Bush World

Speaking in Manhattan this week President George W Bush was totally optimistic about the future. This is a good thing and not to be taken lightly. We should all be optimistic about our future and hope for the best. The only problem in this case is that the man speaking those ‘rose colored’ words has done nothing to move the dream along.
He cited all the things that could have brought our nation to its knees but noted that we are still standing. He was trying to point out that the sun will come out tomorrow.
His ‘Annie’ moment was almost comical because he neglected to list one thing among the items hurting and hindering America, namely his 7 years in office.
An old friend once told me that no one is perfect nor should we expect anyone to be so. "The more we do the more chance we have to screw up," he said. His favorite analogy was, “When you cut down a lot of trees you are going to get a lot of sawdust.” In his almost two terms as the leader of the free world our President has made many speeches and said many things so we should expect some of them to be, well stupid. Unfortunately we have reaped far more sawdust than firewood.
When Mr. Bush showed his incredulous stare at the thought of a $4.00 per gallon gasoline price at the pump I thought of sawdust. But he was actually right! We will not have to pay $4 per gallon for gasoline; it will be much higher than that. In fact at the rate we are going we may reminisce about the good old days of $4 per gallon.
All of our economic hurts are being caused by greed. The greed of Mr. Bush and his oil friends; the greed of his corporate friends in that business and others; the greed of the CEOs of such companies as Countrywide and Bear Sterns and the list could go on and on. You may add your own favorites.
We have become accustomed to price increases for the basics of our lives. In fact we expect many of them and are secretly amazed when the prices do not go higher than they do. But the bottom line is that our paychecks are not going nearly as far as they used to and our real cost of living (COL) is outpacing our income at an alarming rate. The divide between rich and poor is increasing every day.
Airfares are rising because of the fuel costs. Basic food items such as wheat are at all-time high levels. Tolls on our roads and rails are going up by percentage points above the governments supposed COL increase. Even poor Mr. Spitzer had to shell out an inordinate amount of his easy earned income for a little enjoyment.
Everyone is paying more for goods and services because everyone is hurting; everyone that is except Mr. Bush and his ilk who bilk the rest of us.
Yes the future is rosy and the outlook is bright. The sun will indeed come out tomorrow, and the next day. Unfortunately we may not be able to see it as clearly as does our President because we live in the real world.