The Obama administration, not yet fully installed, is already calling for radical changes to what it brazenly characterizes as the ‘failure’ of free-market capitalism. Given their way, Obama and his handlers would institute FDR-era programs liberally mixed with Johnson-era social engineering and the hopeless, self-limiting ideology of the Jimmy Carter era. This toxic cocktail would be forced down the throats of every American, even those who believe that bigger government is not the answer, and that we should rely on our own ingenuity and hard work to get out of the current economic disaster.

There is no doubt that Wall Street screwed up. Their greed and avarice blinded them to the enormous risks they were peddling to banks, investors, pensions and governments. It’s incredible that the CEOs and chairmen of Lehman Bros., Merrill, Bear Stearns and other big investment houses didn’t fully understand what was going on inside their own firms. Apparently, the need for transparency goes much deeper - into the very innards of these organizations. It’s strange that there are no arrests, no indictments and no large-scale investigations of the mortgage meltdown, the credit squeeze and the resulting economic catastrophe.

It doesn’t take a financial wizard to observe that mortgage-backed securities were created from pools of shaky borrowers, given an unrealistic rating and then sold around the world as investment-grade instruments. What’s even more difficult to imagine is that the same people who created these toxic securities bought them for their own accounts. Once again, it doesn’t take a wizard to observe that the executives didn’t know what people in their own organization were actually doing. Given these simple observations, one can only conclude that Wall Street executives taking home billions of dollars had no idea what they were doing, or just didn’t give a damn.

The alternative explanation is even more unsettling. One can also postulate that Wall Street execs understood fully what was going on. They understood fully the risks to the world’s markets and the potential damage to the American economy. But, they were making billions of dollars and their greed blinded them to the inevitable consequences.

Does this make free-market capitalism a failure? No. The basic concept is still the best possible system ever devised. But, it does bring into question the quality and scope of enforcing laws and regulations as they apply to Wall Street, banking and lending. There is also the matter of whether corruption, graft and influence peddling has compromised oversight and enforcement. This isn’t a Republican or a Democratic problem. It wasn’t created exclusively by either party or during any one administration. This is the result of a general erosion in ethics and personal responsibility. Wall Street is merely the canary in the coal mine.

The auto industry is a tempting carcass that even the vultures won’t consider. Typically, when a corporation the size of GM founders, corporate raiders of every stripe flock to the scene. They’re after the assets or the cash flow or sometimes the tax losses. Hedge funds and private equity groups would be sniffing around, looking for a great deal. That’s what happened to Chrysler. Cerberus Capital made a lowball offer for the ailing automaker once word got around that Daimler-Benz was willing to give it away. Unfortunately for Cerberus and its management, this was not a flip-and-strip. And even with a capable cost-cutter as CEO, a top-to-bottom reorganization will take many years and many billions of dollars. Throw in a disastrous turn in the economy and you have some real trouble on your hands. Ford and GM are also being pummeled in this recession. Sales are off by billions of dollars.

As of this date, the market value of GM and Ford stock combinedis roughly $9 billion. That means anyone with $9-10 billion can offer existing shareholders cash and effectively own both corporations. The combined annual revenues of both corporations is over $200 billion. One would think that vultures would have been circling for the past two years as both GM and Ford hemorrhaged cash. But they haven’t. In fact, Bill Gates or Paul Allen could easily write a check  out of their household accounts. No Middle East sheik, no Asian billionaire or Russian mobster has even considered a move. Kirk Kerkorian, the Vegas entrepreneur and investor, has taken a beating in his attempts to buy into GM and Ford.

What’s keeping the turnaround artists, the LBO experts and the private equity groups away is the lack of available credit and collapsing vehicle sales. Both combine to create an incredibly difficult and complex financial situation. Anyone considering a play to control either Ford or GM would need billions in low-cost borrowing in order to accomplish a restructuring - something both firms desperately need. And everyone is standing pat, waiting for something to happen. The $36 billion the carmakers are requesting is just a band aid. It will never be repaid because the Big 3 haven’t even earned $36 billion all told in the last 10 years. Consider it a gift from the American taxpayer. Congress should consider simply guaranteeing a $30-50 billion loan to anyone with a plan that shows they can do a better job of running GM or Ford than present management. Let’s ask Warren Buffet.

There is a group of people out there that all Americans should get to know a lot better. They’re an adventurous bunch, putting up their own hard-earned money to fund the dream of some starry-eyed entrepreneur. They’re the ones who stack their nickels one on top the other as they work 12-14 hours a day running a construction company, a bakery, a car dealership. Yes, these men and women may be small business owners, but they’re much, much more than that — they’re capitalists. Not every small business owner is a capitalist, or even an investor. Most are too busy and too frazzled just trying to make ends meet. No, these capitalists come from a very small, elite group. They are the successful small business owners. The ones who have managed to become financially independent, and have the time and money to help others achieve success.

