Charles Sykes is a longtime Milwaukee talk-radio host and the prolific author of a number of books that helped to shape my personal political worldview, including 1988’s eye-opening “Profscam,” and 1993’s “A Nation of Victims,’ two works as timely today as they were decades ago.

“A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing” (St. Martin’s Press) was just released, and the fact that I’m writing this at the very moment President Barack Obama is announcing yet another government plan (his fourth, I think) to “bail out” those “victims” who bought homes they couldn’t afford, makes this informative and engaging page-turner feel about as urgent and timely as any author could hope for.

What you need to know up front is that “Moochers” isn’t an attack on the poor or needy or, for that matter, a specific political party. In fact, from beginning to end, Sykes makes clear that as a country we have an obligation to feed the hungry and offer shelter to the homeless. Moreover, he isn’t even targeting a particular group, which would be impossible without a sawed-off shotgun anyway, because America’s moochers come from every level of our society.

What Sykes is targeting is a mentality, a dangerous and un-American mentality that infects almost every aspect of our culture, and one that is currently being bred into our children by those on both the left and right who are empowered by fomenting and excusing the dependence, greed, and selfishness of others. From corporate welfare to school lunches for the well-to-do to Wall Street bailouts to paying millionaires not to grow crops to tax breaks for Hollywood gajillionires to unending unemployment benefits to disaster relief for those who haven’t suffered disasters to TARP, and finally, to the shameless who walk away from mortgages they can afford to pay — what Sykes is exposing is that we are on the march to becoming Greece. Not just a European welfare state, but the kind of welfare state where the populace has been engineered by a nanny state to riot at the very thought of not being able to mooch the life to which they have become accustomed.

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Bob Lutz is a good man.  A Swiss-born immigrant American success story.

He’s held big gigs at BMW and Ford.  He also worked way up the food chain at (now $85 billion bailed-out) Chrysler and General Motors (GM) – retiring as GM’s Vice Chairman in 2010.

And he has recently written a piece:

Chevy Volt And The Wrong-Headed Right

…in vociferous defense of the Chevy Volt.

You know, the more-than-$200,000 in government-subsidies-per-unit-sold Volt.

The overproduced, unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Volt.  (And January 2011’s sales were no less disappointing.)

That Chevy Volt.

Are we on the Right wrong-headed?  Let’s take Mr. Lutz’s piece piecemeal and see.

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I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled:

Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?

The witnesses were killer:

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.

And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.

The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts.  Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.

This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze.  The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.

But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.

But:

The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.

Of COURSE not.

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President Barack Obama is in full 2012 reelection mode.  Part of that process is preparing to possibly take on Mitt Romney – whom (it appears) he thinks has the strongest chance to be his Republican opponent.  Which he and many Democrats think is very good news.

Romney fits right into the Left’s absurd anti-capitalism, “robber baron,” Occupy Wall Street anti-1%-er, scorched earth storyline.

Romney is very wealthy, which for Obama and his Democrats is the height of eee-vill (except – these Donkeys are mostly rich…).  Never mind that Romney’s wealth is right in line with many past Presidents and candidates – including 2004 Democrat nominee John Kerry.  (The difference?  Romney earned it, Kerry married it.)

And as Romney recently told us, he these days pays the 15% capital gains tax rate – rather than the (absurdly) higher income tax rates those of us receiving salaries do.  Never mind that this is perfectly legal (and good fiscal policy, and “fair”) – it is culled right from the Leftist, Warren Buffett “I pay less in taxes than my secretary” fraudulent script.

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How did Romney make his coin?  Via the epitome of eeeee-villll free market entities – the venture capital firm.  His was, of course, Bain Capital.

Yes, Bain sometimes invests in failing companies.  Some of which they determine to be not worth saving, so down they go.  Welcome to Reality, Boys and Girls.

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What’s an absurd Leftist policy without an agitprop song to accompany the inanity?

The attempted spoonful-of-sugar to help force down the bad Progressive medicine they are pushing.

Which brings us to General Motors (GM) and one of the Leftist ideological windmills at which they tilt – the Chevy Volt.

We the Taxpayers have spent billions subsidizing the Volt.  And continue subsidizing it still.

We bailed out GM ($50 billion) and Chrysler to the tune of $83 billion.  On which the Obama Administration now admits we’ll lose (at least) $23.6 billion.  (President Obama once upon a time promised us we’d actually make money on the deal.)

