This is an answer to Cranky Cuss's post of today: http://open.salon.com/blog/cranky_cuss/2010/10/27/is_anybody_happy_anymore#

People aren't happy any more because things are worse than they used to be. Why? A variety of reasons.

Real incomes haven't risen in the United States for nearly forty years but expenses certainly have. Americans adjusted, first by wives going to work, then by getting into debt, and in many cases kids moved back home because they couldn't afford to live on their own, often even if they're employed.

We aren't manufacturing what we used to, but that isn't strictly because of cheaper labor overseas. Germany still manufactures a whole lot and they certainly don't have cheap labor. Why aren't we still building like we used to? There are a few reasons peculiar to specific industries such as the hubris displayed by the Big Three automakers before they got real competition from Japan. We lost our consumer electronics industry in the space of a few years, not due to our being uncompetitive as is widely assumed but because we were essentially mugged by a Japanese government/industry alliance that our government neither acknowledged nor understood. (I can explain this on request - the best book I know on the topic is Trading Places by Clyde Preztowitz.) However, most reasons aren't industry-specific.

The biggest cause for things getting worse is that campaigning became expensive. This meant that candidates had to worry about raising money to a far greater extent than they ever had to before. It's more efficient to solicit money from a few big sources than a bunch of small ones.

Unfortunately, that gives these big sources a great deal of influence, and what they've done with that influence is what is ultimately responsible for our economic tailspin. They reduced taxes on the rich and major corporations, which led to a major loss of tax revenue. They then got us to reduce spending on social programs on the grounds of fiscal responsibility when the real fiscal irresponsibility was their no longer providing their fair share of revenue. The government pulling back on these programs made life more expensive for the middle class and also, initially, for small businesses, which is important because small business has been the major engine for American job growth for decades. Eventually, some of these financial burdens affected big business, resulting in problems like our auto industry spending far more money per employee than overseas competitors not due to labor itself but due to factors like medical insurance and pensions, factors which often aren't private functions overseas.

Some of these corporations reacted by putting the burden on their employees. Wal-Mart reacted by making most of their jobs part-time, with just few enough hours not to legally obligate themselves to pay their employees benefits. That gave Wal-Mart cheaper labor, resulting in their out-competing small town competition but, in doing so, replacing good jobs with a whole lot of Working Poor.

The pharmaceutical industry managed to leverage their influence into a federal policy where the Federal Government didn't allow itself to negotiate price with them for drugs for Medicaid/Medicare. The banking industry reduced regulation to the point where they could invest in questionable instruments without oversight, they allowed themselves to charge consumers higher interest rates (if you get in trouble with a credit card company, they can charge you roughly 30% interest - which used to be usury, the sort of rate you'd expect from a loan shark), they weren't forced to lend to businesses even with money the Federal Government bailed them out with, they changed bankruptcy laws so that consumers weren't protected from policy changes (that originiated with the banks themselves) which resulted in a whole lot of forclosures. All sorts of industries could transfer jobs and theoretical international headquarters offshore without tax consequences - again, a little campaign money saved them a fortune in taxes. The oil industry got all sorts of subsidies and kept money out of renewable energy resources, which would not only save us money but which would create a colossal number of high-paying jobs, jobs that are now being created in China and Europe, often with our own technology, because our own technology isn't profitable to invest in here because (up until very recently) government policy didn't make such investments a good bet.

All this resulted in the middle class having less disposable income. Aside from the direct misery brought on by this, there's the further hugely significant consequence that American business has a far less healthy customer base, resulting in a loss of sales which results in a loss of jobs which results in a further loss of both.

Government policies should be geared to encouraging job formation, encouraging education, creating an economic climate that puts disposable income in the hands of average people such that American businesses have customers with money. However, the process encouraging such policies has been hijacked. After the recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to behave as individuals when it comes to campaign contributions, the degree of that hijacking has just been ratcheted up a lot farther.

So now we take antidepressants because it's easier than changing the real world (and it puts more money in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies). Some of us are angry, but some of those angry people have joined the Tea Party, which is sponsored and led by the same rich guys who screwed us up in the first place and want to continue - so they'll distract us any way they can, telling us the problem is government deficits (which they helped cause be reducing its income), illegal immigration (the effects of which they constantly exaggerate), too much regulation (we'd have been far better off with more rather than less - most recent financial disasters would have been prevented with better regulation), and Washington inaction (caused primarily by their own party).

Things weren't better in all respects in the old days. We're mostly better to ethnic minorities, women, and GLBT people than we used to be. However, in most respects, things are worse.

Pass the antidepressants. And be very careful about how you vote.