Are people on Wall Street and Main Street living in the same economy? Sometimes it's tough to tell.

A whopping 65% of Americans now believe that a recession is coming in the next year and 51% believe the economy is doing poorly, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey. Wall Street executives predicted a 37% chance of a recession, according to a Financial Services Forum survey released last week by the Financial Services Forum.

The differences aren't shocking. When average folks look at the chart of the Dow Jones industrial average, they probably think it looks like an EKG of someone who is having a heart attack. The market moves up and down in triple-digit increments with an alarming regularity. The housing market is horrible. Many people aren't sure if their job will be the next to be shifted overseas to a low-cost country.

Veteran investor Jim Rogers recently told London's Telegraph that the U.S. economy is "undoubtedly in recession. Many parts of industry are actually in a state worse than recession. If it were not for (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke putting huge amounts of money into the market, the stock market would probably be down much more."

Of course, Rogers is correct. The lowered interest rates gave the stock market a needed confidence booster, which may explain the optimism of the Financial Services Forum survey. Retail sales in September rose at a higher-than-expected rate. Consumers, at least some of them anyway, continue to spend. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: APPL) reported outstanding results, showing that people are confident enough to shell out big bucks for iPhones and iPods.

So, the question for the Federal Reserve and Chairman Ben Bernanke at next week's meeting is whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.