We the Taxpayers are still stuck holding 500 million shares of GM stock – on which we are poised to lose tens of billions of dollars more.

But you know what makes all of this terrible-ness so much less worse?  GM spent some of our money on – the Chevy Volt official song and music video:

Don’t you feel better?

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“Why Are Obama’ Critics So Dumb?” That’s the question posed by Andrew Sullivan in the cover story of this week’s Newsweek.

But you’d have to be stupid, fanatical, and dishonest to argue–as Trig Truther Sullivan does–that Barack Obama’s failures are part of an ingenious “long game” that is destined to succeed.

If this is the best Obama’s supporters can do, Obama’s only hope for re-election is the weak Republican field.

Sullivan, who claims to care about national debt, begins by arguing, contrary to reality, that Obama’s massive $787 billion stimulus (actually, $862 billion) turned the economy around. He offers no proof other than the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy familiar from basic economics. Sullivan also ignores the composition of the stimulus, which shoveled cash to cronies and bloated big states with their massive public sector obligations.

In addition, Sullivan claims that Obama’s auto bailout succeeded–when in fact it pushed aside property rights and subsidized failed “green” cars, rather than allowing car makers to rebuild through normal bankruptcy. He also commends Obama for continuing George W. Bush’s bank bailouts–but does not mention the Dodd-Frank financial “reforms” that enshrine “too big to fail,” hurt small businesses and fail to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Next, Sullivan tries to defend Obama on taxes, pointing out that the president passed tax cuts as part of the stimulus. He ignores the numerous new taxes and tax increases that Obama signed into law–from higher cigarette taxes to the many ObamaCare taxes–as well as the glaring fact that Obama has been campaigning for the past several years on the promise to raise taxes on the rich, and would have done so if not for Congress. (more…)

The Chicago Tribune editorial page believes that legislative efforts to ban congressional insider trading, such as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, are simply an exercise in “damage control” and “window dressing” to shield Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) and others mentioned in a 60 Minutes investigative report, based on Breibart News editor Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book, Throw Them All Out.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The measures under consideration strike us as window dressing. We suspect the push for new rules is about protecting the reputations of Bachus and others spotlighted in the news.It sure does seem that being a member of Congress carries benefits beyond the salary. The New York Times reported this week that the median net worth of the members rose 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, when the median net worth for all Americans dropped 8 percent.

But spare us a phony effort to “reform” the rules. The public won’t buy it. And the public has even greater reason to be disgusted with Congress, starting with a national debt of $15 trillion and climbing.

A Breitbart News exclusive report revealed that Rep. Spencer Bachus’s options trading records during the summer and fall of 2008’s debates over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were curiously well-timed with market trends.  Specifically, from July to November 2008, Rep. Bachus executed at least 40 options trades that resulted in as much as $50,000 in capital gains.   As Peter Schweizer revealed, Rep. Bachus’s position as the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee gave him access to high-level private meetings and phone conversations with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as well as other senior financial officials.

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What’s a Barack Obama Administration multi-billion dollar boondoggle without a Czar to oversee it?

For the automobile industry bailout, the Lord Overseer was Car Czar Steven Rattner.

This is the same Steven Rattner who late last year reportedly paid a $6.2 million Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fine and accepted a two-year ban from associating with broker-dealers or investment advisers.  For an alleged “pay-to-play” New York state pension fund kickbacks scheme he orchestrated after leaving Washington and his Czar-ship.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

His current gig – besides being a (shocker) MSNBC Morning Joe “Economic Analyst”?  Managing New York Mayor – and 1%-er billionaire – Michael Bloomberg’s personal and philanthropic assets.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

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From BloombergNews:

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

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The Quarterly Report issued in October 2011 by the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) reveals the utter lack of oversight and mismanagement of funds in excess of $700 Billion Dollars.  The 316 page report begins:

Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”), the American taxpayers became investors in hundreds of financial institutions, the auto industry, and cer­tain markets for asset-backed securities, and the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“SIGTARP”) serves on the front line to protect those investments. SIGTARP is the only agency solely charged with a mission of transparency, oversight, and enforcement related to the taxpay­ers’ unprecedented investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in the private sector…. This month…the first criminal charges were filed against senior executives of a TARP bank when two senior executives of United Commercial Bank (“UCB”) were charged in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud investors. The Department of Treasury (“Treasury”), and by extension the American taxpayer, became investors in UCB’s holding company when it received more than $298 million in TARP funds. UCB was the first TARP bank to fail and the taxpayers’ entire TARP investment is lost.

