I am afraid not enough American's are paying attention to anything but themselves. We are in big trouble and not many average Joe's seem to care. Our childrens children will be paying for this for a long time.

Thanks for your great response to my inquiry. Im sorry I dont have time right now to respond as thoroughly as you did, but I wanted to let you know that I read it, and really appreciated your candor. While I would never refer to myself as a conservative,even with the word used as accurately as you have, I found your views mirror my growing discomfort with this consumer driven society and the way I operate within it. Yet another example of how we all have to move beyond labels used to divide us. Also, your response helped me to understand your first letter much better;It was deserving of editors choice! (It wasnt that condescending, I think I was tired and cranky:~)I aspire to articulate my worldview so eloquently as I mature.

Good luck to you as you deal with your health challenges. I look forward to reading your future letters.

One of the results of severe economic suffering is the desire to blame, and demagogues on both sides of the political spectrum successfully take advantage of this. In retrospect, it's a miracle that FDR was able to keep this country out of the hands of extremists (but then the conservatists don't think he did - they think he **was** an extremist).

In the unlikely event that we do go into a depression, the conservatists and Christianist right are way out in front in terms of blame. If we suffer a real crash, we can expect a cadre of modern-day Father Coughlins ("Bill O'Reilly, white courtesy telephone . . .") to have the run of the airwaves. It will turn out that our economic woes were not the result of reckless tax cutting and an elective $1/2 trillion war, but of abortion, gay marriage, and socialized medicine.

>?I'm willing to bet that, for the most part, this 1% consists of highly educated, hard-working, enterprising risk-takers. I don't thik that Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or any other of those greedy bastards "grabbed" any "national wealth." (but they sure have created a lot).<

Oh, please. Are every single one of those "hard-working, enterprising risk-takers" the people who actually built mega-businesses? Or are a good many of them members of the "CEO class" who can't manage for shit; make insane amounts of money even if they are lousy at their jobs; and have no vested interest in anything but jumping from company to company and scoring billion-dollar buyouts. The latter and their economy-ruining antics are the reason why Republicans, free-marketers, and libertarians look like the ignorant fools they are when they bleat that Randian/executive-as-Galt crap. The only free-market the CEO crew believe in is the one that lets them hollow out companies to enrich themselves, so please spare us the "bow to your superior mega-corporate masters" garbage.

Oil is getting too expensive? Invest in oil futures. Health care costs are getting out of control? De-regulate the industry and costs will decline--as they invariably do whenever the idiocracy calling itself the Government of the United States takes its hands off the wheel. i-against-i

Having the people with spare wealth invest in oil futures during a worsening oil crisis is, like investing in weapons companies during wartime, a means to making money which has some pretty ugly connoations.

Deregulation of the insane health care system in this country will have the same wonderful effect that deregulation of those Wall Street hedge funds had, so maybe we ought to stop digging our hole deeper and move to a single payer healthcare system. Works for other countries.

As for our Government, it works well when it is run by people who care about it working well; it is an idiotocracy when run by Republicans and smirking chimps.

You know, I am the first to agree that our economy is in trouble, but I do get very nervous when I start hearing all this "eat the rich" hyperbole. One nice thing about it, though, is that it makes it easy for me to distinguish between those with a real understanding of economics and those without. The author of this article, it appears, is in the latter category.

"A record number of Americans are receiving food stamps," we are alarmingly told at the outset of the piece. But why is this the case? Did the rich cause these poor, wretched, souls to go on the dole by, according to Leonard, "gorge[ing] themselves on 20 percent of the pie?" The assumption made here, and made by all Marxist economists, is that there is a kind of finite amount of goodies in the world. If someone has a million dollars, that's a million less for the rest of us. Preposterous bullshit.

We get more incendiary language like, "allowing the rich to grab such a huge percentage of national wealth..." What the hell is "national wealth"? Do people get rich by "grabbing" it? Man! I've never "grabbed" any wealth that I'm aware of.

I'd like to see some detail on these stats. I'm willing to bet that, for the most part, this 1% consists of highly educated, hard-working, enterprising risk-takers. I don't thik that Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or any other of those greedy bastards "grabbed" any "national wealth." (but they sure have created a lot)

Wealth isn't a pinata folks. We aren't all muscling each other aside to get the best piece of candy. We all create wealth when we supply a demand. I'll grant that there's a bit more to it than this, but you get the idea.

The banks and american consumers both made bad decisions and will pay for it. Nuff said.

Oil is getting too expensive? Invest in oil futures. Health care costs are getting out of control? De-regulate the industry and costs will decline--as they invariably do whenever the idiocracy calling itself the Government of the United States takes its hands off the wheel.