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Really? So where are these 8.2 million? Living on the streets in cardboard boxes and eating at the Salvation Army? These claims aren't very believable. The country would look like the great depression with millions in soup lines.

They're entirely believable. Read the Wall Street Journal, for instance - middle-aged women are being laid off right and left; many of them go to live with their aging parents & end up taking care of them. A lot of husbands are staying home while their wives work. As was previously mentioned, many college grads or even young people in their late 20s are moving back in with their parents.

In short, I'd say the #1 reason you *don't* see Depression-style "hoovervilles" is because the Federal Reserve is doing all it can to keep credit rates incredibly low. Recently I read of the Fed proposing a *0-percent* overnight loan rate to banks. Right now people are racking up credit card and home equity debt like crazy, because they're banking on future inflation to wipe that debt down. But sooner or later the cheap credit / 0-cost credit pyramid is going to fall over.

Right now people are racking up credit card and home equity debt like crazy, because they're banking on future inflation to wipe that debt down.

Nope, they are spending on credit cards as they're just plain greedy and want a 2nd DVD player. Pay no attention to that man in the bankruptcy court line!

I wish the BLS would get their act together and stop trying to massage the PPI number into their "Rosy Forecaster V2.0" model and just present the raw data. Then they can move on to coalescing state bankruptcy figures into one manageable report.

Its going to be interesting seeing what happens in 3 years when people that had no business whatsoever buying a home but were sucked into it via low interest rate games are forced to sell it off. Might be a good time to pick up some cheap homes.

middle-aged women are being laid off right and left; many of them go to live with their aging parents & end up taking care of them.

How can people who are out of work move in with their aging parents, and take care of them? By eating out of garbage cans? Rob banks?

A lot of husbands are staying home while their wives work. As was previously mentioned, many college grads or even young people in their late 20s are moving back in with their parents.

So these 8.2 million people in the work force who've can't find work and have dropped off the unemployment roles have all moved back in with their parents or are letting their wives support them.

Wow. We must have a pretty prosperous society if 8.2 million workers can lose all their income and just be absorbed and become invisible to the unemployment stats by becoming dependants on by relatives who are making enough money to support them.