TARP included $45.6 Billion to fund the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) of which only $2.5 Billion (5.4%) has been spent.  SIGTARP addressed its concerns about the poor performance of the HAMP program to the Treasury Department, but states that “Treasury has determined not to take any further action to implement SIGTARP’s recommendations. Treasury is giving up a chance at mean­ingful change and sadly, it is struggling homeowners who have the most to lose.”

The housing and mortgage crisis was a direct result of the increasing deregulation of the mortgage industry enabled by the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the federal government’s ideological philosophy that everyone should and must be afforded their dream of home ownership, regardless of their credit worthiness or their ability to repay the mortgage. The federal government, through coercive threats of lawsuits for discriminatory lending practices, forced these lenders to make these risky loans.

The feeding frenzy of easy money, teaser interest rates, one hundred percent financing (generally involving two mortgages, a first mortgage for eighty percent of the purchase price and a second for the remaining equity, thereby eliminating the necessity for private mortgage insurance), no income or asset verification of the homebuyer and, in many cases where homebuilders were involved, up to one full year of mortgage payments paid in advance by the builder at closing in addition to the payment of all of the closing costs, increased the demand for new homes and drove up home prices.  An additional caveat of the 80/20 scheme eliminated the requirement that the homebuyer escrow money with the lender for payment of property taxes and homeowners insurance.  This resulted in massive losses of revenue at the city, county and state level.

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We have oft spoken of how ridiculous Government General Motors (GM) has continued to become since receiving $50 billion of our bailout money.

And of the Barack Obama Administration’s puffing up for political and campaign purposes GM’s alleged “recovery” from its bankruptcy.

(A bankruptcy, by the way, that could have just as easily transpired without our $50 billion.  But I digress….)

It’s not really much of a recovery when one considers the fact that GM’s thus far $7.4 billion in 2011 profits is greatly fostered and augmented by the Obama Administration’s years-on-end GM federal tax exemption.

A Crony Socialist boon to the tune of as much as $45.4 billion.

(How’s that for federal deficit reduction?  Is absolutely nothing at all GM’s “fair share?”)

GM’s is an even less impressive “recovery” when we remember that We the People still own just over 500 million shares of GM stock.  On which to break even we need to sell at $53 per – and it is currently trading at around $23.

Which sets up We the Taxpayers for a more than $15 billion loss.

Not quite the GM “success” President Obama is repeatedly touting on the Trail to 2012.

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From Newsweek:

One of the more dramatic episodes in the book recounts the trading activity of Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus, of Alabama, who, as the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, was privy to sensitive high-level meetings during the 2008 financial crisis and proceeded to make a series of profitable stock-option trades.

Bachus was known in the House as a guy who liked to play the market, and in fact he was pretty good at it; one year, he reported a capital gain in excess of $150,000 from his trading activities. More striking is that Bachus boldly carried forth his trading in the teeth of the impending financial collapse, the nightmarish dimensions of which he had learned about first-hand in confidential briefings from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. On Sept. 19, 2008, after attending two such briefings, Bachus bought options in an index fund (ProShares UltraShort QQQ) that effectively amounted to a bet that the market would fall. That is indeed what happened, and, on Sept. 23, Bachus sold his “short” options, purchased for $7,846, for more than $13,000—nearly doubling his investment in four days.

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There were three winners in the CNBC debate: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Gov. Rick Perry was the obvious loser because of his memory lapse.

The guy with the toughest job on Wednesday night was Herman Cain, who has been hammered by sexual-harassment charges. He needed a strong performance to put him back on message with his 9-9-9 tax plan and pro-business, free-enterprise views. I give him first prize, simply because he performed so well. He had the most to gain and the most to lose. He gained.

How these sex-harassment charges play out remains to be seen. And how much damage they will do to the Cain campaign is an unknown. But it’s noteworthy that a new Rasmussen poll for the Florida Republican primary shows Cain at 30 percent, Romney at 24 percent, and Gingrich at 19 percent. At the moment, Cain is still at or near the top of the pack. So far, it’s hard to find any Republican-voter migration away from Cain.

