Sink the Bismarck; Guns of Navarone; Longest Day; Battleground; Battle of the Bulge; Patton; Saving Private Ryan. One cannot help but be dazzled by the villainous Germans, and their ruthless efficiency. 

They wore slick uniforms; fought with unbelievable weaponry; they had an intense, precisely-organized Prussian approach to war - compared to the "laid back," improvisational method of the Americans.

The Nazis had all the best armaments. The renowned Bismarck...Tiger tanks...the 88mm cannon...the M42 machine gun...ME 262 jet fighters; V-2 rockets. Yet they lost to the Americans, with their flimsy Sherman tanks, and lumbering B-17 bombers.

Obviously then, it begs the question: How did the Americans manage to win?  

But to those who had lived through that era, they would reply, "We out-produced 'em".

Indeed; immediately after Pearl Harbor, the incredible wartime economic shift in the USA took place with amazing rapidity:

Ford and GM quickly changed over their assembly lines to producing tens of thousands of jeeps, trucks, and tanks. Arsenals in the Midwest manufactured shells and cartridges by the millions.

Boeing, North American, Douglass, Curtiss, Grumman, et al. hired hundreds of thousands of aviation workers; and by mid-1943, were turning out thousands of warplanes every month to be shipped to the ports of departure on our two coasts.

No less impressive was the remarkable wartime re-organization of the railroads, instrumental in shipping the weapons of war - plus the oil and gasoline to fuel them - running on precise wartime schedules.

But the key to it all was STEEL; and the workers who labored on 12-hour shifts - seven days a week - in the booming mills that produced it.

The Germans had their gigantic Krupp works in the Ruhr Valley. We had Pittsburgh, Gary Indiana, and Youngstown.

If one had been living in any of three major steel towns during the war, they would recall the smokey, orange-hazed night sky. Crashing noises from the mills. Train whistles blaring at night.

15 to 20 minute waits at railroad crossings were commonplace during the 1940's.

Now, trains are a rare sight; you might hear one at night. 

Nowadays, because of the scrap metal boom, most traces of the old steel mills have literally vanished. The air around Pittsburgh, Gary and Youngstown is pristine, compared to the days of steel prosperity, before the major manufacturers began shutting down.

But why - for the most part - the absence of steel making in America? Were we to fight another prolonged war, what then?

First came the incompetent Jimmy Carter of the late 1970's, who's lack of foresight started our steel-manufacturing demise.

It was he, plus his fool Attorney General, Griffin Bell, who had denied the lawsuits of the fired steelworkers, who were suing the major steel companies on the premise that by closing down their plants, it would bring not only local economic calamity, but also risk our national security (in the event of war).  

Then came Reagan...Bush...Clinton. Need we go on? 

Promises, promises. All initially promised they'd bring manufacturing and steel jobs back to those distressed rust belt towns; but after their elections, they were probably just too darn busy to get around to it...but they sure meant well.

Of course, over the past few decades, it’s been cheaper to import steel manufactured in foreign countries. 

But that doesn’t mean that America's steel industry is doomed. Many mills are actively producing high-quality specialty steels for specific markets requiring it. Demand for seamless pipe for the oil drillers has remained especially strong.

On the contrary, in the coming months & years, many economists predict heavy manufacturing is going to make a comeback in America; although nowhere near the heydays of the 40's, 50's and 60's.

But it all remains contingent on the availability of cheap energy.

Today, moderately strong world steel demand, higher global prices, a weak dollar, high ocean freight rates- all are acting as a disincentive for steel imports, with a concomitant rise in strength of our slowly-recovering domestic steel industry.

Hence, once the economy improves, an expected rise in demand portends good times ahead for US steel makers...except for one "X-factor" now ominously looming on the horizon: the bizarre environmentalism of the Obama administration - and the green fanatics looming within both halls of Congress.

And what do they have in store for us? Prosperity? Another Great Depression? Who can even explain their motives, other than ruin?

In a time of severe recession; a real unemployment rate hovering around 16%, with no end to the job losses in sight, and ever more families seeking food stamps, Barack Obama and the Senate democrats have chosen "climate change" as their priority.

Never mind that polls reveal less than 10% of Americans even care about climate change, or the bizarre premise that the earth is warming. They feel otherwise. They don't believe it; nor can find evidence of it in their daily lives.

But those same polls reveal that the vast majority are DEEPLY worried about the economy: 

They DO see the suffering that's evident around them, as wave-after-wave of job losses keep rippling through the nation, with no end in sight.

But Barack Lunatic Obama seems to feel otherwise:

Incredibly, this vainglorious man is encouraging the Senate put “Cap-and-Trade” on a fast track to passage, so he can go to Copenhagen this December and crow heroically (to the European socialists) that the United States is now the leader in the green energy revolution- saving the world from the non-existent threat of global warming!

