Even during the best of times during the internet boom years, there were people who were being laid off, who lost their house, who lost their life savings, who declaired bankrupcy. With nearly 300 milllion Americans, every economic situation possible is happening at any given time.

This means you have to look at the aggregate, which is why we have these numbers released by the various agencies on how the economy is doing.

At right now, it is doing pretty darn well. In the aggregate, Americans are better off financially than they were three years ago, and no amount of handwaving by Kerry is going to change that.