ALICE: "Hello again. You look very pleased."

CAT, JUMPING UP AND DOWN EXCITEDLY: "The economy is picking up! The economy is picking up!"

ALICE: "That's great. Does that mean more people will be working in good jobs?"

CAT: "Certainly. There's a boom in computer technology jobs in Calcutta right now."

ALICE: "But what about here at home?"

CAT, EVADING HER QUESTION: "That just goes to show what you can do when people spend their tax cut money and stimulate the economy. The private sector now is rebounding from Clinton's poor economy."

ALICE, BRIGHTENING: "Oh, are the new jobs good ones in manufacturing?"

CAT: "Well, all the new jobs created last January were with the government, and many of the jobs created since are low-paying service jobs. But I'm sure that more good jobs will be created as soon as King Bush makes the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent."

ALICE: "But you said before that the wealthy might spend their money abroad. My father said companies might even build factories in China."

CAT: "Little girl, you just don't understand the Global Economy that all the Republicans have been pushing for. Didn't you listen to King Bush's top economic advisor when he explained that it is a good thing in the long run for us to export jobs? When we export jobs to countries with lower wages, the multi-national corporations can import the goods and sell them to the U.S. consumers at lower prices. That frees up American manufacturing workers to help out as aides in the nursing homes or as clerks in stores. In the long run everybody benefits."

ALICE PONDERED A MOMENT: "I heard my grandfather talk about the Great Depression in the 1930s. He said that Harry Hopkins, one of President Roosevelt's aides, wanted to start a program to put the unemployed back to work. When another aide said that in the long run it would be cheaper to wait until a different program could be started, Hopkins complained, 'People don't eat in the long run. They eat every day.' "

CAT, SPEAKING SHARPLY AS HE FADED AWAY: "Americans are too fat anyway."