READER PAT MCNIFF WRITES:

What financial crisis?

My wife and I just came back from going out to dinner. We ate at BJ’s Brewery which was packed with people waiting inside and outside.. Ditto Buffalo Wild Wings, PF Changs, Rock Fish , Buca de Pepo , California Pizza Kitchen, RA Sushi, Molly Branigans, etc…….

We live in the Mesa/Gilbert Arizona area which is about 25 miles east of Phoenix.. This area is supposedly the epicenter of declining home values and mortgage defaults…Well, not so much apparently…

Forget the bailout and the let the markets work….

I understand the point. My brother-in-law has a business hauling things — cars, boats, etc. — and says that he’s got more work than he can handle, and that there’s nothing like an economic slowdown visible. But the key word in “financial crisis” is “financial.” When McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are sound, he was talking about muscles and sinews. The problem we’ve got is more neurological.