Help? Since when do capitalists help anyone except themselves? But that’s exactly what this rare breed does. They know what it’s like to start a business and bootstrap yourself to prosperity with hard work and sheer determination. And so, they offer start-up capital, advice and business connections to bring an idea to life. The risks are enormous and the rewards a long way off. And yet, they plunge ahead. This is how real capitalism works. Individual investors, groups of investors or a network put up the seed money for a new business we’ll be reading about five years from now. Are they expecting a return on that investment? Of course, they are. Would they be better off putting that money in a safer place, like a government bond? Yes, but they wouldn’t be happy. You see, they’re risk junkies. After a lifetime of taking risks in their own business and with their own livelihood, they’ve made a little bit of money. And, they can’t help but put that money to work in the most creative, dynamic way they know - by helping start another business.

Some of these new business concepts are incredibly ambitious - early detection of Alzheimer’s, or maybe a low-cost phone system for developing countries; ground-breaking clean energy technology or incredible new personal security devices. Many of these ideas start out small, in the hands of one or two visionaries and the risk junkies who back them. And, many of them fail for reasons too numerous to list, much less analyze. Suffice it to say that the road to mega-success is strewn with roadkill, much of it small investors who bet the farm on a big idea. Curiously, when the risk junkies win, they’re even more generous than they were before. And when they lose, they don’t complain, they don’t whine. They roll up their sleeves and work even harder to rebuild their investment capital.

What does our government do for the people behind the entrepreneur, the people without whom the entrepreneur would be nothing but big talk? Well, actually nothing. Our government makes it ever more difficult to save money. Our government’s progressive tax scheme effectively targets successful small business owners and Congress has made sure to eliminate just about every perk and advantage to owning and operating a small business. The Democrats in particular have made wealth accumulation nearly impossible. And what these socialists don’t understand is that many successful small business owners plow that hard-earned, heavily-taxed capital right back into another business. They invest. They mentor. They get involved. These are people driven to succeed. And what’s appalling is that the parasites hitch their wagons to these incredibly energetic people and go for a free ride.

The risk junkies aren’t stupid. They understand that they’re being unfairly exploited because they have this insatiable desire to succeed. They also know America is the only place on the planet were anyone with drive and ambition can succeed regardless of family connections, political or religious affiliation, tribal or caste distinctions or miles of bureaucratic red tape. And so, this group soldiers on. But at some point, when the odds are overwhelmingly against them, when they are brutalized for just trying to get ahead, this special group of investors - the risk junkies, will disappear. And so will our way of life.

As Americans go to the polls on Tuesday, they’re not thinking about the historic consequences of their actions. Uninformed, bamboozled and misled, many Americans will vote in a regime that will destroy a political and economic system that has been a wonder to this world for more than two centuries. Years from now, honest historians will analyze the 2008 election, trying to understand how a free people could have so willingly taken on the yoke of servitude. Dishonest historians will celebrate the 2008 election as the triumph of the People’s Republic of America, when a Great Leader was at last permitted to shape his utopia, taking from the rich and giving to the, well, not necessarily the poor. First, to his friends and flunkies, and then maybe what’s left over, to the less fortunate.

Honest historians and political commentators may look back on the 2008 presidential and congressional races as a dark day for America, when socialism triumphed and the mistakes of 1930s and 1960s were to be repeated and amplified. In the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal elitist, aided and abetted by a Democrat-controlled Congress, created programs and policy that still carry their toxic fallout into the 21st century. FDR instituted the concept of Big Government, the all-knowing, all-seeing Big Brother, and the rule of ‘experts’ who decided the fate of the country, as well as individual citizens. The country reeled from the effects of this socialist agenda. It took years to recover.

Lyndon Baines Johnson followed in FDR’s footsteps. Along with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Johnson, a liberal elitist, created more programs and policies that have devastated American society, the economy and our political system. LBJ and the Democrats created a culture of entitlement, a society of permissiveness and sloth, a nation of whiners and  hustlers constantly clamoring for more handouts.  The Great Society, War on Poverty and other social engineering programs have indelibly altered the American psyche and our country’s guiding principles. The Democrats knowingly and willingly sacrificed economic freedom and opportunity for America’s working class and poor in order to gain power. And, the story is about to repeat itself.

Where will Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid take this country? Will we be able to weather yet another round of failed policy and programs that pushed us over the brink into the hellpit of socialism? Who knows. Not even the Anointed One can predict the outcome.

Capitalism has finally ground to a halt, undercut and compromised by unbridled greed, self-interest and a willingness to put everything at risk for a fast buck. The “It’s no one’s fault/It’s everyone’s fault” bunch want to paper over (with worthless dollars) the root causes of this calamity and divert attention away from the source of the problem – Congress and Wall Street. Basically, Congress made up stupid rules and Wall Street then gamed those stupid rules. And, faster than you can say “Fannie Mae lobbyist”, they found their collective pants around their collective ankles while the champagne glasses were still in hand.

Predictably, the media cabal and Sen. Obama blame the ‘failed policies of the Bush Administration’, while providing cover for Obama’s ‘housing’ advisor Franklin Raines and VP search committee chair James A. Johnson, both of whom pocketed millions while running Fannie Mae, and who donated generously to the campaigns of both Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Obama.

And now, the innocent will be sacrificed to save the net worth of the guilty. The producers will be weighed down with more debt and obligation while their incomes shrink and opportunity evaporates. Parasites, on the other hand, will celebrate. After all, 700 billion doesn’t come down the pike every day.