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Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-06 11:16

"I could cry," she responds when asked how things are.

"We used to have more money than we knew what to do with. Now, I have to decide: Do I pay the electric this week? Do I pay for gas? Do I get groceries?" says Hammack, 24, who lives with her boyfriend, a window installer, and their 5-year-old son in a rented home in rural Rowlesburg, W.Va. "You can't get ahead. You can't save money. You can't buy a house. It just stinks."

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Those "right direction, wrong direction" polls -- the latest of which, in June, had only 14 to 17 percent of Americans saying the country is going the right way -- show a general level of pessimism that is the worst in almost 30 years. Those feelings, coupled with government corruption scandals, lingering doubts over whether the Iraq war was justified, even memories of the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina, have culminated in an erosion of our customary faith that elected leaders can get us out of a jam.

Says Arizona retiree Dian Kinsman: "You have no faith in anybody at the top. I don't trust anybody, and I'm really disgusted about it."

Stoking the furor is that Americans seem to feel helpless. After all, how can the average Joe or Jane control the price of gas or end the war?

"How am I, a little old West Virginia girl, going to go out and change the world?" asks Hammack.

Still, others suggest a lack of perspective and a sense of entitlement among Americans today may make these times feel worse than they are.

At 82, Ruth Townsend has experienced her share of downturns -- in her own life and that of the country. She suffered a stroke years ago that left her in a wheelchair, and lives now in an assisted-living center in Orlando, Fla. Townsend recalls World War II and having to ration almost everything: sugar, leather shoes, tires, gas.

"You made do with the little you had because you had to. You shopped in the same stores over and over because you HAD to. We had coupon books and stamps to figure out what we could have," Townsend says. Americans have gotten so used to "things," she says, "that we can't take it when we hit a bad patch."

Allison Alvin condemns an "out of style" values system, in which even kids have cell phones, credit card debt is out of control and families purchase four-bedroom homes they can't afford instead of the two-bedroom ones they could.

"I'm mad at us ... all of my fellow Americans. Maybe a little hardship would be good for us," says Alvin, who at 36 has a job as a freight exporter in Cincinnati, a husband with a factory job, two healthy children, her own home and four cars, all paid off.

At the same time, she acknowledges feeling that "things are getting worse."

"When you're my age, you feel like you should be improving -- more financially stable, instead of hand-to-mouth. It doesn't matter that we're better off than (others). It still hurts. It's still painful."

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