WE THE PEOPLE!

Well, another week of the Bush Days of Sorrow are at an end, and the Dow Jones plummeted 135 points, Standard & Poors were down, and the Nasdaq tumbled precipitously. A weak jobs report and renewed inflationary concerns clobbered the stock market Friday and left investors worrying about next week. 3M was the biggest loser with IBM coming in second, while GM actually gained a point after reports of a possible alliance with Japanese Nissan/Renault. Tech stocks were down and even Starbucks lost ground.

Traders are worried because of expected reports from Alcoa, General Electric, 3M, AMD and others next week. Other concerns are oil prices and global tensions regarding Iraq, Iran, N. Korea and others also impact the economy's downward trend.

The biggest concern is the weak job performance. Non-farm payrolls rose by 121,000 last month, well below the 200,000-job rise that economists had predicted. An average of just 108,000 jobs were added each month in the second quarter, 38% below the 176,000-per-month pace in the first quarter, and well below job creation prior to the Bush administration noted the Liscio Report, an economic newsletter. The service sector saw the majority of the growth, creating 106,000 jobs. The manufacturing sector added only 15,000 jobs. Service sector jobs fall far behind others in payroll and benefits.

In short, because of the lack of wise leadership, America is losing on the business ledger, while jobs are outsourced, and the financial money pit that is Iraq continues to eat up our resources. Meanwhile, no-bid contractors in Iraq stuff their pockets with greenbacks and oil companies gleefully anticipate the over 5 TRILLION dollars in profits expected over the next few decades. Yes, that's 5 trillion, as in $100 Billion X 5,000. That kind of money sort of dwarfs the monetary cost of the war doesn't it? But the American public will never see that money, it all goes into the coffers of corporations, off shore investments, and the pockets of the extremely wealthy and the lawmakers they purchase.

The very rich get richer and richer, the poor get poorer, and the great middle class that made this country strong and vital and wealthy disappears. It's not just Bush of course who is the problem, it's a systemic problem brought on by decades of the American people being squeezed just enough they'd only complain, but wouldn't do anything about it. Now however, precious lives are lost every day in illegal foreign conflict, and the future of our nation, it's citizens and it's children and children's children have been mortgaged to the hilt with no end in sight. It's time to take our great country back from the criminals who have run it into the ground for far too long. It's time for REAL Americans to govern, We the People!