But the more interesting story might be Newt Gingrich, who has surged into third place. When I interviewed him on Tuesday, the night before the debate, I asked him about 1 percent versus 99 percent, the class-warfare argument being propagated by President Obama and the Wall Street protesters. Gingrich replied, “I am for 100 percent. I think this idea of 99 percent and 1 percent is grotesque European-socialist class-warfare bologna.” (Italics mine.) No one puts it that well.

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BG contributor Charlie Gasparino in The New York Post:

Jon Corzine appears to have committed more than a few sins in the runup to the demise of MF Global, including possibly using client money to pay for the risky trades that forced his brokerage firm into bankruptcy over the weekend. But possibly his biggest sin was his steadfast belief in the power of government.

The former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs chief executive went wrong by assuming that a government bailout would somehow turn his firm’s bet on some of the worst investments in the world — the sovereign debt of Italy and Spain — into gold. That absurd faith has doomed many chief executives — Dick Fuld of Lehman Bros. chief among them, just a little more than three years ago.

And, more than any of the other shenanigans that may have taken place during the ill-fated firm’s final hours, it’s what did in Corzine and MF Global.

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Elizabeth Warren might just be the motivation that conservatives need to get behind the re-election campaign of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA). Until now, the Tea Party activists that helped push Brown to an historic victory in 2010 had been grumbling about Brown’s leftish voting record. But Warren’s embrace of tax-and-spend policies, and her disregard for constitutional checks and balances, are giving conservatives new reasons to care.

I once admired Warren–and told her so. I was a student at Harvard Law School when she was plucked from her teaching job to serve as the congressional “oversight czar” for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In that role, Warren stood out for her unique willingness to criticize Obama administration appointees, notably treasury secretary Tim Geithner, for failing to comply with basic transparency and reporting requirements.

Warren had also been extremely popular among her students–so much so that our graduating class awarded her the Sacks-Freund Teaching Award in 2009, even though she hadn’t taught since the previous fall. I hadn’t had the privilege of being in one of her classes, but I congratulated her on the award, and told her that as a conservative, I felt she was speaking for me, too, in holding the Obama administration accountable.

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The Barack Obama Administration has been absolutely atrocious in signing off on terrible legislation and policy prescriptions.

ObamaCare.  The $878 billion alleged “stimulus.” The $30 billion bump (to $50 billion) of the General Motors bailout.  Cash for Clunkers.  Cash for Caulkers.  Dodd-Frank.  Lilly Ledbetter.  And on, and on, and on…

Then there’s the stuff the Obama Administration tried–and failed–to rush through the Donkey Congress (2009-2011).  But because these things were also so heinous and because the Administration and Congressional Democrats had already reached their Heinous Maximus quotient, they were unable to pile them on We the People. There was Cap and Trade.  And Card Check.  And Net Neutrality.  And…

Being stopped in Congress didn’t stop the Administration.  It didn’t even slow them down.  As President Obama said, there’s more than one way to skin these cats. These ways aren’t Constitutional.  They are, in fact, dictatorial.  But this from all appearances doesn’t bother Obama a whit. He is using his every Department, Commission, Agency and Board to jam through these terrible ideas–and more–via executive branch regulatory fiat. All of this goes a very long way towards explaining why we remain mired in plus-9% unemployment and less-than-1% economic growth.

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In the pitched battle over whether government should take over our health care system, a group of pro-life Democrat congressmen held the line to oppose the legislation because they knew the bill authorized funding for abortion.  Under intense pressure from the president and their pro-choice comrades in the Congress, the group, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) flip-flopped when they received a letter from the president ensuring that government would not spend money for abortion.  They were had.

Now Sen. Rob Portman appears ready to “pull a Stupak.”  Under pressure from Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, Portman appears ready to cut a deal to confirm former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to a five-year term to head the super-regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Word on Capitol Hill is that Portman has assured Cordray he has no problems with his nomination and is asking for assurances that his concerns about the Bureau will be address – not in legislation, but in a letter.  Has Portman learned anything from the Stupak incident?  Apparently not.

Unlike Portman, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is taking a principled stand against the creation of a new super regulatory agency and is not shaking in his boots.  Shelby has organized his colleagues who have pledged to oppose the nomination of Cordray or any other nominee unless the Bureau is reformed.  Unlike Portman, apparently, Shelby is smart enough to demand real statutory changes as opposed to “promised” changes.

The CFPB was structured in a way to give huge, and perhaps unconstitutional, power to its Director.  Alan Raul, who served as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget and associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan, described the CFPB’s power as “an independent agency on steroids because Congress essentially exempted the director from any meaningful accountability or strong presidential oversight.”

