Sadly, yes we have. I have never seen FR so infected with people so scared of their own shadows as it is right now.
The concept of self-reliance? Dwindling
The idea of pulling one's self up by their bootstraps and plowing ahead in spite of difficulty? (either real or percieved) Extremely rare.
Instead, we have ever-growing camps of posters cheering the economy down, while at the same time complaining about it and wishing "someone" would "do something" to "fix everything".
I wish Greenspan hadn't caused the credit bubble with absurdly low interest rates. I wish he hadn't given people stupid advise to use ARMs to buy overpriced houses. I wish people hadn't stupidly followed his advice. I wish the cheerleaders here hadn't blindly jumped on the credit bubble bandwagon. Of course those are all history.
Fact is, our corporate, government and personal debt level is 300% of GDP, highest in history, higher than 1935 (270%). We have spent or speculated with that money, not invested it in productive capacity (unless you believe that granite countertops raise productivity). We have screwed ourselves thanks to the limpwrist politicians, Greenspan, and the Japanese who screwed themselves in the 80's and then screwed us with the carry trade.
There is no way out of this credit bubble without pain. Personally I'm not scared of that pain, but I am scared of what political consequences there will be.