sovereign-investor.com / By Bob Bauman / January 29, 2013
A national Gallup poll taken January 7 through January 10 paints a picture of a pessimistic America, where most people believe the country’s best days are past.
According to this poll, 61% rated the current situation in America as decidedly negative, about the same as in 2010, the lowest recorded by Gallup since President Jimmy Carter’s term in 1979, at a time when the economy was in terrible shape with inflation at 14%.
The only other comparable low point came in 1974 during the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation. Less than half the people, 48%, now have any optimism about improvement in the country within five years, also the lowest since 1979.
The reasons for Americans’ unhappiness reflected in Gallup’s findings have been noticed by others around the world, but in the form of the specific causes.
Better to Be Born in Estonia
As an example, the Economist Intelligence Unit just published a new “Where To Be Born in 2013″ list, the places in the world that they think offer a newborn the chance for a healthy, safe and prosperous life.
The measures used include per capita GDP, life expectancy at birth, quality of life (divorce, political freedoms and job security), climate, personal security (crime, murder rates and terrorism), community life and governance (corruption) and gender equality.
The last time the EIU put together this somewhat lighthearted but unique index was 25 years ago in 1988. The United States of America then ranked first place in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to a dismal 16th place, just ahead of the United Arab Republics (UAE) and well behind countries ranging from Switzerland and Norway at the top of the new list, to Germany and Belgium just ahead of the U.S.
