We’ve said it before, more than once: Jobs and housing will be the real indicators for how the depression pans out. Housing led us into this mess, it is one of the worst performing asset classes in America, it’s most people’s biggest investment, and bad mortgages (and their subsequent securitizations) have rendered our financial system impotent — at best. And jobs, well… people gotta work. When they don’t, all kinds of craziness ensues.

With prices testing their record high of $1,033 an ounce set last year gold has again become the hot topic of conversation.

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said it was impossible to tell a bubble while you were in it. Well Alan, I’ve got news for you: We’re in one now.

This recovery is wonderful in every way, except the important ones. It is like a shiny new airplane. It has glossy aluminum wings. It has plush seats in the first class section. Trim stewardesses serve drinks. Movies are available on demand in all sections…

As the summer draws to a close, the unemployment rate has stepped up 0.3%, to 9.7%, a level last seen coming out of the horrendous double-dip recession of 1980-2. Yes, private payrolls shed less than 200,000 jobs in August, which is a vast improvement over the nearly 750,000 jobs shed in the opening month of the year. But as summer draws to a close, look around and realize nearly one in 10 of your neighbors is chewing on their fingernails and trying to hustle up a new gig. Perhaps we should rename the recent holiday Unlabor Day, in honor of those sweating out one of the toughest job markets of the post-World War II period.

The stock market is up 51% from its March 9 lows. The leading economic indicators have turned sharply positive, showing gains for each of the last four months. Manufacturing is on the rebound. And banks are promising to pay record bonuses, as their earnings have rebounded.

Market prices should reflect underlying demand and supply. As in a vegetable stand, the prices come from the buying and selling of people in the market.

With vacation season ending in the Northern Hemisphere, we’ll start to see analysis rooted in experience and common sense driving stock prices. Through much of the summer, trading has been dominated by “quant” funds that are prone to “garbage in, garbage out” decision systems. You can see it in the tick-by-tick movements and in Level 2 quotes. These quant funds typically use backward-looking data on the U.S. economy to drive trading decisions, rather than assess how the outlook for the global economy has changed in the wake of last fall’s panic.

So what has stocks soaring now, during this great deleveraging — this credit crunch — this historic pullback in household balance sheets?

For U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, the biggest challenges are still to come.