And they wonder why we’re not feeling it. I keep hearing pundits talk about how great the economy is, then lament that us little people aren’t smart enough to realize it.

There is no doubt that Bush’s economic policies have done just what he intended: shifted more wealth into the top income demographics, while exhausting the middle and working classes.

Reuters reports today’s cheery economic findings:

Factories across the U.S. cranked out goods at a much slower pace than expected in December, while spending in the construction sector edged up to a new record in November…

Yes, the housing market is red-hot, especially where your Pensito Review editors live – Florida and California. But since fewer people each day can afford those McMansions sprouting up like weeds in the sprawl that is America, where is this going?

The Palm Beach Post on the experience of one firefighter, who can’t afford to buy one of those homes she protects, and so lives with her parents.

The starting salary for a probationary firefighter in Boynton Beach…is $36,771.

…her salary doesn’t come close to the $71,000 annual income needed to qualify to buy a $225,000 home based on a down payment of 10 percent. Adding to her dilemma: the median price of an existing single-family home in Palm Beach County was $421,500 in November, according to a report from the Florida Association of Realtors. That was up 23 percent from a year ago and up 1 percent from October.

A recent study found that the median price of a home in the United States rose 20 percent in just 18 months, to $225,000. During the same period, wages for firefighters, teachers and nurses in most cities remained flat or increased slightly, but still fell far short of the salary needed to buy a home…

Renters are in even worse shape, as one in my own Florida county illustrates.

Terrell is the kitchen manager at [a homeless shelter]. Her wage is $10.50 an hour.

She pays $850 a month for a three-bedroom home…Terrell said the home has a leaky roof, windows that don’t close and a broken heater.

Her rent increased to $900 on Sunday. That goes beyond Terrell’s budget.

“I’m busting my butt 50 hours a week. I can’t pay that right now,” she said. “(The landlord) said, ‘if you don’t have the money, you’ll have to move.’ ”

Tom Crawford, county director of housing and committee services, said…with Florida’s housing prices rising 16 percent on average per year from 1998 to 2005 and wages rising 3 percent per year over the same period, there’s a glaring problem.

Bush’s policies are transforming this country into his idea of paradise: one where he and his buddies get theirs, and everyone else gets…what were we saying?

Yes, these folks want lawn services and pedicures, but let the schmucks who provide them live somewhere else. Yes, they want law enforcement to respond instantly when the wind activates the security system inside the gated community, but they don’t want the cop to live next door.

It’s no wonder we don’t believe it when they tell how good things are. For us real folks, they aren’t.