Does anyone remember Ross Perot when he running for President? Although I always thought his personality was too confrontation to be President, I always enjoyed his speeches. Why? Because I never thought I was being treated like an idiot lacking the mental capacity to process real information. When talking about economic issues, Mr. Perot was always prepared with the facts. I always had the feeling that, if he became President, he would treat us like the owners of the country, he would be our employee, and it would be his job to give us relevant information so we could make decisions as a country. I wish we had leaders who would treat us with the respect we deserve. The way I look at it, we are the ones making a living for our families and producing the products our society needs. And we are doing it without a government paycheck. From what I have seen lately, there is no reason for anyone in government to look down on the rest of us.

As for the “everything is going to be OK” mantra, I think we need to get our minds wrapped around the reality of the situation. First of all, most of the losses we have seen in housing prices, the stock market etc. are not “slumps”. They are corrections. A house that costs $60,000 to build is not suddenly worth $200,000 just because a bank will lend you money based on that value. The stock market should have never reached the point that it did. The stock market is our perception of the aggregate value of our businesses. We have a trade deficit of almost 1 trillion dollars every year. That means that for every citizen of this country(man, woman and child), with most households being two-income, we fall over $3,000 short annually of producing enough to sustain our way of life. How can anyone believe that the value of our industrial base can increase like the stock market has with this kind of productivity?

If President Obama thinks he can borrow/spend us back to the land of over-valuation I think he is leading us down the wrong path.