In this phase of an uncertain recovery and a still roaring stock market, the labels bull and bear have limited utility in describing the state of the American economy.

A better word might be Whitmanesque, since the jumbled currents of the market and the renascent economy evoke the distinctive American voice of the mid-19th century: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

The multitudes that now demand attention are the millions of people who've swollen the ranks of the unemployed, the millions of shares bought as domestic equity markets rose and also the millions of dollars that are heading to the overseas funds cashing in on the global recovery.

Citigroup's Tobias Levkovich noted Thursday that investors pulled $4.7 billion from total equity funds for the week ending Nov. 4, but that domestic funds suffered outflows of $5.25 billion while foreign funds posted inflows of $546 million. Bond funds attracted inflows of $7.49 billion.

So why have stocks continued to rally, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average topping 10200 by the end of last week?

Richard Hoey, chief economist at the Bank of New York Mellon, summed up the bull case in his November Economic Outlook: The bailout worked.

"Evidence continues to accumulate supporting our thesis that the U.S. and global recessions are over and that sustained economic recoveries have begun, both in the U.S. and worldwide," he wrote. "The 'global emergency rescue' of the financial system and the economy was a major success, at least from a short-term cyclical perspective and probably from a long-term perspective as well."

Columbia University finance professor and director of research at First Eagle Funds' Bruce Greenwald disagreed, citing unsustainable consumer demand in the U.S. and an imbalance in global trade.

"You ll notice that we basically fixed the banks, but the underlying imbalances are in no way fixed," he said in a Nov. 10 commentary.

Those imbalances center on unemployment, which hit a 26-year high earlier this month, at a staggering 10.2%. Even technical analysts like Craig Peskin and John Kolovos at Concept Cpaital said that market momentum has a life of its own in uncertain times, which clearly shows itself when investors shrug off tangible bad news.

"The ability of the market to close marginally higher given the highest unemployment rate since 1983 is a moral victory for bulls," they wrote in a Tuesday note.

Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg, a reliably pessimistic observer of current conditions, sees this as a real danger.

"There are serious structural issues undermining the U.S. labor market as companies continue to adjust their order books, production schedules and staffing requirements to a semi-permanently impaired credit backdrop," he wrote Wednesday. "The bottom line is that the level of credit per unit of GDP is going to be much, much lower in the future than has been the case in the last two decades. While we may be getting close to a bottom in terms of employment, the jobless rate is very likely going to be climbing much further in the future due to the secular dynamics within the labor market."

While that may be the case, the same government support that arrested our economic slide will more than likely stay in place for some time, ISI Group policy analysts Tom Gallagher and Andy Laperriere wrote Nov. 9.

Recent meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, which declined to raise interest rates from near-zero levels, and the G20, where world leaders said they'd continue stimulus programs, "could almost be lost in the shuffle" of recent policy initiatives, "but they did signal continued liquidity."

And as long as that support remains in place, this phase of recovery, with its ambiguous and often-conflicting indicators, will likely continue with an upward trajectory and a giddy worry there's nothing much in the way of padding if that suffers an abrupt halt.

The economy contains multitudes, to be sure, but they will be less and less able to live off stimulus as this phase continues.