Dr. Red Eye

Conservatives knew it was coming but who knew it’d be this quick?

Just one month into his presidency, President Obama has put the United States on the fast track to socialism with his plan to purchase minority stakes in many of the country’s major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase. Some of the involved institutions were reportedly strong-armed into this action.

Of course, the swooning media refuses to call it socialism, partly because they are in bed with Obama and partly because they don’t want Americans to start criticizing the Golden Boy. So the media argues that this isn’t truly bank nationalization because the government doesn’t own common stock, thus the government doesn’t have voting rights.

You don’t need to be a veteran cynic to know that the government doesn’t need to own common stock in order to have significant influence in how banks are run. Furthermore, the government can later convert its preferred shares into common equity to make the nationalization more “official”.

Think of it this way: the government owning common stock in banks is bank nationalization, the equivalent to saying 2+2=4. But the government owning $250 billion in preferred stock is also bank nationalization. It may not be saying 2+2=4, but it’s saying 3+1=4. It’s still bank nationalization any way you add it up.

The financial markets know how to add. They also know how to subtract. They see Obama’s socialist math and are plummeting in response, appropriate since capitalism and socialism are in stark opposition to each other. It’s telling that the markets are responding so negatively to Obama’s plans, falling to its lowest close since 1997. Bank stocks themselves are getting rocked. Citigroup sank to an 18-year-low at $1.95 a share while Bank of America plunged to a 25-year-low at $3.79.

Then there’s Obama’s recent mortgage bailout plan, where homeowners whose mortgages are worth more than their home’s value can get financial relief. If you think about it, this is also a veiled form of wealth redistribution. Taxpayers who are dutifully and responsibly paying their mortgages are helping subsidize the mortgages of those struggling to pay. Recall that on the presidential campaign trail, Obama met the infamous Joe the Plumber and told him that wealth redistribution was a good thing. Wealth redistribution is a central tenet of socialism. And sure enough, just one month into his presidency, Obama has already made that a reality.

What’s more, in his Congressional address last night, despite the massive spending to bail out everybody and their brother, Obama continued to promote his health care reform plan, which (you guessed it) is health care nationalization.

Of course, you won’t hear the media mention either of these two programs as socialist for the same reasons you aren’t hearing the media describe the bank nationalization program as socialist. Instead, you’ll hear “bank capital purchase program.”

On the presidential campaign trail last year, conservatives, from John McCain right down to little old me, warned that Obama was a socialist. Liberals downplayed those warnings as alarmist and assured the public he not only isn’t a socialist but that he also isn’t even a liberal; in fact, they argued that Obama was a centrist.

As Jesus warned, a tree will reveal itself by its fruit. And Obama has quickly revealed his true colors. And he’s taking all his fruit and transporting it in the Socialism Express. All aboard!