Unless you're making $40K, shhhhh!

I would like to see all the pundits out there (John Stossel for one of them) live on $40,000 a year. I know even that is high for most of the "middle class" and I mean really "middle class." I am so tired of hearing what we should think about higher gas prices, the downturn in the housing market, the price of groceries, and where it all begins. I just know that we elected people that we thought were competent to help us, and have found them sorely lacking.

I am tired of hearing from these "experts" on what we're supposed to think about all these subjects. We are LIVING this stuff and it's not funny or something we need to work on (use coupons, drive less, turn off our heat/air conditioning, buy cheap food, as if we're not doing that already). Until Stossel and any of these other "experts" come up with anything that is feasible to solve what those of us in the "middle class" are going through, they should keep their thoughts to themselves.

And, please, no more stuff on what we should do with our "401(k)s." For the most part, those of us who participate in those hope to heaven that the administrator knows what they're doing, because we have neither the time nor resources to do anything about what is happening with them (as evidenced by those who had Enron or any of those other "sure things."

Long story short, stop the "elite" (those who are way over middle class) from deciding what we should be thinking and what we know.

Mary T. Gaudio

Carpentersville