We all want to be optimistic and this is still the greatest economy in the world but we have to face reality, the type of Free Trade we have today isn't benefitting very many people except for a select number of large corporations.
Not only do we still have the greatest economy in the world but we in the U.S. also have the highest standard of living in the history of the civilized world and it continues to improve year after year.
Even the so-called "poor" in our country have big-screen TVs and microwave ovens in their homes. They have so much food to cram down their throats that if they had any more money, they'd probably have to hand it over to Jenny Craig anyhow. We in this country tend to have no idea just how good we have it compared to the rest of the world.
I've been listening to the doom-and-gloomers for the past thirty years now and they are proven wrong year after year after year after year. Each year, our standard of living increases and now it seems to be accelerating now that we are outsourcing all our jobs (if you are to believe the doom-and-gloomers).
Somehow, despite all the outsourcing of jobs and the illegal aliens coming over to take our jobs and all the factories closing down and yadda, yadda, yadda, our unemployment rate continues to maintain itself at historically low levels. Which is a far cry from the days of double-digit unemployment rates when we didn't trade so much with other countries and all the factory jobs were over here.
Personally, I think the doom-and-gloomers need to come up out of their basements and out into the sunshine. They might find that their chronic depression is lifted.