When is a crisis not a crisis?

I've been out of work for over a year now, losing a job due to some political machinations at a nonprofit I worked for, and in the interim the job prospects have gotten more and more bleak. Lately, any job I have applied for, including the barest of part time ones, have 30 to 50 applicants. It is bleak out here, and it seems only to be getting bleaker.

With employment reaching levels not seen in over two decades, and all elements of the economy in a tailspin, at what point does the situation become dramatic enough for ALL the elected representatives to stop dicking around and start looking for some solutions? A good start would be real assistance for people who truly can't find work in their fields. It's not that we're not looking, it's that the jobs aren't there.

Instead, we have a class of political animal in denial about just how bad it is. And believe me folks, the stock market is not the indicator of how things are going for the average guy on the street. Bailouts for the AIGs and Citibanks don't reach the folks who are scrambling to make ends meet.