But as they say...misery loves company.

The European nations have ruined their own socialist economies after adopting the insipid, job-destroying, "green energy revolution" - and are mired in deep recession. So naturally, they're exerting enormous pressure on Obama to do likewise.

Hence, he is quite bound and determined to please them. He seeks glory in Copenhagen. He wants to arrive there, triumphantly waving his victorious Climate Change law to the world, proclaiming the damnation of fossil fuels for all time!

And if it sparks an inevitable downward slide of the US economy - so be it.

But we know Cap 'n Trade has nothing to do with the climate; in reality it will be the fast track to economic ruin.

Cap and Trade will tax all energy use in America, spelling disaster for the energy-intensive steel industry, let alone how it will destroy another 30-50% of what remains of our manufacturing base.

But liar Obama remains in full campaign mode, running around the country, happily proclaiming his favorite mantra about how his plan (scam) "will generate millions of new green jobs."

Sure it will.

In reality, it will generate millions of newly-unemployeds, now dependent on their monthly Obama check for survival.

Cap and trade will inevitably destroy the coal industry. It will all but level the budding recovery in our steel industry. It will put people who work as drillers and refiners on the unemployment lines.

But it will produce a great spike in the economy- in China.

As the cost of manufacturing gradually rises over this next decade, we'll witness millions of jobs fleeing offshore in the inexorable search of higher profits. The laws of economics cannot be repealed. Those countries offering the lowest production costs (energy-taxation) always emerge the victors. 

Meanwhile, the entire United States gradually becomes a massive, California-like disaster, as the radical environmentalism of the1980's that ruined that state is foisted upon the rest of the country, by none other than the mean-spirited diminutive weasel from San Francisco, Barbara Boxer- proud sponsor of the Senate climate bill.

Obama's insistence of switching to higher cost wind/solar generated electricity (and other alternatives) is less than a zero-sum game. Any green jobs created are more than offset by the loss of conventional energy jobs- hurting the US manufacturing sector which requires reasonably-priced energy to compete in the global marketplace.

Higher energy prices literally ruin the economies of scale in every facet of our lives.

Look for the doubling and trebling of our electric bills; five dollar-a-gallon gasoline; and keeping our houses at a shivering, European-like 59* at night.

And what about the inevitable spike in food prices? Or the fact that school after school will be forced to close down - or seek higher tax levies - as their energy costs skyrocket, and teachers are laid off en masse. Has anyone considered that?

And for what? Because of preventing too much carbon dioxide - a gas humans exhale  -from "poisoning" the air?

Meanwhle, what's the first thing Mr. Obama will do after returning from Copenhagen next December 19, having accepting the world's accolades for pushing through his destructive plan?

Of course; he'll go to his oval office; crank up the heat to 80*, roll up his shirtsleeves, put his feet up on the desk; light a cigarette and think..."what a country!" 

Meanwhile, millions of the newly unemployed, and millions more miners, blue collar workers, and others worried about their futures, will think..."What a president- aarrgh!"

Thanks Mr. Obama; have a Merry Christmas.

"Power to the people!" This hit song was penned by John Lennon in 1969.

At the time it was considered just another typical hippie "protest song" against authority; but its title actually was more elementary of what our Founders had intended when they wrote the Constitution.

The Constitution sought to limit federal power to basic rights and to maintain order; but the ultimate power was to be with the PEOPLE, who would elect representatives (the "republic" form of government) to express their will in Washington DC.

But after 235 years, we are witness to an ominous reversal: more than at any other time in our history, power is rapidly reverting from the people to Washington.

140 years ago, the Reconstruction Period followed the Civil War; but it could be better known as the period where the re-construction of the American economy took place in a way the world had never seen before.

This was the era when America experienced its first great economic boom-- the rise of the first great generation of emerging inventors and entrepreneurs-- enabling the U.S. to supersede England as the world's richest country.

During 1866-1900, there was an amazing burst of economic expansion due to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of that glorious period.

The Civil War had all but bankrupted the Union; but England (then the wealthiest nation) would supply much of the capital that drove the great post-war economic expansion of the railroad, steel, oil, mining, manufacturing, and agricultural industries.

The innovations in all of these would not have been possible without European capital.

Everyone would profit because of their own ideas and initiative. European capital providers knew their investments would be "maximized'', free of any government regulation or taxation. Thus, the U.S. was where all the world's investment capital flowed, because it was where one could realize the maximum profit.

By 1900, America was now world's wealthiest country, which would lead to yet an even greater period of economic expansion: 1920-1929.

