Those who pay attention to the correct economic things know that our economic “recovery” is a recovery only by the loosest possible definition.

The jobs report the feds released Wednesday has even less bearing on reality. The most important number, the U6 — unemployed, underemployed and stopped looking — actually went up from May. Given the Obama administration’s proclivity to quietly revising downward economic news — the economy did not just shrink in the first quarter, it shrunk by 2.9 percent, halfway to an actual recession — you can assume whatever good news you read is not fact.

Some blind Obama-booster last week claimed more Americans are going on vacation. That assertion without facts is belied by, as I pointed out one three-day weekend ago, the visual evidence of adult toys — campers, boats, motorcycles and other non-essential transportation — for sale by owner. You don’t sell something like that after you bought a new toy; you sell them because you can’t afford to use them anymore.

The latest piece of evidence of our craptacular economy, which encompasses the entire Obama presidency (if that’s what you want to call what’s happened since Jan. 20, 2009) comes from Against Crony Capitalism:

For a family of 4 it takes roughly this much money per year to live the “American Dream” (Most families don’t come close.)

Answer: $130,000/year.

In places like Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco it costs a heck of a lot more than that. Life is not inexpensive. The median income per household in the USA by the way is about $51,000/year. So good news everyone, you’re almost halfway there!

Wages adjusted for inflation are actually in decline and have been since the beginning of the Great Recession. This is what happens in a crony economy. The connected get wealthier, and those on the outside have to hustle that much harder.

Are you a banker with access to Federal Reserve funds or a government employee who has a guaranteed COLA built into your taxpayer funded job (And ridiculous pension), or a government contractor which has ridden the wave of warfare over the last 10 years? Well, then things haven’t been so bad for you over the past few years. The productive part of the economy? Well, we live in reality.

And I sure am glad the Middle Income Healthcare Redistribution Act aka Obamacare went through. (And don’t forget the health insurance corporations wrote a bailout for themselves into the law.)  Middle class folks have plenty to spare. Yeah, Obamcare is “fair.” 

I am about done with the word “fair.”

The $130,000 figure comes from a USA Today story, which includes this conclusion from Marketwatch’s Howard R. Gold:

It sounds like a lot — and it is in a country where the median household income is about $51,000. Add one more child and another vehicle and you could easily reach $150,000

There are big regional variations, too. It costs a lot less to live the American dream in, say, Indianapolis or Tulsa than it does in metro areas like New York and San Francisco, where housing prices and taxes are sky high.

And many people achieve the dream on much less. Some immigrants, for example, have extended families and other support systems to help bear the burden.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that though the American dream is still alive, fewer and fewer of us can afford to live it.

There are those who believe the Great Depression was ended by the Franklin Roosevelt alphabet-soup agencies. They are wrong. The next believe is that the Great Depression was ended by World War II. They are also wrong. What ended the Great Depression was the end of World War II, and thus the end of rationing and forced saving, instead of consumer spending.

Our future will probably not include a world war. But then what will end the Great Recession? Anything? Nothing?