As you can read from earlier articles, I have been a staunch critic in regards to the nomination of Sarah Palin. She would not have been my first choice, my second, or my third. I am however, willing to live with her provided she can withstand the attack and have the courage to stick to what she said today nearly 10 times in her speech. And that is that Barack Obama is a socialist. He is a socialist. I just finished chapter four of “The Audacity of Hope” where Obama lays out his economic plans for America. He calls that chapter “Opportunity.” I call it socialism. It’s quite transparent. He even acknowledges the capitalist arguments in many situations, but just rolls right over them with the same smooth rhetoric he speaks with on the stump. Obama lays out a vision for education, where he acknowledges everyone’s point of view, and then proceeds to explain how he can dismantle all criticism simply by making the system perfect. “Good teachers should make no less then $100,000 year.” Obama says. I agree by the way. America never had a debate on the ends. It’s the means on which we differ. Obama’s audacity is in his managerial skills. He thinks he can dismantle the entire economic structure with a “scalpel” as he says it; cut out the bad, and reward the good. Sounds nice doesn’t it. HOW? What is he going to do? Is he going to spend all day on the phone yelling at High School principals to get their crap together or else? Good teachers get paid what the public values them at, unless the government pokes its fat nose in and slows down market forces via Teacher's Unions. He calls John McCain’s fiscal policy a hatchet compared to his scalpel. I think we need a shotgun, and some cruise missiles myself. More money has been wasted on "education" in this country then any in history, and with what result? Just look at my poor grammar in this blog. I would have just spelled grammar wrong if not for that stupid red line. Why should we trust the government with even more money? Well, because Obama will manage it properly and funnel it jusssssst the right way this time. Unbelievable. I think good teachers deserve a million dollars a year myself, but unfortunately we are not God in the days of genesis, as Tom Sowell likes to put out while explaining away injustice in the world. Obama is not God either. He thinks he is here to reward the good and punish the bad in his quest for some type of “social” justice. The “audacity” as his book states is his hubris to think he can create a perfect world. If he could do it, I’d vote for him. He attributes the prosperity of the last 50 years not to individuals acting in their own self interest, but of new deal programs like social security and investment projects. He attributes them to government. He ends the chapter in a conversation with Warren Buffet praising the billionaire for understanding the “common good” more so then other billionaires. Obama asks him how many of his friends share his views on issues such as the estate tax, where wealthy families cannot pass down wealth to their families without being taxed. Let me quote Buffet. “It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic games team by picking the children of all the winners of the 2,000 games. My friends have this idea that it’s “their money” and deserve to keep every penny of it. What they don’t factor in is all the public investment that lets us live the way we do.” Buffet is a genius in capital investment, no doubt. Genius in one area often leaves a blind spot in another. Buffet is worth billions. He invests money in a way that yields returns on investment, creating jobs for millions of Americans by better allocating capital to profitable markets, and extracting it from failing ones. The amount of wealth he creates generates jobs and revenue for all Americans. Why does he then want to give more money to the US government, an organization running a 10 Trillion dollar debt. They can’t even hold onto social security money to simply give it back later. It’s a bad investment any way you slice it. If the US government were just another company, Warren Buffet would come no where near it as an investment. Why then does it serve the “common good” to make a terrible investment in the US Government. I really do admire his sense of community and obligation to give back to his country. Warren Buffet best serves his country by being a greedy businessman. He may be a genius, but he, nor Barack Obama, understands that.