You have probably already heard the news that the U.S. unemployment rate finally rose above 10 percent to 10.2 percent. This was much higher than the 9.9 percent that economists had predicted.

To me this number is meaningless except as a psychological reminder. To me the "numbers" that matter are the uncounted millions of people affected by this social disease. Of more concern to me than the grossly deflated official unemployment rate are the 190,000 jobs that were lost in October. That's 190,000 households hit, 190,000 more sh*tty holidays, 190,000 more competing for the few (if any) jobs that are available, 190,000 more people to become depressed -- 190,000 lives (plus their families) turned upside down.

Yet I watch the World Series and see that there are still plenty of people willing to pay thousands of dollars for one seat at one baseball game. I read that Wall Street executives expect another record bonus year. I see vapid celebrities walking down Park Avenue, decked out in spades in designer wares, getting into limousines driven by burly, surly men with their hands ever ready to grab whatever that bulge is under their jackets.

I see migrant workers hungry for work and just hungry, hanging out drinking cheap booze all day, stinking and sweaty with the toxins of it, not the sweet perspiration of a day's work. I see children who will wonder why Santa didn't visit them this year even though they've been such angels. I see marriages falling apart. I see cities and towns falling into ruin before my very eyes.

I see politicians telling us that their stimulus package "saved or created" 600,000 jobs at a cost of $400 billion -- only about $125,000 per job saved or created. I see politicians doing back flips to serve their corporate masters in the health insurance industry and their pay masters who make money sending our brothers and sisters off to kill and die.

I see economists telling us that the "recession" is over and that this is a jobless recovery. I see them cranking out rosy GDP growth figures of 3.9 percent, pulling those figures from the vast data archives in their bungholes, apparently.

It was exactly the same in the USSR just before it collapsed -- a spoiled elite trying desperately to maintain a failed system. It's exactly the same, right down to the eight-year losing proposition in Afghanistan.

And all I can say about it is that it pisses. me. off.