The is no more legendary an investor than Warren Buffet. Buffet started life as a simply newspaper boy and grew to manage the most successful [in terms of returns] investment company in the world: Berkshire Hathaway.

His astute instinct for business led him to be dubbed the “Oracle of Omaha” or the “Sage of Omaha.” Buffet has made tens of billions and has donated most of it to charity, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation after Microsoft founder Bill Gates which works to eradicate many illnesses in Africa among many other causes.

But 2008 was a bad one for Buffet as not even he could escape the financial crisis. Berkshire Hathaway suffered its worse year, Buffet’s net worth fell $10 billion and in the first three months of 2009 his firm lost $1.5 billion.

But the “Sage” is back recording a $3.3B profit in the second quarter. And unlike the “profit” presented by Goldman Sachs and A.I.G. of which a good deal was simply bailout money repackaged as profit, Berkshire never took a dime in federal aid and, on the contrary, was a source of investment for cash-stripped companies [Goldman Sachs, General Electric and Swiss Re all sought and received Buffet cash].

Buffet declared last year that bad times are ahead, but America’s best days are still in front of her. The reversed fortunes of his company will, one hopes, be a foreshadowing of a revived U.S. economy.

On a separate note, I recently learned that Buffet’s father Howard Buffet was a strong libertarian. A four-term Republican Congressman, he was a friend of libertarian writer Murray Rothbard. A critic of military intervention [neo-conservatism, in another word] he spoke on the House of Representatives these words:

Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns.

He opposed FDR’s New Deal socialism and stated he had a simple principle of judging legislation: “Will this add to, or subtract from, human liberty?”

Buffet retired from politics after losing the 1954 Republican nomination. His son never inherited the elder’s principles commitment to liberty. It is unfortunate. The world would be a better place if Warren Buffet used his great fortune to advance liberty rather than promoting the likes of Clinton and Obama.