To recap, Barack Hussein Obama is a socialist/Marxist who won’t produce his birth certificate in court because it will prove he is an Indonesian and thus ineligible to spread the wealth around, though he won’t even help his destitute Kenyan half-brother and a loving aunt.

Furthermore, he pals around with domestic terrorists, devious developers and an anti-Semitic Semitic professor. Plus, he married a woman who only recently became proud to be an American but who is hiding her college writings that show her true colors as the kind of woman who would marry a radical Muslim who is – come on, we all know it – an Arab.

While in church, he happily imbibed the angry lectures of a racist, separatist pastor, but on the campaign trail he launched a jeremiad against a patriotic plumber with a hypothetical question. Before that, he lit the fuse on the sexist torchings of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

This same man refuses to wear a flag pin, won’t hold his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance and votes to defund the very troops who make his freedoms possible. He trembles at the thought of declaring victory in Iraq. No wonder he was sworn into office with a Quran.

Guess we’ll find out on Tuesday how much of that stuck.

Fall into the gap. I know it’s popular to bash homeowners for taking out reckless loans. I certainly don’t condone that, but I can understand why they took the leap.

Their incomes were lagging even while productivity rose. They did do more with less, but they were rewarded with less. Typically, incomes rise with productivity growth, but that tie has been severed. Pensions have been eliminated or curtailed. Retirement funds are on a scary rollercoaster ride. Meanwhile, key costs such as gasoline, college and health care have outpaced inflation. It looked as if the only way to build wealth was to buy a house and ride the American Dream Express.

After the scolding is over, one question remains: Now what?

Paychecked. How bad has salary erosion gotten in this country? Well, for the longest time those living on a fixed income struggled to keep up with the rest. Last year, Social Security benefits were bumped up by 2.3 percent. Historically, that would be a ho-hum increase, but this year median weekly wages for a full-time worker have fallen by 1.6 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

In fact, wages have stagnated for many years, but the housing bubble masked the effects because people could draw on their equity. Now, one in five households owes more on their homes than they’re worth.

Remember the outrage when the city of Spokane granted 5 percent raises to its largest employee union? Well, Social Security benefits will be rising by 5.8 percent next year. You know wages are bad when a fixed income starts looking sweet.