Okay, if this wasn’t such a big deal, I would laugh. It’s amazing to me how some people’s egos force them to deny reality. We have oil topping $100 per barrel, with no sign of going down, at least significantly (the price of oil has more than tripled in the past 5 years). You have two wars that continue to drain resources from the economy (by some estimates, it’s costing us about $275 million per day). On top of that, you have a housing market where the bottom has fallen out, causing major devastation to many American families.

But, according to George Bush, the economy’s only experiencing a “slowdown”.

So, Bush is out there pushing the whole “economic stimulus package”. You know, the Congress-approved band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound measure to help get the economy on track. We are expected to believe that if some single Americans are given $600 and some married couples are given $1200 (plus, a little extra if you have kids), the economy will be jump-started. This goes to show you just how naive some people are.

The belief that people will go out, spend this money and boost the economy makes a lot of assumptions. First of all, you assume that everyone will be able to treat this as disposable income. You have a lot of people who are behind on their bills and will use this money to catch up on mortgages, utility bills, car payments, etc. I’m sure that it would be welcomed for these families but, this will not help kick start the economy again. Secondly, you have people who have dipped into savings just to keep things afloat so, I suspect that, for a lot of folks, this money will be put into savings. Again, it’s needed but, not going to boost the economy. Finally, you have to realize that, for a economy to flourish, that money needs to circulate among various individuals or businesses in a population. Think about it this way — say you go out an buy a TV with your rebate. Who gets paid? Maybe the corporation that runs the store and a few employees. But, with so little manufacturing going on in the U.S., the money goes offshore to pay suppliers in foreign countries, leaving American workers out of the picture. This means that you end up with fewer middle-class folks who buy the houses, cars, etc. that keep the economy afloat.

I am saying two things:

1) We are dealing with more than a slowdown and
2) We need better ideas than this to get us out of this mess.

Right now, George Bush is much like the kid who cleans up a mess by stuffing everything into a closet, hoping that no one opens it, at least until he’s in the clear. Therefore, I think it’s time to be serious and say that, as a country, we should chalk up the last seven years and the year to come as a loss and gird ourselves to be ready to see just how big this mess is, once the truth is allowed to come out. I have a feeling that, once the next administration starts turning over the rocks, we’ll see just how much truth was hidden from us.

Popularity: 14% [?]

A few weeks back, the President vetoed the Democrats’ domestic spending package. He accused them of acting like kids with a credit card.

I found this to be quite ironic, considering how he is paying for his war in Iraq. You see, he makes you believe that, because he cut taxes for the rich and is not raising income taxes on the middle-class, the U.S. must have enough cash on-hand to pay for war. But, this is not true. In actuality, we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars. So, if you don’t see Bush say anything about lead paint or asbestos in kids’ toys from China, you’ll just have to understand. You see, it’s hard to criticize someone when you owe them over $900 billion.

Please understand, while the President talks about Democrats “wanting to raise your taxes”, let’s be real. If you take out a loan, you have to pay it back or face the consequences. The bill will come due and we are going to have to pay up. The only issue is that either you pay now or pay later — with even more interest accrued.

I say all that to say this — Bush and Congress are burying us in debt. Right now, the national debt is rising at a rate of $1 million per minute. Think about the following:

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you’ve escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That’s because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt — now at relatively low interest rates — rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain.

So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending — leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

Like I said pay now or pay (more) later. Don’t you think it’s long past time for us to ask the serious questions about our economy?

Popularity: 19% [?]

This is far from scientific but, it is a disturbing sign of the times.

Recently, at the Steelyard Commons shopping center in Cleveland, Ohio, some 6,000 people applied for 300 positions at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Now, we are not talking executive position or highly-skilled roles. We are talking about low-paying retail jobs.

This pales in comparison two what happened at two Illinois Wal-Mart stores even smaller than the one in Cleveland. There, they had 25,000 and 15,000 applicants, respectively.

Experts say that this is “an indication not only of a less-than-stellar economy but also of a workforce short on marketable skills.”

So, what we may be seeing is an indication of what happens as the gap between rich and poor increases. Sadly, this is not the stuff of political stump speeches so, we’d better not wait for a candidate to address these concerns. For our families’ sakes, we need to speak on it, now.

Popularity: 34% [?]