Molly Ivins May 4

SAN FRANCISCO — A conference titled "New Horizons in Acid Suppression" took place here over the weekend. Just thought all you indigestion sufferers would like to know that the conferees seemed to be a peppy bunch, bonded well and parted with regret. Hopeful signs all.

Anne Lamott, one of the wise people of our time, says she has an infallible moral compass — to wit, Henry Kissinger. Whatever Kissinger is in favor of, she is against, and vice versa. "If he said, 'Eat meat,' I'd go vegan; if he said, 'Low fat,' I'd do Zone," she mused.

The good news is that Kissinger is dead-set against our actions in Kosovo — thinks we should not be involved at all. This is splendid reassurance for those of us who have been knotting our brows and dithering about whether we're doing the right thing. Since the old war criminal is against it, we must be on the high road to righteousness.

Further signs of our times: Widely reported last week as entirely separate factoids were two rather obviously linked pieces of news.

The first is that the economy continues to grow at what many experts consider a "surprisingly robust" rate, a nice plump 4.5 percent in the first quarter of this year. The second piece of economic news is "U.S. Workers' Pay Rose at Slowest Rate on Record."

The Labor Department's Employment Cost Index, which measures what employers spend on workers' wages, salaries and benefits, rose 0.4 percent in the first quarter of the year. That is the smallest quarterly gain since the department began publishing the series 17 years ago. This was actually reported by some media as ... good news. No need to worry about inflation or about Alan Greenspan raising interest rates to stop inflation.

My inventive colleagues in the financial press even tracked down experts who explained that this was not "necessarily" a bad sign for workers because their salaries are still running ahead of inflation. Naturally, none of the "experts" was from labor, which does have excellent economists; they were all with the financial industry. Does anyone remember when the media stopped calling labor economists when there was news about workers' wages and started calling people on Wall Street instead?

I know you can connect the dotted line for yourself here, but this isn't even trickle-down economics.

These are crumbs from the table on which the banquet is being held.

Here we are in this strange never-never land where we are constantly told that the economy is booming, the country has never been so prosperous, it's unparalleled, unexcelled. But we get no sense of the reality of this "boom," of the inequity it is creating. USA Today, in one of its snapshot graphics, reports that 60 percent of the people with children in this country struggle to pay their bills, as do 52 percent of those without children.

I can already hear the charming Marie Antoinettes on the right sniffing, "Well, they shouldn't buy so much." Would that it were that simple.

Back in the '60s, there was a hilarious vogue among liberals — sort of a minor, early version of the dottiness that inspired the Leonard Bernsteins to invite the Black Panthers over for drinks — in which well-to-do liberals would agree to live on a welfare budget for a week. It was, of course, a well-intentioned gesture — liberals really are sweet people — but the results were often uproarious, as the children of prominent liberals rebelled completely. I recall Mrs. Walter Mondale stating that she "drew the line at eating grits."

But I'm beginning to think the income gap in this country is now so dramatic that something like that is needed. The media no longer report on poverty in this country (with apologies to Jason DeParle), and of course, there is so much economic segregation that many of us rarely see the signs of poverty.

Dan Quayle, of all people, played the class card recently in his singularly dippy statement on guns. He said that beyond our "gated communities" lurks a world so full of danger and violence that it would be madness to go unarmed there. Or words to that effect. He cited the waitress who works at night and must cross the parking lot by herself, and he asked who would dare take her gun away.

By "gated communities," he meant, of course, those lily-white suburbs full of expensive homes — like Littleton, Colo. Still, at least he sees the gap.

I am not arguing that there is widespread hunger in America — although there are counties in South Texas where it is still appallingly prevalent. What I am saying is that the fruits of this economic boom have been so unevenly distributed that we now have a social, cultural and economic gap between the decision-making elites in this country and the majority of the people that should scare any thoughtful person. And that gap is not even part of the mainstream political debate.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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