Bill Maher, the Income Gap and Wealthy, Deluded, Nit-Wits

Back during the later days of the George W. Bush administration, local businesses in The PC's neighborhood were dropping like termites under a circus tent tarp.

In the spring of 2008, President Dubbya visited a successful, Torrance, CA helicopter company, which he used as a backdrop for a speech designed to "prove" that the economy was thriving.

The helicopter company sent a bird to fly the prez from LAX to the Torrance factory.

Had the future Painter-in-Chief taken the more usual limo ride down Hawthorne Blvd., he would have seen the inconvenient truth about the economy in the Los Angeles South Bay.

                                            An actual photo of an actual Hawthorne Blvd. Torrance, CA business.

Mom and Pop furniture stores, hardware stores and auto dealerships were flying "Going Out of Business, Everything Must Go!" banners.

Buildings went empty. Which was only good news for "pop-up" Halloween stores and the burgeoning dialysis center industry.

                                                       This is an actual photo of an actual Halloween store that
                                      "pops up" next door to Mrs. Blog's dialysis center, every September thru October.

(Note to self... Write a post, soon, about the growing business of kidney failure, and why the fuck is this happening?)

The south end of the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, CA, (once, the largest shopping mall in the world,) anchored by J.C. Penny, Macy's and Sears, became a desolate, retail ghetto.

The local Kmart closed, to be replaced by a Walmart "Neighborhood Market."

In the last year or two, there has been a surge in new construction in the area. Lots of new stores are being built or renovated.

Which is a good thing for local construction.

But, here's the thing...

                                        Most of those new stores are Dollar Tree™ stores.

Now, don't get me wrong! The Blog is thrilled that there are more and more nearby places that he can spend $1.00 for Mrs. Blog's Diet Mt. Dew instead of $1.89 elsewhere. And cheap holiday decorations for her classroom.

But, at this rate, the proliferation of stores where nothing costs more than a dollar means, at the current rate, "dollar stores" will soon outnumber Starbucks™.

And that means something less than positive, in the big picture.

The Blog could go on. But, it's late.

                                           Which brings me to the latest from Bill Maher.

Sure, Bill is an arrogant, pasty-faced, womanizing, liberal, Hollywood, millionaire, elitist.

He is also right on point, most of the time.

Click on over to "Americans Against the Tea Party's" site and scroll down and watch the video link.

Take it away, Bill.