Supporting the Royals
In 1940 the Wehrmacht was the most successful army on Earth. 
Nazi Germany's insane leadership had hijacked their nation's professional military and sent them on a rampage across Europe. Prior to their failed invasion of Britain, which rested on the backs of the Luftwaffe, they had tasted only success. Part of this unprecedented run was because they were fighting against the French, and the French haven't won a major battle since before Waterloo.
But they fought against the Poles, Belgians, Danes, Czechs, and Dutch, also, and met much stiffer resistance. Still, their mechanized infantry, combined with a lethal assault from above ,rendered the military answer of their foes quickly moot. 
A charge of heavy Polish cavalry against panzers is the last recorded used of organized cavalry in modern warefare. It was all they had. Even the British Expeditionary Force was no match for this new kind of Blitzkrieg warfare.
There are a variety of reasons that the Germans ultimately failed, starting with a political structure that was as evil as Satan himself. A megalomaniacal, paranoid dictator with delusions of diety didn't help either.
But the regular German military man remained effective and ferocious right up to the end. Arguably the best sheer land-fighters of all time, in fact. 
Which is why the success of the Americans against the Germans on the ground is a bit difficult to understand. Their soldiers were seasoned, well-trained, and by all accounts, incredibly brave. Their equipment was for the most part, technologically superior. Their aircraft were second to none.
American tanks were almost paltry by comparison. 
Yet in every meeting the Yanks advanced steadily against their debatably, militarily superior adversaries. Why?
In World War I, the machinegun entered the battlefield and everything changed. 
The old strategies disintegrated and hundreds of thousands of bright-eyed youths paid the price of foolish generals who sent them in human waves over the trenches and helplessly to die in no-man's land. 
By World War II these lessons had been learned and strategies changed. All but one. In World War II, in the Wermacht, the infantry man supported the heavy machine gun. The ground tactics of advance, capture, and hold, were based on squad units supporting heavy machine guns. The Americans on the other hand, had developed tactics in which heavy machine guns supported infantry. The difference is subtle and not immediately apparent, but the American tactical development allowed faster, more fluid movement as well as much quicker adjustment to changing battlefield conditions. So while German soldiers dug in around their MG42s and MG34s, fast moving Americans infantry, supported by their Browning Model 1919s,
(still in use today, virtually unchanged, I might add) flanked and neutralized the German positions which were incapable of rapid adjustment. 
This isn't the only reason that the Americans prevailed, but it is an often overlooked and always underestimated effect.
So why are we supporting heavy machineguns, now?
There is a problem with the American economy. A huge problem. Multiple problems, in fact. There are root causes for this, but at the center of this root ball I believe is a central seed from which the mess has grown. Support of the heavy machinegun. There was a time, I believe, when industry supported the American worker. And industry, in this sense, is not a legal definition, but a person, because decisions are ultimately made by people - or once were. People who owned industrial concerns used the influx of capitol we known as stocks, to fuel business growth which in turn supported the community. And this means, supporting the individuals in the community. The people. Industry supported the workers. This doesn't mean that everyone got rich, but the central focus wasn't necessarily on acquiring individual wealth - or at least it wasn't the only focus as it has become today. Greed. The same thing that drove Hitler to crave every inch of Europe. Pure, unbridled, unadulterated, unmitigated, greed.
Fast forward to 2008. The support of the worker, by industry, is gone. The disappearance of American jobs is the most telling evidence and trumps any and all arguments against this assertion. It is now the worker that supports industry. Labor that fuels lives of almost unimaginable avarice. The difference is subtle, just as it was on the battlefields of Europe sixty years ago. But this time around it is the Americans who are getting their asses kicked. It is all about direction of flow. Emphasis of investment. Choices that benefit community as opposed to bottom line. Because in the end, if the community dies, the bottom line is meaningless. Work in America is no longer an activity, it is a state of being into which one is born and in which they usually die. Can everyone become successful and wealthy? No. But when the incentive of success and wealth is removed, or becomes nearly imporssible to attain without subterfuge, the engine that drives the American economy dies with it.
President-elect Obama's plan for fixing the economy is for the Middle Class to stop saving their money and resume buying crap they don't need by borrowing money they don't have. This isn't a slap against the president elect because it is the same plan on the other side of the aisle. The only difference between the two parties driving our nation into the ground is how to get the 'country' involved. But I say the entire scenario is backward. The entire economy is backward. The solution isn't to get people to behave foolishly so the coffers of business owners will fill up again, it is getting capitol and opportunity back into the hands of the infantry. In nature, forces don't act from low potential towards high potential. Rocks don't fall up. Water doesn't run uphill. Air doesn't move from low to high pressure. And money won't flow, at least for long, from poor to rich. And giving more ammunition to the machinegunners while leaving the infantry to throw rocks isn't going to get us very far.
Tell me the infantry isn't supporting the machinegun. Tell me it isn't all about greed.
NEXT: Why They Won't Listen
-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/Community/blogs/not-a-lemming