These talking heads choose to ignore the more important story of this economy, which is captured by Bob Herbert in the NYTimes, who points out that the unemployment numbers for other than the rich and the middle classes are worse than in the Great Depression.

"The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.

Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.

The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent."


"These are the kinds of jobless rates that push families already struggling on meager incomes into destitution. And such gruesome gaps in the condition of groups at the top and bottom of the economic ladder are unmistakable signs of impending societal instability. This is dangerous stuff. Nothing good can come of vast armies of the unemployed just sitting out there, simmering."


See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html?th&emc=th