Yes, we are in a serious depression.. a psychological one.

[DCBob]

from cnbc..

The Real Great Depression
Published: Thursday, 20 Jan 2011 | 9:38 AM ET

The inalienable right of the “pursuit of happiness” is becoming tougher for most Americans with each passing day. America is no longer the happy country it wants to be. A Forbes poll has us barely making the top 10 percent when it comes to happiness, in spite of our still dominating prowess on other major indicators. Have we become an unhappy nation, contrary to the ideals we were founded upon? Perhaps. But, it's much more serious than that.

Going through one of the worst economic sagas in US history has thrown the country into two types of depressed states: a financial one and a psychological one. Both have been devastating to our national identity, unity and priorities. The financial one is debated openly and spoken of in the media daily. The psychological one, however, is still closeted from our national discourse, still approached with social stigma as the dirty little byproduct of the recession, only to be discussed after a national tragedy.

But, after the events in Tucson, a secret it can no longer be. A recent government report found that 20 percent of Americans had some form of mental illness in 2009. Let’s read that again: 1 in 5 Americans suffers from mental illness, including depression and anxiety. Undetected, these conditions lead to alarming rates of suicide or other violence.

The recent surge in those staggering statistics reflects two types of economic side effects. First, the rise in mental health disorders has increased as economic certainty has deteriorated: joblessness, crippling debt and home foreclosure. Second, the problem is only exacerbated when those with newly developed or preexisting illnesses can’t seek treatment because they don’t have health insurance due to unemployment.

A vicious, vicious cycle. A true great depression that has its sights set on our young people, like Jared Lee Loughner. According to the government report, the American youth population, ages 18-25, had the highest level of mental illness at 30 percent — almost 1 in 3 young people.

<snip>

That we have a national epidemic in mental illness compounded by fiscal depression is undeniable. It doesn’t take an expert to see that there is a national psychiatric crisis that reverberates, no longer as an isolated instance of senseless bloodshed but, as a string of lethal events that traumatize and paralyze the entire nation. Recovering from it should be handled with the same vigor that has been used to emerge from fiscal calamity, as they are both cyclical, interdependent and, more often than not, feed and fester off each other.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41141133

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How depressing.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Highest rate of mental illness and gun ownership on the planet

What could possibly go wrong?

Don