Economics and High Anxiety

The debt-ceiling debate, S&P downgrade, trouble in Europe, wild stock-market gyrations and warnings about a double-dip recession or worse… The grinding reality of long-term unemployment is taking a heavy toll, and it's a looming threat in workplaces around the country. What are consumers, investors and middle class people to think? How can they look past all the bad news and make rational economic decisions? What's the impact of the prolonged anxiety on individuals, families, neighborhoods and the economy itself?