Economists and politicians keep their fingers on the pulse of the Dow Jones Average, following every tick of this narrow measure of Wall Street wealth.

But the truer indicator of America's economic health is in the Doug Jones Average — how are workaday folks like Doug and Doreen doing? After all, the experts tell us that we're now entering the third year of a glorious economic recovery from the Great Recession, so surely the bluebirds of happiness are chirping again in Dougland. But, listen: silence.

What killed off the bluebirds is the same greed of moneyed elites that caused the crash. Since the recession ended in July 2009, CEO pay is back in the stratosphere, corporate profits are up by nearly half, corporations are sitting on a record $2 trillion in cash, and the perky Dow Jones Average has soared by a delirious 90 percent, with nearly all of that gain being pocketed by the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans who own more that 80 percent of all stocks and bonds. The sounds you hear up there are the pop-pop-pop of Champagne corks.

Yet more that half of Americans say the recession is still raging in their zip codes, and nearly a third of them describe it as a full-blown depression. What's bugging these party poopers? Reality.

In this "recovery," those at the top of corporate America are practicing tinkle-down economics, refusing to hire the Dougs and Doreens, while eliminating hundreds of thousands of other jobs, knocking down wages and benefits, and unleashing their lobbyists on Washington and state capitals to shred jobless programs, health care, education, worker rights and other basics that sustain America's middle class.

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