I have already written about how unemployment trickles down to an already destroyed real estate market and prevents a real recovery. But what I didn't talk about is the social cost of pervasive and extended unemployment. When we talk about the practical side of folks losing their jobs we focus on well, the practical.

People who become unemployed and particularly those that stay that way for a while suffer:

• Loss of income.
• Loss of income leads to declining credit scores and loss of health insurance.
• Declining credit scores lead to lower credit lines, higher rates and higher minimum payments.
• No income plus higher rates and payments leads to even worse cash flow.
• All of the above contribute to loss of savings for emergencies, education, and retirement.
• Tapping savings to pay ordinary living expenses and credit card debt can lead to foreclosure.
• Foreclosure leads to no place to live and that coupled with bad credit and no cash leads to difficulty even renting a home.

This pattern is by no means exhaustive and doesn't apply directly in every case, but every American that has ever been unemployed knows that all of the above can all happen in less than a year and leave lasting effects that take years and years to overcome and that's just the practical side.

While all of the practical stuff is going on, let's think about how it feels and what that means.

• Loss of employment and income leads to loss of self-esteem and loss of confidence.
• Worry and stress from financial problems leads to health problems, lack of sleep, alcoholism and drug use.
• Financial stress can lead to marital stress which can manifest itself in divorce, domestic violence and poverty.
• Children living in these circumstances lose ground in school and can suffer social stigma through no fault of their own.

And on and on and on. The long and the short of it is that President Obama and our do-nothing Congress should pay attention to the timing of their next moves. I know young men who are joining the Army because its the only way they can survive financially in the current environment. I suggest that there would be a civilian equivalent to military service not unlike the CCC or the WPA from the Great Depression days. I don't think the answer is maintaining what amounts to an economic military draft tp provide fodder for the seemingly endless slog in Afghanistan. Maybe we could spend that money training and employing citizens to upgrade and replace our failing infrastructure, or be retrained with pay for a new job without having to be shot at while they do it..

Do we need a health care overhaul? - YES! Do we need tort reform? - YES! Do we need stimulus for new home buyers? YES!  But we need for people to be gainfully employed before any of the rest of it really matters. Even though Mr. Obama must be really frustrated with having to clean up eight years of ill-advised foreign wars, bankers run amok, and general financial idiocy of the first order. Sadly though, that is now Job 1. We have to delay the other stuff and get folks working again and pretty soon.