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Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:

Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.

Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.

Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.

DHMO is a major component of acid rain.

Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.

Contributes to soil erosion.

Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.

Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.

Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.

Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.

Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks.

Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.

Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.

Bill Bonner says the last 37 years have been one big economic illusion. People felt richer. But it was a misleading sensation. What they really did was spend more money than they had by loading up on debt. And the Fed encouraged it. Now we are finding out about the real world…

Maybe James Kunstler is right; maybe the whole “cartoon” period is over. Kunstler argues that the suburbs produced houses that were only parodies of the real thing. The porches were only meant to look like porches - from a distance. There were picture windows, but no pictures worth looking at - just another cartoon house across the road. And the shutters were not real shutters - but mock shutters you couldn’t close.

What occurs to us is that his critique of modern suburban architecture applies to the whole economic period, beginning in the early 70s…and lasting right up until the present. The GDP grew, but it was mock growth, not the real thing. People spent money they didn’t have buying things they didn’t need. People felt richer, but it was ersatz wealth - a misleading sensation caused by inflation of their house prices, credit cards, cheap products at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and home equity lines.

The whole economic model was a scam. You can’t really get rich by spending more money. It’s saving money…and investing it in productive enterprises…that makes you rich. Yet, for the last 30 years, the feds have been encouraging consumer spending as a way to boost the economy. Wall Street turned over trillions of dollars - pretending to “add value” by better allocating capital and credit. What it really did was to pay itself huge fees for loading down the whole society with debt.

And even the wealth supposedly created in the stock market turned out to be phony. Compared to increases in the price of gasoline, the Dow went nowhere for the last 40 years.

”It's very frustrating, and even as I said, for the students who come in here who say: ‘Wait a minute, you're asking me to do all this. I don't know how to do this. I don't have enough time to do this. I'm not used to doing this. I don't want to do it" said Dr. Rodriguez.

Dr. Rodriguez believes high school tests reward students for minimal knowledge, which won’t work in college where professors expect you to know how to read and comprehend complex sentences. She says college professors don’t grade you on whether you try, but what’s right.

There are no points for effort, like some students got away with in high school.

”We have watered down too much material, and a lot of teachers know that," said Dr. Rodriguez.

The students will tell you themselves what the focus was in high school. And then there's math. There are some students in these remedial courses who cannot add, subtract, or do basic multiplication. And one professor says calculators are a big problem.