The most compelling argument against the view that the economy doesn't need job growth to recover is based on the notion that we don't really need a middle class, thanks to the extraordinary spending feats of the wealthy.

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about based on a recent Merrill Lynch analysis.

The thing is, this seems to be more of an argument for why the bubble can be recreated without real economic growth, as that's what we experienced during the period between the bursting of the Internet bubble and the end of the one based on housing.

Remember, job growth during the ensuing "recovery" was the weakest of any such period since the Great Depression.

So tell me how the wealth effect alone would change that? And even if did more than move stock prices up without broader gains, how can a nation that's supposed to be democratic sustain itself over any length of time on such a basis?

In fact, this sounds more like a recipe for riots in the streets. Maybe the richest fraction of a percent will be happy to live with those so long as they're safely behind concertina wire and blast bunkers. But that sounds more like a banana republic than the U.S. of A. to me. I've seen that sort of thing up close in Latin America, and it's not pretty.

And a more comotose version of it would be no more attractive, at least not to me.