If you read this blog regularly, you know that I have been a skeptic about the talk about the "green shoots" in the economy–the signs that somehow the economy is getting "better". I based most of my skeptical argument about the "green shoots" on a simple fact: until working people see that they have secure jobs with decent wages to take the place of a life on credit which is now gone, then, all the statistics showing more stuff being made somewhere or gyrations in the stock market are not relevant.

   And the people are clearly in the know:

Fifty-eight percent of those polled say the economic slide still has a ways to go, up from 52% in September and back to the level of pessimism expressed in July. Only 29% said the economy had "pretty much hit bottom," down from 35% last month.

But a dark national view of how everybody in Washington is conducting the public’s business appears to be preventing Republicans from benefiting from concerns about the direction of the country or the Democrat-led government’s handling of the economy, as the minority party often does.

   What is going on here is also simple: people know the truth and the political leadership isn’t listening, or it prefers "happy talk" to action. In fact, the other interesting part of this poll:

Indeed, for all the conservative clamor over Mr. Obama’s actions on the economy, 63% of respondents said the government has either done the right amount of intervention or needs to do more. Among loosely aligned voters in the middle of the electorate, a clear plurality, 42%, said government has done too little to fix the economy.

   So, you can throw out the usual political spectrum discussion about how the country is divided. People need help and want help.