We sat down together in a cozy room on a small sofa with a fireplace in front of us and a table with a selection of teas and two massage therapists.  Our “couples massage” would begin with a twenty-five minute foot massage and cup of green tea.  She began massaging my wife’s feet and asked us if we were affected by the down economy.  Not expecting a question like that, I said, “Why do you ask?”  She replied, “Because without folks like you who can afford to come to a resort like this and get a couples massage for several hundred dollars, I’d be out of a job.”

There I was with my wife celebrating our forty-first anniversary at a resort in Vermont getting a wonderful foot massage when I was reminded of how our economy really works.  And because of me and others who are financially able; two massage therapists were employed today.

Funny, I thought, President Obama doesn’t seem to get it.  He doesn’t appear to be seeing the whole picture and the interrelatedness of our economic system.  Folks like my wife and me who have worked hard all of our lives are the people who can afford to spend a costly weekend at a resort employing a lot of good people.  How many of us could afford do that if Obama got his way and increased our taxes even more.  Surely, an unintended consequence would be fewer visits to resorts and fewer massage therapists doing the work they love.

It was abundantly clear as we were later moved to two heated massage tables that these two therapists were pleased that I was financially successful.  Jan, one of them said quite candidly, “without wealthy people, I’d have to find another job and I love this work.  That’s a far cry from Obama’s pitting the poor against the rich to buy votes and redistribute income, I thought.

There I was, several hundred miles away in Vermont for a relaxing weekend being reminded about our president’s apparent lack of understanding about human nature and how our economy really works.  Generally speaking, working folks don’t resent successful people and successful people don’t resent working folks.  That seems to be the democratic mantra though.  Very disturbing!   And they always point to the ‘pigs’ on Wall Street as their justification.

When our massage was over, my wife and I enjoyed a glass of champagne and toasted our anniversary and wonderful good fortune.  We were a couple of working class kids who started our married life together with $1,250.00 total and we’ve lived and experienced the “American Dream.”   It occurred to me that President Obama would have you believe every successful person who raises a glass of champagne in celebration of an event is taking a glass of milk from a needy person somewhere else.  He would have you believe that economics is a zero-sum game where someone wealthy (a republican naturally) got there by taking something from a worker (a democrat).  Nothing could be further from the truth, just ask the massage therapists at Top Notch Resort in Stowe, Vermont.

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