A final thought on the way out of Commerce this Friday, about the topic du jour: The real economy and when it might get better.

Since the experts haven’t been able to figure it out, when I was here yesterday, I asked around.

Remember Michael Gray, the guy that sold off all his stocks six months ago?

Ryssdal: Did you swallow hard that day you decided to liquidate your portfolio?

Michael Gray: Not at all. I mean, you cannot read the newspaper and look at what’s on television — there’s absolutely no sanity in it anymore.

Harold Nelson’s retired, was here looking for bargains. He calls himself a realist.

Harold Nelson: It took us what — six, seven, 10 years to get into this mess? It’s going to take us about the same thing, same time to get out of this mess. The whole nation as one got to come together and dig us out. We’ve got to dig out slowly.

Two voices in a much bigger story.