During World War 1, the U.S. was the arsenal of "plutocracy".

From 1915 to1918, America's wealthy "merchants of death" siphoned billions from the warring European countries, as both the Allied (England-France-Russia-Italy) and Central Power nations (Germany, Austria-Hungary) were at the doorsteps of our munitions and armament industries, swamping them with purchase orders.

Dupont; Colt; Browning; Remington (et.al.) sold black powder, explosives, rifles, pistols, artillery shells, machine guns, ammo belts, bullets, bombs, etc., as fast as they could be manufactured.

By the end of the First World War, America had now become a super-rich country, and ready for its second post-war boom.

The U.S. no longer needed to seek overseas investment. Because of its newfound wealth, America now had its own domestic capital supply, and it would be  placed it where it could multiply into an even stronger investment pool --the stock market.

Once again, free market capitalism unleashed a second incredible economic expansion-- the roaring 20's

From 1919 to1929-- unencumbered by the government-- entrepreneurs again emerged and created a huge employment boom, a huge innovation boom, and a huge capital boom-- all financed by the great decade-long expansion of the stock market. 

Republican presidents (Harding and Coolidge) cut taxes & spending; thus the entire available capital pool of the period was utilized for private investment.

By1925, unemployment was 3%. New inventions and consumer goods became mass produced. Cars, appliances, radios-- the media & entertainment industry-- all  flourished as never before.

But by 1929, greed had  become rampant. Rabid stock market excesses (margin trading abuses) caused Wall Street to crash, and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) emerged and took the U.S. in an entirely different direction:

For the first time, power began shifting back to Washington; and predictably, the socialistic whims (political uncertainty) of FDR prevented private business and entrepreneurs from stepping forth again to pull the country out of depression-- which would last until the next world war.

Then, yet a THIRD post-war boom emerged after 1945:

The U.S. again had found itself in an ideal position: American industry had the "only game in town". After the Second World War, the rest of world's manufacturing base lay in ruins.  

America would again draw the plurality of the world's investment capital, and other nations had no other option than to purchase their manufactured goods from the USA.

Detroit began going like gangbusters. Fortune 500 companies emerged. Consumer booms in autos, housing, retail, education, appliances, television, pharmaceuticals, all would make America the envy of the world.

The boom would continue almost unabated for 6 decades .

But like FDR 70 years before, Barack Obama emergered; and once again, he takes America in a different direction, posing yet a second, and more ominous danger to free market capitalism than his predecessor of the 1930's.

Obama-- seeking control of the banks, insurance, health, and auto industries-- is now targeting the energy industry, fulfilling his pernicious objective as our nation's first anti-president: depriving America of its primacy, and ultimate source of economic power-- free market capitalism.

Of course this begs the question: Why would a sitting president be out to destroy the basic driver of our economy?

Answer: This is how our anti-president will ultimately consolidate total control-- the Obama econo-political "domino theory."

As Obama tranfers wealth from the private sector to Washington, private industries disappear, unemployment rises; and now-- deprived of their wealth-- people are deprived of their choices, and therefore, making them dependent on Washington.

Simple isn't it?

Once this rising "class" of federal dependents tips toward 50% of the electorate, Obama and his democrats will retain power for a second term, and THEN, the true dictatorial aims of Mr. Obama will emerge:

a) Amnesty: Obama-- in giving all the illegal aliens the full rights of citizenship --will give them the vote.

b) Now the democrats-- with a permanent voting majority-- will retain power for perhaps the next fifty to seventy five years...or longer. 

c) Obama-- now in complete control during his second term-- will seek a constitutonal amendment (which will resurrect the halcyon days of FDR)  giving Obama his third and fourth presidential terms.

The Obama triumph now stands complete; he will have consolidated total power, holding it until he sees fit to no longer "serve."

Is Barack Obama about to sing the swan song of our economy...his undeclared war on free market capitalism? After his assumed re-election in 2012, would anything stand in his way to finish off the private sector, leaving it in a final "post-war" state of ruin?

Tax the corporations! Send them offshore. Tax the smokestack industries that "pollute". Tax the energy companies into oblivion, because they are "too profitable". Put them ALL out of business! Let our chief export become the billions we send to OPEC.

Obama's anti-business, pro-government, class-warfare doctrine is a total anathema to what our Founding Fathers originally intended for the American people, when they wrote the Constitution.

And is this anything different from what the European Marxists accomplished during the early 20th century?

Subvert the educational system-- change the textbooks-- poison the young about their country. Seize control of the unions; procure the manipulation of the media; propagandize the people-- tell them their country "is no longer what it once was". Corrupt elections. Drive a wedge between the masses; and complete the triumph of socialism over our about-to-be lost way of life as a once-free nation.