During the campaign, Barack Obama mentioned Warren Buffet’s support in order to add credibility to anything Obama said economically. Buffet is a gazillionaire, so it employs the "smart money" and “intelligent by association” arguments. Of course, since the election Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway has reported profits are down 77% and the stock lost 25% of its value. With his kite sinking fast, it’s time to consider Buffet more closely.

Obama described some of Buffet’s beliefs in the "Audacity of Hope." There was the following Warren Buffet discussion about the estate tax.

“When you get rid of the estate tax,” he said, “you’re basically handing over command of the country’s resources to people who didn’t earn it. It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the children of all the winners at the 2000 Games.”

Buffet is afraid the elimination of the death tax would lead to a wealthy aristocracy with the rest of the people poor. Those wealthy people would not have earned it. Buffet and Obama want success based on merit. Sounds good, but passing the sound test doesn’t mean it will pass the smell test.

First of all, putting the money in the hands of politicians to spend as they please is – from a moral point of view – even more wrong that allowing it to pass to the heirs. People are far more inefficient with someone else’s money than they are with their own, regardless of how they came to acquire it. The next generation would at least have the self interest of preserving their “goose that lays a golden egg” rather than a politician who is serving goose dinner to his friends and supporters.

Secondly, the money belongs to the old guy. By the sweat of his brow he worked and by the strength of his spine he took risks. The rewards are his and not the government. Warren Buffet can pass all his money to the government if he pleases, but that is no reason to force everyone else to do the same.

Thirdly, the children of said rich man did earn something. The little girl who got up after her father left for the morning commute and only saw him when she was ready for bed in the evening paid dues so that the family fortune could grow. The successful business owner arrives before the first worker and stays after the last one leaves. The price of making all that money is a certain loneliness that comes wondering where you fit into your father's life.

Fourthly, with the death tax in place, the government would be discouraging economic growth. A successful businessman in his late 50’s or early 60’s would have no incentive to keep growing the business or start a new one.

If there was limited passing on of wealth - or I should say the potential to pass on wealth - then the successful businessman who dreamt of “hitting a home run” would never have invested in a new idea. He would have been an involved grandfather. He would sit on a beach and drink martinis all day. Economic activity in the nation would have been reduced to busier golf courses.

Lastly and most importantly, there is the notion of "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations." The premise is simple. From the generation that moved from working class to upper class, it will take only 3 generations to return to working class. The first generation moves to the cultured city and enjoys all the trappings of a big-city executive. The second generation inherits both the illusion of grandeur and the resume that lacks merit-based achievement. They won’t understand the risk, reward or the value of a dollar. When the money is all gone, the third generation returns to the working class roots.

Rather than the Olympic analogy, Warren Buffet should think of kite-flying. The first generation may get the kite off the ground and hand the kite to succeeding generations, but those generations need to be able to fly a kite. Sure, inheriting a kite that is already flying is easier than starting from scratch, but the government should not go around snipping the tether lines of every kite in the interest of being fair. Even someone who inherits a kite needs to figure out which way the wind blows. The free market corrects the allocation of inheritances as swiftly and certainly as an “invisible breeze” separates the kite flyers from the rope holders.

There is a reason so many politicians can’t solve the financial crisis. They are not smart enough and for that matter neither is the publicly schooled public who elected them. However, there is a way to solve both problems at the same time. Privatize education.

In the Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, they wrote a list of ways to bring about communism. Their “Top 10” list included “Free education for all children in public schools” as Number 10. It is time to teach the Communist Manifesto and stop living it. Imagine the investment capital flooding into the government coffers when the sale takes place and again every year when the corporation is taxed on its profits.

School districts could sell or lease schools to private educational upstarts. Competition is the key ingredient in defining and determining quality. Centralized planning has proven a disaster though it is doubtful that high school students – most born after the collapse of the Soviet Union- would know. It is individuals making personal decisions en masse that move the market in the direction it needs to go.

Let’s do the math. A 400-student elementary school would generate $4 million in annual sales. How many people would quickly invest in a business that instantly began with million dollar sales? Finding investors would be simple. Keeping clients would be a bit more difficult. That is the essence of competition.

