I really do. I understand that many people are angry, and I "get" why they're angry. After all, it looks objectively like our government is really moving the wrong way. And even though it looks to me like things have been improving, and has looked that way through 2011, albeit slowly...like hair growing. (You know, you see someone every day and their hair looks like it doesn't grow, but when you don't see them for a few weeks, you can see how long it's grown in that period of time...)

I am angry, too. A little scared, but a little angry. Why am I ticked off? Well, because I don't want more war, but we keep looking like we (as a country) want to get involved in more Middle East conflicts. Because I feel somewhat insulted by some of my friends who make generalizations about a certain group of people and don't even realize that they're referring to people I care about. Because I hear people complain about all the foreign born doctors and engineers with one breath, then in the next breath tell me that their kids aren't going to college; they're going to be union laborers (undertone - if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for them).

Why am I scared? Because I recently had my own experience with the health care system, and I realized that, at age 65, even as a dentist who makes a decent living, it's possible I won't be able to afford health insurance if there is no Medicare, or if Medicare is significantly changed. I suppose it could change for the better, but I can't see a voucher system making the costs go down. I can easily see such a system making it increase, and making it easy for insurance companies to just drop people or deny people. After all, they do it now all the time when someone is sick, no matter how much in premium dollars they've paid over the years that they were NOT sick.

But I have a different perspective on this stuff. I worked through the recession. Though my practice numbers showed that there WAS a recession, they also show that there is a recovery happening.

Others can't see it in this manner. They only know what their own personal experience is, and what they're told by media interests that want to get rid of this president. I get that. But what they don't see is that it isn't going back to the way it was, never. Those construction jobs? Not coming back, at least not at the levels they were before. That high salary as a skilled tradesman? You aren't going to find that in some other industry. Other industries are interested in cutting costs. That means cutting labor costs and cutting expenditures. That means being lean and mean. That means making as much as possible for the major shareholders (read: CEO's and board of directors). That means less wealth for you, and more for them.

That's what's been happening, all perfectly legal, for 12 years now. Wealth has become concentrated in the richest 1% or so of our nation, and the rest of us have gotten poorer. Some a lot, some just a little. This trend scares me. It isn't because of what the president has or hasn't done. It's because of what Congress has or has not endorsed and allowed to happen over that time period. It's because of wars. It's because of layoffs. Take a look at the stock market. You don't get a high market without profitable companies, yet they aren't hiring. Why should they? They're making more money than ever, sitting on piles of cash, and meanwhile regular Americans are squeezed.

They should be angry. But when you're angry, you don't always see things clearly.

In my opinion, that anger is totally misplaced for a great many Americans.

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