Economists and other pundits in the United States played the guessing game and got it most dreadfully wrong early this month. The consensus was that 180,000 new jobs, give or take a few thousand, would be added in March. Instead, only 88,000 jobs were created. Though the monthly numbers are sometimes erratic, this suggests that the U.S. economy is in a big mess.

More worryingly, if you scratch below the surface, there are good reasons for alarm about the American economy, both in the short term, where the political deadlock is beginning to do harm, and the medium term, where President Barack Obama above all people should be asking, "What price the Great American Dream?"

The answer is that the American dream is becoming unaffordable for too many people. That fits with the classic answer: If you have to ask the price of something, you cannot afford it.