Schools would have to find their niche. The math school, the technology school, the special needs school. Every school would do what it took to be successful and school success would be defined by the number of students who return satisfied that last year’s education was worthwhile. Sure, schools would fail, but unlike government-run schools they would be allowed to fail gracefully and swiftly. They would not linger in failure from one generation to the next.

Profit is the sterling-silver word caked in mud as if profit from a child is heathen, dirty and untouchable. Profit motivates hard work and customer service. This would eliminate the half-day parent-teacher conferences where contractual language bargained to unions allow every parent to be inconvenienced so that one teacher will still get to leave at 3 PM every day of the year. Profit motivation would add those days back to teaching and learning.

The opposite of profit-driven schools is not non-profit schools but non-efficient schools. Spending other people’s money rather than their own, the schools bungle through projects that are more whim than cost-effective, customer-driven, value-added programs.

Regardless of what the local teacher union president says in the newspaper, a guaranteed income and job security for life never made anyone a better teacher. Quality comes from incentive. If President-elect Obama can choose Sidwell Friends school because it is the “right fit” for his children, why can he not see that it is competition that helped create the right fit?

It is time to allow students and parents to make their own choice about their right fit. And their decision should be "Private."

After serving on and even chairing some dysfunctional search committees for new college faculty, I jumped at the chance to see how my local school district selected a new middle school principal. For starters, they allowed one community representative on the selection committee. After serving, I can't see how that policy can continue.

I arrived on Day 1 at the requested time to find 6 pre-selected candidates and only 20 minutes to peruse their resumes. I was 1 of 8 on this committee, though this committee was only half the full committee. Candidates were asked similar questions by another group of stakeholders.

As a parent and a taxpayer, I'm a stakeholder, but the committee largely consisted of people who would call the principal boss. Only in education can you hire your own boss.

Three candidates were worth mentioning, though not for the same reasons. The "outsider" gave an example of how he worked. A state report came in duplicate and he asked the principal what the school did with the reports. "We put one on the shelf over there and give the other to the department chairs," the principal said.

The candidate, working as the Assistant Principal, did as he was told. When he brought the report to the department chairs he asked what they did with it. "We put it on the shelf over there," one of the chairs answered, pointing to a shelf with stacked reports.

The candidate, let's call him “the Natural,” took the report, reviewed it, downloaded data into Excel and massaged the data until he found some meaningful information about student success. He sought among the faculty a willing ear – someone who said “It takes me 3 days to do what you can do in a few mouse clicks” - and suddenly he had “buy in.” One department after another, when presented with a simple way to personally analyze their programs strengths and weaknesses, did so.

The contrast of the Natural with the insiders could not have been more stark. The “young insider” eventually got the job, despite the only question she had for the group: “Will my past year count toward tenure if I take the promotion?” The “old insider” had a pat answer for every situation. “We'll get together and talk and create some structures to handle it.” After 10 years in the district, no one had taken her aside and explained a “track record” is more than a list of job titles. And no one really knows what the word “structures” means.

Despite the strikeout performance, the “old insider” was brought back with the others for a second interview. It turns out – she admitted in the interview – she got her present job because she knew the former Superintendent. Plus, she'd had 10 years without a job change because she failed every interview both internally and outside the district. But, all agreed, she's a “nice person.”

The vetting process ended with a mass meeting of the 16 member search committee. The Natural (and that's what the Superintendent called him) was dismissed when the Director of Human Resources (a former gym teacher turned athletic director turned HR guy) said “Is there anyone we can dismiss right away so we won't have to talk about him?”

A few partisans spoke out he didn't know the culture and routine. Despite being a natural, he was an unknown. Within the first 5 minutes, both the Natural and the other Outsider were bloodied up. As the only outsider in the group, I couldn't possibly speak up enough to counter their predetermined outcome. It was going to be an insider.

As a taxpayer, I was offended. I don't want a gym teacher turned athletic director turned Human Resource Manager orchestrating a search process. Since cronyism put him in his position, he wouldn't think twice about letting the “it's not what you know, but who you know” attitude continue.

If only someone had created some “structures” to the decision-making process. A fair discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate might have led to the “natural selection.”