November 4, 2003 - Conan Doyle created the World's Greatest Consulting Detective in a simple time when the vegetable compound in Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound was opium and the Coke in Coca-Cola was cocaine. He gave his hero one vice - one vice if you don't call fiddling around wit the violin a vice. It was a medical one. Sherlock was addicted to a seven-percent solution of cocaine administered by injection. That vice became the subject of one of the many pastiche written after the author's death put Holmes and Watson seeming beyond the reach of mortal men.

After 10 quarters of contraction the Gross Domestic Product grew for the first time in the second quarter of 2003. If you did not compare it with the second quarter of 2000 and looked only at the rate of growth the economy seemed to be on the mend. The 7.2 percent growth rate was the greatest since the economy turned around in 1984. According to the administration the economy has come roaring back.

I suppose it has if you are one of the fortunate few whose income is only taxed at the 15 percent capital gains rate. But most Americans view of the economy is not defined by the macro-economic statistics published by the Commerce Department. Most American's view of the economy is defined when they reconcile their bank statement or calculate their balance after they visit the grocery store. They, and the 3 Million American's who watched their jobs exported as the Republicans turned the economic clock back to the tax free third quarter of the 19 th Century don't see that 7.2 percent as a solution to their economic woes. When the pay check - if there is a pay check - doesn't stretch to cover the bills 7.2 percent is not the solution.

In 1984 Fritz Mondale asked of the Reagan recovery. "Where is the beef?" playing off a popular television commercial. The question for 2004 will be where are the jobs? The question won't be asked by a candidate. It will be asked by the people who lost them and are falling off the unemployment rolls.

Sherlock's self medication may have eased the pain caused by the stress of being the World's Greatest Consulting Detective, but it did not improve the state of his health. It was merely a palliative, a feel good measure. The 7.2 growth rate is not a curative for what ails the American economy, it is not a solution. It may make some Republicans and their clients feel good, easing the pain of total control of government that brings total responsibility for the results. It won't restore life to a moribund economy or put food on American tables.