how much??

some hob-nob, and my mother in her hey-day, liked to proclaim that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. i remember shopping with my mom in boutiques where nothing had a price tag, and we'd come home with bags of glad-rags and matching shoes.

these days, i'm in reduced circumstances and by no means flying solo in that air.

the president won't say recession, but everybody else is clamoring about it, and just this week, the fed announced its biggest overhaul of the financial industry since the great depression. the oblique impossible math of bear-sterns stockholders thinking their bits were hovering around $60, but the buy-out coming in at $2? how's that again? oh, ok, wait, $10? WHAT?

i think most folks are in numb acceptance about the price of gas cuz it's been at or around $3 since katrina. (it seems.)

but there are more insidious hikes and they are everywhere. confident about their low prices, i stopped at trader joe's the other night for some groceries. the eggs were $2 more than last month. double in price. the smoked trout i sometimes treat myself with at $4 a package was also doubled. last time i bought butter, it was $1.99. this time, $4.99. the trout i skipped. the eggs and butter are for the owner, so i can't not have them.

to save time monday, i ran to the corner bodega for cat litter. it's $2.49 at the shaw's and was $4.49 last time i bought it from pedro. 2 bucks to save the 40 minutes to and fro seemed worth it. it was priced at $7.49 today. wtf? off to the square. the price of clay sure isn't in the news.

at work, we order 50-lb. bags of flour. one week they were $18, next week $60. 300% increase. we buy 5-gallon containers of frying oil. they went from $16 to $40. those cooking oil riots in malaysia and morocco don't seem so far-fetched, do they?

the ceo of countrywide is walking out with an extra $10 million in his pocket. um? job well done? no doubt when the nickels shake out the bear-sterns poo-bah will get a nice chunky payday too.

any wonder why that poll yesterday showed 80% of americans think we're heading in the wrong direction? maybe the question should be, is there any direction?