Has the stock rally restored America's wealth?

Thanks to surging stock prices and improving home prices, Americans have nearly recovered the $16 trillion in wealth that went "poof" in the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that household wealth totaled $66.1 trillion at the end of 2012, up from a nadir of $51.9 trillion in 2009. Households now have 98 percent of what they had at the peak before the financial crisis — so is it time to celebrate the end of hard times?

It really does look like "American consumers' belt-tightening is finally coming to an end," says Neil Shah at The Wall Street Journal. For four years, Americans have "repaired their balance sheets from the damage of the housing crash and recession." They're looking at their portfolios and realizing the worst is behind them. They're "becoming more comfortable borrowing" — and, most importantly for the economy, spending.

True, but there's a catch. Not everyone's wealth is back. Since most of the gains come from the recent run-up in the stock market, most of it is flowing to the rich. The wealth of the middle class stems mostly from the equity they have in their homes, and the housing market is only beginning to bounce back. The wealthy are less likely than lower-income households to spend the money they earn right away, so "the recovered wealth might spur less consumer spending than it did before the recession," says Christopher S. Rugaber at The Associated Press. Furthermore, homeowners bitten by the housing market crash are wary of using their assets to borrow more money.

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Take the good news with a healthy dose of skepticism, warns Zero Hedge. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that what goes up can come down. Way down. And the troubling thing about these new figures is that "the U.S. household's net worth has never been more reliant on the stock market," which means consumers are at the mercy of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke "and his centrally printing colleagues around the world."