>>As an aside I think the economy is still in the toilet after 9/11
I agree. Even though my areas unemployment is well below the national average and businesses cannot find qualified workers, the jobs are mostly low paying. The gap between highest paid upper level management and average worker wages has spread to the biggest discrepancy ever. IMO it’s an absolute disgrace and even worse in publicly traded companies where CEO’s CFO’s etc are too cozy with the appointments of board of directors who then set their salaries and stock option grants. To pay a CEO 400 times (or whatever x) the salary of the average employee is outrageous. They are not 400X more intelligent or productive. The Japanese have a much closer spread of wages between high and low paying positions. The true economy right now is perhaps credit card fueled, at least to some extent. With mortgage rates not dropping, refinancing a home and rolling credit card debt into the mortgage is done for most other than those who haven’t done it in the last several years. The debt this country is taking on since 911 and Iraq is going to hurt us all at some point, actually already has if you look at response times to New Orleans, National Parks, roads etc.