So, You Call This a Recovery?

Yes, I know that the stock market is a "leading indicator," meaning that its ups and downs precede the rest of the economy. However, a "jobless recovery" is an oxymoron and a "still losing jobs but only more slowly recovery is an insult to normal intelligence.

So, maybe recovery means something else. Maybe it means that we are recovering our senses, our balance our values and turning away from what got us into the slough of despond. Maybe recovery is like my friends who are in Recovery Programs, who realize that they have hit bottom and started behaving differently. No, that doesn't seem to fit either.

We don't seem to have learned anything or changed anything. The insurance companies, banks and brokerages are still paying bonuses for bad performance, still upping interest rates charged and service fees inserted. They are still not significantly helping the middle class by modifying loans or lending to small business to increase jobs.

Those who can are paying off some debt, but for those newly unemployed or underemployed, they're maxing out. And, most critically, those insurance/banks/brokerages that were "too big to fail" have gotten bigger, having swallowed up their smaller failing former competitors.