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The White House has denied pressuring Ford to pull its ad that criticizes competitors that took and have yet to repay taxpayer dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. However, the Obama administration can’t deny a new gift it showers on General Motors and Chrysler in its package of tax hikes to pay for its so-called American Jobs Act.

For all the talk about fairness and equity with the so-called Buffett Rule, there is one sneaky loophole in the Obama revenue proposal that has largely escaped notice. In doublespeak that would make even George Orwell do a doubletake, President Obama’s “financial crisis responsibility fee” would tax banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses that have paid back their bailout money — and even some firms that never took a bailout — to pay the tab of irresponsible firms, namely the auto companies that still owe the government billions.

“We also ask the largest financial firms — companies saved by tax dollars during the financial crisis — to repay the American people for every dime that we spent,” President Obama proclaimed in the Rose Garden two weeks ago. But the details of this “responsibility fee” in the 80-page plan the president submitted to the Joint Committee on Taxation makes it clear that this fee will only be on firms that have already repaid the TARP funds and likely on some firms who never took a dime of taxpayer money.

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One almost feels sorry for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

He’s a punchline in his own country because he oversees the IRS even though he conveniently forgot to declare $80,000 of income (and managed to get away with punishment that wouldn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist).

Now he’s becoming a a bit of a joke in Europe. Earlier this month, a wide range of European policy makers basically told the Treasury Secretary to take a long walk off a short pier when he tried to offer advice on Europe’s fiscal crisis.

And the latest development is that the German Finance Minister basically said Geithner was “stupid” for a new bailout scheme. Here’s an excerpt from the UK-based Daily Telegraph.

Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe’s debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a “stupid idea” and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said it would be a folly to boost the EU’s bail-out machinery (EFSF) beyond its €440bn lending limit by deploying leverage to up to €2 trillion, perhaps by raising funds from the European Central Bank.”I don’t understand how anyone in the European Commission can have such a stupid idea. The result would be to endanger the AAA sovereign debt ratings of other member states. It makes no sense,” he said.

All that’s missing in the story is Geithner channeling his inner Forrest Gump and responding that “Stupid is as stupid does.”

...at birth?

Separated...

This little spat reminds me of the old saying that there is no honor among thieves.

Geithner wants to do the wrong thing. The German government wants to do the wrong thing. And every other European government wants to do the wrong thing. They’re merely squabbling over the best way of picking German pockets to subsidize the collapsing welfare states of Southern Europe.

But that’s actually not accurate. German politicians don’t really want to give money to the Greeks and Portuguese.

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Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a country famous for its apples. In fact, it produced nothing but apples and so was called Appleonia. The people ate many apples in many different ways: raw apples, baked apples, apple pies, apple fritters, and candied apples, to name just a few. They found lots of different ways to use their apples, even as fuel.

But Appleonians didn’t consume all of their apples. They saved lots and lots of apples for their seeds so they could enlarge their orchards and grow more and more. For hundreds of years, the Appleonians consumed lots of apples and made their orchards bigger and bigger. Everyone in Appleonia worked in the apple business and prospered.

It turned out though that not every place in Appleonia was perfect for growing apples. Some areas were filled with worms that just loved apples. Little by little, the worms began to infest the orchards. No one noticed until one day a young boy opened a barrel and, taking a big bite out of an apple, bit right into a worm. Undeterred, he picked up another, with the same result, and another and another. At last he found an apple that was as good inside as it was outside.

But word spread quickly that there were worms in the apples and that the worms seemed to be spreading from orchard to orchard. People quit harvesting in the infested areas and, even worse, they could no longer guarantee the high quality of their apples as they had in the past. For the first time, they produced fewer apples, and many people were put out of work.

The Appleonian government grew very worried and, after brief consultation with academic experts, came up with an idea. To put people back to work and restore faith in the apples, the government hired lots of people to polish all the rotten apples. Of course, this didn’t really work: the polished apples may have looked better on the outside, but they were still rotten on the inside. Things didn’t get any better. People were still out of work, and the quality of the apples was still hit and miss. Government officials came up with another plan. They hired another bunch of people to spray a thin layer of wax on the rotten apples. Again, their remedy was superficial: the bad apples may have looked gorgeous, but they were still rotten on the inside, and hence worthless.

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