their jobs. The ones who remain are having an equally tough time. Just because GM and Chrysler have shed 20% of their white collar workforce over the last two years doesn’t mean that the work goes away. Designers, engineers, technicians, middle management and various specialists are working 50-60 hour work weeks, shouldering the load of their departed colleagues. Some are routinely working 80 hour weeks, frantically trying to keep ahead of a growing workload.

But those who suffer most and will suffer even more are the automotive suppliers - their shareholders, bondholders, managers and employees. And it’s the employees that hurt most. Unlike the major automakers, employees of auto suppliers are in a constant state of retrenching and readjusting their standard of living - downward. When auto executives demand better pricing for a tire, a piece of plastic or a radiator, the money comes right out of the pockets of supplier employees in the form of pay or benefit cuts, and/or working longer hours for the same net pay. If the supplier employees are themselves union members, the blow isn’t as severe, but the hurt is then pushed disproportionately onto unskilled, non-union employees. This is happening not because auto supplier managers are exploiting their workers. It’s that after a decade or more of cost-cutting demands from automakers, there’s no place else to go. Every ounce of fat has been squeezed out of these supplier companies.  Ironically, these supplier jobs are the ones that Washington claims to be protecting, along with automaker jobs. What will in fact happen is another round of pay and benefit cuts for supplier employees, or the plants close and the jobs move overseas.

The managers running the auto supplier firms aren’t doing much better than their employees. Fifteen years of aggressive cost-cutting and brutal global competition has left many auto suppliers in a fragile state - razor thin margins, shaky balance sheets and little, if any, working capital. The Detroit 3 have foisted the costs of their poor decision-making and inefficient business practices onto their supplier base, which is groaning under the load. The net result is that a single bankruptcy of a major automotive supplier can stop the flow of critical parts and supplies to an auto assembly line, shutting down production. If there are no vehicles to sell, there is no cash flow. No cash flow means nobody gets paid. Everything starts to unravel.

But there is a bright spot in this dark and dreary situation - only, it’s not in Detroit.  Ask any automotive supplier to name their most profitable, stable and problem-free account, and they’ll whisper the name of a Japanese, German or Korean manufacturer with plants in the US. Yes, the transplants are staying afloat and they’re fostering the kind of business relationships that allow their suppliers to do so, as well. Even in the midst of an economic free-fall, they’re doing better than their American competitors. Hhhmm. How could that be?

In 1963, 75 cents of every public education dollar was spent on ’student services’ - teacher salaries, books, classroom materials - and the remaining 25 cents was spent on ’administration, facilities, support services’. Fifty years later, that ratio is reversed. 75 cents of every public education dollar is spent on just about everything else but the education of our kids. Where does the money go? The list is long and full of surprises. The usual suspects are present - unions, government contractors, school board insiders, lobbyists. They have the political and administrative muscle to ram through spending plans that run counter to the students’ best interests. The spending snowball usually begins with “Let’s build a new high school” - a surefire way to load up the gravy train and get the parasites circling like vultures.

Today’s high schools rival college campuses for size, facilities, construction quality and materials, electronic and lighting technologies, operating costs and maintenance. Many have Olympic swimming pools, Broadway-style theaters, collegiate-level athletic facilities and cafeterias that rival those of the Fortune 500. All of these facilities are overpriced, overbuilt and extraordinarily expensive to operate. Everyone involved in the process benefits from this except, of course, the taxpayer. The students are for the most part oblivious to their surroundings. So, who exactly benefits from this state of affairs?

Let’s begin with the school board. It’s usually packed with people predisposed to favor public employee unions, government contractors or public financiers, either through outright ignorance or because they were voted in with their support. There is no real oversight of school boards, and no legal means to compel them to be circumspect with taxpayer money.

School construction is very expensive. In fact, it’s the most expensive type of building in the US except for nuclear power plants. And no one knows why. But, because that local high school is going to cost $100 million (how did they know that going in?), bond underwriters are flying in from all over the country to shock and awe the school board with their financial prowess. Obviously, no school district can afford to build a high school with available cash. So, they will issue bonds, guaranteed by the local taxpayer, to create a 30-year mortgage. The firm that creates those bonds and sells them to investors will pocket nearly $10 million for its efforts. Not bad for 90 days work. And yes, the local taxpayer will be on the hook for it.

Schools take up lots of real estate. Usually, it’s very expensive real estate located on a main thoroughfare. That means brokers, developers, landowners, insurers and yes, teacher pension funds, vie for the opportunity to sell land to the school district, simply because the sale price will be above market, and will have traded hands several times before the sale. It’s an opportunity to play favorites, broker influence and who knows what else.

Then there’s the planning and architectural work. Once again, engineering firms, architects, interior designers, furniture companies, consultants, technologists and a whole gang of specialists buzz around trying to get a piece of the work. There are hearings, planning sessions, bidding, re-bidding and awarding the contracts - all of it an opportunity to waste money and peddle influence.

Moving along, there’s the construction itself. Savvy government contractors are adept at padding the bill, running up change orders and working the price variance in commodities like gypsum and concrete to their advantage. They are committed to using union contractors wherever possible, which also adds to the cost and pads the build schedule. But hey, what’s the problem? It’s free money.

And finally, after all the computers are installed, the refrigerators are humming and the desks have been unpacked and arranged, the students file into their new school. Is the education they’re getting any better? No. Have the teachers gotten any smarter? No. Has the curriculum improved, has the selection of books been carefully vetted? Of course not. So, $100 million later, our kids are as poorly served as they were in the previous facility. The only difference is that lots of people made lots of money off the backs of the taxpayer.