Three out of Four Americans Are Scared

According to cnn, a new poll indicates that three out of four Americans are scared about the way things are going in the country. Oh really? I certainly hope they didn't spend millions of dollars trying to figure that one out. I could have told them that for free.

Of course we're scared! Most of the older generation and the baby boomers believed they had their careers on lock-down and their retirements all bundled up... then poof! In an instant all of that was gone for so many people. And it's particularly scary I would imagine for the over 50 crowd simply because those that thought they could retire in 10 years will now possibly have to work until the day they die due to lost retirement savings or loss of job.

Now, the younger generation of workers, like the newly graduated to the 30 year olds are all scared because they have oodles of debt in college loans and they still can't find a job. There was a time when we were led to believe that it didn't matter how much you borrowed for college. The job would be there when you got out and it wouldn't be hard to pay it all off. Now, that's overwhelmingly untrue, and how in the world are the loans going to get paid off? This, in turn, only stresses out the 50+ generation even more because their 30 year old kids are coming back home to live with them!

So, what about the 30-50 crowd? Technically, I suppose that's my crowd, even though I feel that I identify with the younger crowd as far as loan debt and lack of job. This group is mixed. We know we need to be saving for our retirement, but we also were hoping that these years of our lives would be filled with building our fortune and moving up in our careers. We want to start families, but everything is stressful. The average married couple in this age range is ready to reproduce, but they are faced with the question of child care and health care. Daycare or childcare is way too expensive to afford, making it seem almost as if one spouse is working simply to pay for the daycare. But... staying home instead of working isn't really an option either because one income simply isn't enough to pay the bills. Either way, many are finding themselves drowning and losing hope.

Of course, some people, like the mother of these octuplets who already had six children and lived with her mother... they seem to be fine. Why? Because the government pays for them to be fine. They have no qualms about mooching off of the government or their community or their parents. Basically, all of us who are struggling are paying for her to be frivolous and stupid about her reproductive choices.

So, it only makes sense that three out of four are scared. The one out of four people who aren't scared are the ones who are either in very stable jobs or who have wads of money in the bank either from their trust fund or from their stable jobs. In an instant, however, that one person could be right there with the other three... broke and terrified. I wish I had a solution to offer, but I'm afraid I'm out of ideas when it comes to fixing the economy. Let's hope Obama isn't...