I can tell you antidotally that Americans are by and large NOT satisified with their lives nor the direction their life and nation is headed...
Im in my mid 30s and recall a time in my youth when growing up when neighbors were actually nice to each other and random strangers on the street would smile and wave and people went of their way to help etc...
These days people keep to themselves, dont even look each other in the eyes, and everyone is walking around with a grudge and chip on their shoulders in that sort of "f*uck you, got mine" mentality....
Ive lived on my suburbian current street for past 17+ years next to a major Highschool in a large US city... the camaderie is gone, the spirit is broken, and people just dont really even know their neighbors anymore... there is next to zero interaction
Gone are the icecream trucks waxing poetic to lyrical music in the summer or kids selling lemonade in front of their homes with makeshift stands... gone are the neighboor get togethers or even so much as someone baking a cake and sharing with the nextdoors etc ... heck we recently had a cat go missing and one of our neighbors two houses down knew about it, found a dead cat fitting similiar description in her backyard, decided to call up her "friend" in Arlington Animal Services Erika Brooks and makeshift buried it in her own backyard without taking a photo or retrieving collar or performing a microchip scan and then after I found out about this she refuses to give any info and completely shuts down....
Heck to be honest the very last time I recall the neighboorhood or street even being together for anything was during summer of 2020 two years ago when to help boost spirits after the covid shutdowns they had F18 jets in close formation blue angels fly across the metroplex of dfw and one of the routes intersected our area and for a brief couple of seconds we all stood together on the street to see the low level jets pass by...
To say Americans are more satisified is a bold face lie, bolder than POTUS proclaiming of zero inflation and no recession...
For the most part, Americans are overworked overstressed (this is of course also true in Asia). The
Golden Era of America was back in the 60s, 70s, where a single parent with one job can support his family, buy a house. Back then Asian engineers could easily get Green Cards through their companies, and if their wives want to come, green cards for them too. Those times are long gone.
Half of Americans are barely math literate. Many are overextended on their credit cards; living from pay check to pay check.
That has been true for decades. Yet the economy grew bigger still.
———The true strength of the US economy has never been about the bottom 70%. The cream naturally rises to the top. The top 20-30% contributes more to the economy than the rest combined.
—— For example, Amazon is worth roughly $1 trillion, Bezos owns 16% of that. That means over the last 20 years, he and his team have created $840 billion of wealth for other people.
Create an environment that attracts talents from around the world.
Cream will naturally rise to the top.
