Americans are more pessimistic about the nationâs economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obamaâs first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The dour public mood is dragging down ratings for both parties in Congress and for President Obama, the poll found. Disapproval of Mr. Obamaâs handling of the economy has never been worse â up to 57 percent of Americans â a warning sign as he begins to set his sights on re-election in 2012. And a similar percentage disapprove of how Mr. Obama is handling the federal budget deficit, though more disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/22poll.html?_r=1
The public's mood has been souring for decades, interrupted only by a few bouts (bubbles) of mania. It's "coming to a head" now because we're beginning to see that they were bouts of mania, and that the big problems of the world that we were able to forget during those bouts have not only not gone away, they have continued to get worse.