I don't get it.

I read, rather than watched, Obama's state of the union address, and totally ignored anyone who wanted to analyze it for me until after the reading was finished.

I liked most of what I heard...of course, I wanted to like it. I admit it. I'd like to see a president move us into a new age of fiscal and societal responsibility. Do I believe it?

Not yet.

Although I heard nothing about developing nuclear power plants, I was a bit disappointed to see, among the three anecdotes relating positive values of Americans, one that so blatantly showed one of the huge problems in the United States.

We had a story about the rebuilding of a small town that was destroyed by a tornado, a story about a poor young girl writing to the president, and this one just doesn't seem to fit right,....a story about a man who gives away a $60 million bonus.

Now, Mr. Abess is not the point of my diatribe. He is certainly to be commended for his selfless act, though, if he had need of the money, I suspect he would not have done as he did.

I have railed for years about a newspaper article that mentioned a bank president, 20+ years ago, receiving a one year bonus of $5 million dollars. And this bonus was twelve times that.

That's the part I just don't get. No one, and I repeat... no one, I have have known, seen, talked to, heard of, smelt, felt, touched, read about, or in any other way sensed, thought of, or experienced, has been worth this kind of money,... and the system that gives away that sort of 'free' cash is, in some way, flawed. Period.

Both these examples are banks. Sure, banks are in business. But if they have this kind of 'extra' money, they are charging rates that are too high, or are not paying back enough to the people loaning them money. Bank penalties have done nothing but climb, for years, far outstripping pay scales, the cost of living, and the cost of doing business.

Don't misunderstand me....I love the freedom to go into business and to succeed or fail, .... make a pile of money, if you can. But what I really love is a small business, or a large business that thinks small...cares about its people, shares its profits with the people who make it successful, treats the public as if they were respected customers, and charges what it needs to make a decent profit...no more, no less. Oh, yeah...and strives for quality.

Once a company, or corporation, begins to think it deserves special consideration for its 'needs', starts to meddle in government to the detriment of the consumer, and finds its products in need of excessive advertising to make a sale, its useful life should be considered over.

I'm all for new and tough regulations on the financial and every other industry. I'm all for kicking corporate donations out of politics. Let them do like the rest of us....vote. They are a small number of people buying out-sized consideration for their own world-changing game. The issues of the world are too important to trust to people buying political favor.

And I wonder, with corporations being guaranteed the right to donate to the politician of their choice, which constitutional right of the 'individual' will they try to claim next?......the right to bear arms?

There just seems to be way too much money that people at the 'top' don't really know what to do with, so they throw it at other people who, though probably very good at what they do, aren't really worth multi-millions. Seriously.

I admit it....this part of what Americans put up with, I just don't get.