It is going to take the concerted effort of a lot of voices to overcome the noise being generated by the people who would like us to think that economic salvation is at hand. So, we need to keep pointing out some harsh realities facing real people. For example:

The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.

….The economic downturn also has prompted more middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy protection. Overall, personal bankruptcy filings hit 1.41 million last year, up 32% from 2008, according to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, which compiles and analyzes bankruptcy data. It is the highest level of consumer-bankruptcy fillings since 2005. [emphasis added]

   I would like someone to please explain the logic of proclaiming an economic recovery because manufacturing has increased a bit when (a) we are still well below any sense of employment growth that would bring back millions of jobs and (b) people who are working are doing so at a level of wages that has not grown in 30 years (so, understandably, the level of personal bankruptcy has risen because if costs continue to rise but wages don’t, you can’t keep up) and (c) personal debt remains quite high and (d) credit has evaporated and (e) the moon is made of green cheese.

   Ok, I threw in "e" to make the point about the absurdity of the whole exercise of looking for "recovery" when we have not changed the fundamental frame of our economy. We are not having a serious debate if we continue to look to the "free market" for revival–witness the reliance on the health insurance industry to "fix" the health care system, the very sick system the health insurance industry created, or the mind-boggling notion that the "free market" can "fix" climate change, after the "free market" created the very conditions that have crippled the planet.

   We have to get serious.