Question: Do you think today’s fashion statements by youths are worse than the one’s you made during your formative years?

When I see them I can’t help but wonder.

How long does it take them to put on the uniform?

You know the one. Baggy pants with their boxer shorts pulled high in the back so the entire world can admire their taste in underwear. Untucked shirt, complete with the latest rock bank or video game jargon blazened across the front. At least, I guess that’s what all those graphics are all about. Being near fossilized, I have no idea to what things of great importance to which the $25 T-shirts of today make reference.

Of course, no ensemble is complete without the baseball cap - slightly askew - sitting atop a head of hair that typically needs a good scrubbing.

And about those boxer shorts.

Certainly mom must be buying the things. It doesn’t seem likely the people wearing the uniforms would spend money on underwear when the world is filled with so many video games to purchase. So why doesn’t she know what size underwear her little darlin’ wears? The boxer shorts are pulled up so high one would think the only possible product of such an effort would be a falsetto.

Yeah, it’s true.

I’m old and grumpy.

The fact is sometimes those creatures we call teenage boys can get under my skin. This despite the fact I was one once and I was just as goofy and clueless n and sometimes surly - as today’s crop. But I don’t remember fashion being of such import to me and my adolescent colleagues. Today’s teen boy is not only coiffed, but often times tinted. It is safe to say that any boy who tinted his hair back in the day would have been de-pants in the hall between class.

But it works.

All this fashion stuff.

Oh, how the teenage girls do swoon.

So it is, 40 years too late, that I discover the way to make young girls titter and go all lightheaded was to wear my undershorts baggier than my shirts.

The lesson, of course, is that with the proper packaging even a teenage boy, stinky feet and all, can be transformed into something quite fetching.

Like this federal stimulus plan.

With the inauguration fast approaching, the frenzy over the rescue plan continues to build. We are told that the entire package must be passed within a week of him taking office.

We just don’t know how big it will be. And it grows every day.

Originally president-elect Obama suggested we borrow $500 billion and spend it quickly on various building projects. Then the figure increased to $750 billion so we could also help various industries. Now the number has jumped to $1 trillion dollars. The latest batch of added spending would be used to prop up state governments where for many years spending increases have far exceeded inflation rates.

The economic slowdown cannot be ignored. The process, however, has become disconcerting. A few months ago a suggestion to borrow $250 billion would have prompted considerable debate. Yet in the last few weeks that very idea has been trebled with hardly a murmur of dissent.

Some of that is because who is now in control. Government spending appeals to Democrats. The fact the current administration appears to be completely befuddled only serves to feed the urgency.

But what really appears to be happening is that this recession, unlike countless others, is being dressed up as something that demands immediate action at the expense of serious review and consideration.

Perhaps President Bush’s critics are right. Given his performance and lack of leadership since September he does appear to be in over his head. He is as feckless as, well n a teenage boy.

There is a risk that readers will think I have an unhealthy aversion to teenage boys. Sure. Given the number of readers, it would be a small risk. But the charge is not true. Teenage boys are fun to be around. Full of energy, expectations, humor and vigor. And, once you look past the goofy hair, decent people. It’s just that I know that with a few years of seasoning, they will be much improved.

It’s not clear we can say the same for the rescue package.

DAN HAMMES is publisher of this newspaper.