For the first time on record, the unemployment rate rose in all 50 states in December. Tennessee has started a program to process mass unemployment claims. I guess that's like the modern-day version of a soup line. California can't even do that because its unemployment fund is now officially tapped out.

You hear all these numbers, but it just doesn't seem dramatic enough to be what it is. You expect soup lines or tent cities or something. But this is a stealth depression. This is millions of people isolated from each other, suffering in silence. Yeah, the government just printed 800 billion more dollars today. I still ain't got no steady job, though... shee-it.

Welcome to the Greater Depression™, made all the more depressing by its lack of drama. I wonder if the Great Depression seemed like The Grapes of Wrath for most people, or if it was just kind of like, "Ho-hum, the government printed more money. States and cities are broke. Companies are broke. Let's go to the talkies."