A staggering 81 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Who are these other 19 percent? I want a slug of what they're drinking.
Here's what's particularly noteworthy about this poll finding -- the highest of its kind since the NYT started asking this question in 1990 -- at this point in history:
The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however, Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good shape.
For all Obama's vulnerabilities, it's still hard to imagine how the country is going to put a Republican in the White House again in this kind of atmosphere.
And there's this:
Fewer than half of parents — 46 percent — said they expected their children to enjoy a better standard of living than they themselves do, down from 56 percent in 2005.
Do you expect your kids to live better than you're doing? I don't. Government debt is going to swamp them. We have squandered so much, and sold out our children's future.
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So approximately one-quarter of a billion Americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction: 1/3 of billion wrong directions, no doubt.
Steve says: Therefore, people who are good at learning to learn will do well in the global economy.
So now we couple this with the horrible graduation rates among our inner-city kids (24% in Detroit!!) and lower graduation rates among blacks and hispnics in general and we begin to see a very ominous scenario indeed. What do we do when a very large minority, perhaps even a majority of people are NOT good at learning to learn? We can't afford a continous safety-net, but are we truly will to let people starve?
Goiing back to the previous dicussion of how culture/class affects learning. How do we solve the problem of the 15 yo Mommy who doesn't talk to her babies basically because she has nothing to say?? Will we be willing to develop and pay for 8 hour a day head-start so that those babies learn something more than Mommy did?
Maybe the old style orphange is the answer?
The "old style orphanage," unless we propose to do it really authentically, with horrendous stats on abuse, illness, and mortality, is a lot more expensive than most of the alternatives. Gingrich proposed it way back when, until somebody showed him a budget for Boys Town, and he all of a sudden dropped the idea. And as for 15-year-old girls having nothing to say, has anybody looked at their cell phone bills lately? Or maybe it's just that the ones who can keep talking don't get pregnant?
And why WOULD one want to put a Republican in the White House in this situation they've created? Are you truly deluded enough to think they didn't bring us to this point?
Matty,
Your stats are a bit off...
You said: "Say 40.5% of the nation feels that Iraq has gone bad"
In reality, "More than six in 10 called the war not worth fighting" according to a Nov/07 Washington Post-ABC News poll.
You said the same percentage think "the president is a moron" when in fact more than 66% do.
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