Telltale stat: U.S. now has 6 unemployed people for every job opening

High unemployment: not good for the market

Further, investors, particularly those employed and/or who are doing well financially, should not look at the unemployment rate as merely a personal or labor issue. Unemployment is directly correlated with corporate revenue and earnings. True, for a time, revenue and earnings can advance without job growth, but sustained GDP growth is not possible without job growth, and a lack of the latter will eventually drag down revenue and earnings.

High unemployment also increases public social spending costs at every government level, and leads to a host of other social concerns.

More broadly, from a theoretical standpoint, the whole point of the American economic system is: profits and jobs. Briefly, profits and jobs are the reasons Americans endure so many more hardships than their European brethren. Take the former away and irritants occur; take the latter away, and social and political pressure for change builds.

By extension, for those who think the current economic system is just fine, and don't want any reforms, certainly not liberal reforms from the Democratic Party, here's some advice: support policies, private and public, that promote domestic job growth, and the more jobs, the better.

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Financial Editor Joseph Lazzaro is writing a book on the U.S. presidency and the U.S. economy.