My wife and I are visiting Houston from our home in Jalisco, Mexico. We are overwhelmed by the price of everything and the difficulty in avoiding “spending” $200 plus per day without much to show for it. The wealth here is remarkable…the Mercedes, Lexus and Cadillac’s, the high end stores and restaurants…what recession? Yet there are the beggars at each on-ramp to the freeways and the scores of Mexican men hanging out, waiting for a contractor to pick them up for day labor. This doesn’t look like the great depression, but we sense an uneasiness that’s hard to describe…its almost has if people here are going through the motions that “we are living the good life”, but looking over their shoulder as they sense the shadow of foreboding that is being cast by the daily onslaught of fear and loathing but the MSM. Maybe this is what it was like in 1939 during the period called the “phony war”…a calm before the storm? Something eerie about it.