Economic Twilight Zone

Do you ever feel like everyone else lives in a different universe than you? The economy for example. Are there any other people besides myself who, four years ago, were thinking "You know, our economy is going to tank in short order." Yes, there were/are. Lots of you.

For example, there was the housing bubble that the media kept assuring us wasn't going to burst. Ummmm...how could it not when couples making $75,000 combined were buying $300,000 houses?

And then there is Office Depot in Ithaca, which is going out of business.

Office Depot parked itself in the exact same building that previously housed Office Max--which went out of business before it--in a plaza hidden behind other buildings, directly across the highway from the highly visible Staples.

Please, tell me, why would anyone sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into such a venture?

Our outgoing administration says "no one could have forseen the current economic crisis" while thousands of average Americans (not enough of them) were thinking years ago, "Damn, better get these credit cards under control before the crap hits the fan." They were the smart ones. Mark and I used to talk about keeping the farm just because we might actually need it to feed ourselves and our neighbors.

Everyone was not clueless. We wanted to be wrong, of course. Because, after all, we aren't the experts.

And, by the way auto industry, you might try marketing a small, affordable two-wheel drive truck for working America, like the Chevy S-10 and Ford Ranger used to be? Like, is this not a no-brainer? Apparently so, because while Detroit is currently swearing they'll build more economical gas-wise CARS, they still haven't addressed an affordable TRUCK...the lifeblood of the good old U.S.A. They wonder why people like myself hang onto two old beater S-10s rather than buy a new truck?

Maybe this is why. The "value model" has foglamps and Onstar? And maybe I should buy a $300,000 house to go with it.

Again...we average folk aren't the experts, and it seems rather obvious to us. The Geo drivers of America are wondering where their 45 mpg cars have gone and why we are being told over a decade later that 29 mpg is "excellent."