Ominous economic rumbling

Opinion polls show President Bush's favorable rating remains high, about 72 percent. But the same polls indicate the public is growing uneasy about his handling of the economy. This has the potential to replay what happened to the first President Bush, who was riding high in the polls following the Gulf war but was brought low and lost re-election because of economic decline.

A conversation I had on the train yesterday:

Conductor: "so it's a shame that those guys managed to steal so much money from everyone, I took a pretty good hit myself."

Me: "Yeah, well it's only a few people, most CEO's are honest, but in an environment like this where everyone is claiming innocence, it's hard to tell who to believe. It'll all work out though give it a little time. Which company were you invested in?

Conductor: "Oh, well you know I have some IBM cause my brother works there, and a few other little things, and they are way down.

Me: "So you didn't actually have any stock in the companies that are in trouble?"

Conductor: "No, but they still stole my money, I mean where else did it go right? Those guys stole money, and now I have less money, so some of it must be mine."

Before you all start, this conductor is one of the most kind hearted, gentle men in the world, and I think a great deal of him as a person, even if he is a bit misguided about financial issues. Obviously he doesn't know much about the markets and as a result, believes that the CEO's of Enron and WorldCom have stolen his IBM stock.

I post this here because it's an excellent example of the kind of errors that the media coverage of this issue is supporting.

This media witch hunt isn't doing any of us any good.

This President Bush should act immediately to demonstrate beyond rhetoric that he feels the pain of people who've lost their jobs and retirement money due to the greedy behavior of a few CEOs.

Bush should act immediately to make sure everyone understands the corruption and greed was in the 90s and all this didn't just happen. He's let the Clintons off way too easy.

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