Have you noticed a general unhappiness in our country? People don’t seem to smiling as easily any more. They don’t seem to be as outgoing and friendly. They tend to pass each other on the street, and, even if they know one another, they just keep on walking.  Let’s explore some possible reasons…

Breitbart.com reports that…

Only a third of U.S. adults say they are very happy — minorities show particularly pronounced declines in the past two years, a U.S. survey indicates.

A Harris Poll of 2,345 U.S. adults surveyed online April 10-15 by Harris Interactive found certain groups, such as minorities, recent graduates and the disabled, trended downward in the last couple of years.

“Our happiness index offers insight into what’s on the minds of Americans today and is a reflection of the state of affairs in our country,” Regina Corso, senior vice president of the Harris Poll, said in a statement. “While the attitudes on the economy may be improving, we’re seeing that this is not translating into an improvement in overall happiness.”

Since last measured two years ago, the Happiness Index was especially low among the Hispanic-American population. It is important to note that a causal link cannot be established, it might not be a coincidence that this drop coincides with a political landscape that has seen frequent, sometimes contentious, discussion of immigration policy in recent months, Corso said.

Americans earning under $50,000 per year were less likely to qualify as very happy than in 2011 — down from 33 percent to 29 percent among those earning less than $35,000, and from 35 percent to 32 percent among those earning between $35,000-$49,999.

Those 50 and older were more likely to be very happy than younger people.

If money CAN buy happiness, we’re in a heap o’ trouble…because none of us have any.

According to an article posted on Friday by CBSMoneywatch.com…

Increasing housing prices and the stock market”s posting all-time highs haven’t helped the plight most Americans. The average U.S. household has recovered only 45 percent of the wealth they lost during the recession, according to a report released yesterday from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

This finding is a very different picture than one painted in a report earlier this year by the Fed that calculated Americans as a whole had regained 91 percent of their losses. The writers of the report released yesterday point out that the earlier number is based on aggregate household-net-worth data. However, this isn’t adjusted for inflation, population growth or the nature of the wealth. Further, they say much of recovery in net worth is because of the stock market, which means most of the improvement has been a boon only to wealthy families.

“Clearly, the 91 percent recovery of wealth losses portrayed by the aggregate nominal measure paints a different picture than the 45 percent recovery of wealth losses indicated by the average inflation-adjusted household measure,” the report said. “Considering the uneven recovery of wealth across households, a conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified,” the researchers said.

Household wealth plunged $16 trillion from the top of the real estate bubble in the third quarter of 2007 to the bottom of the bust in the first quarter of 2009. By the last three months of 2012, American households as a group had regained $14.7 trillion.

The report says almost two-thirds of the increase in aggregate household wealth is due to rising stock prices. This has disproportionately benefited the richest households: About 80 percent of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population.

Much of the total wealth of middle- and lower-income households is based on home values, not stocks. Even though home prices have increased nearly 11 percent in the past year, they remain about 30 percent below their peak.

While Americans continue to pay down their debt, the report says debt levels and problems with rebuilding net worth are the main reasons the recovery has been so slow. Also, the people who bore the brunt of the recession through job losses and reduced income were the ones who had borrowed the most.

The report found that members of the households that suffered the most financially were less educated, relatively young or black or Hispanic, or some combination of these factors. Those families tended to have low savings and high debt, with much of their wealth based on housing.

The poorest households have felt the sharpest losses as a consequence of the recession: “While many Americans lost wealth during the Great Recession, younger, less-educated and nonwhite families lost the greatest percentage of their wealth,” James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, said in a statement. “Household deleveraging, or paying down debt, has played a key role in the recent recession and the slow recovery.”

Americans are being besieged from all sides. Not only is the government taking our money, but, this new Progressive Culture around us, is succeeding in eliminating Godly Influences from our everyday life.

Gallup.com tells us that…

Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) say religion is losing its influence on American life, while 20% say religion’s influence is increasing. These represent Americans’ most negative evaluations of the impact of religion since 1970, although similar to the views measured in recent years.

Americans over the years have generally been more likely to say religion is losing rather than increasing its influence in American life. In addition to the previous peak in views that religion was losing its influence measured in 1969 and 1970, at least 60% of Americans thought religion was losing its influence in 1991-1994, in 1997 and 1999, in 2003, and from 2007 to the present.

Americans were more likely to say religion was increasing rather than decreasing its influence when the question was first asked in 1957, in 1962, at a few points in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in late 2001 and early 2002, and in 2005. The high point for Americans’ belief that religion is increasing its influence, 71%, came in December 2001.

These perceptions of religion’s influence in American society are not related to Americans’ personal religiosity, as measured by church attendance or the self-reported importance of religion in one’s life. In general, highly religious Americans are neither more nor less likely to say religion is losing its influence than those who are not religious. There is, however, a modest relationship between Americans’ ideology as well as partisanship and their views of the influence of religion, with liberals and Democrats more likely than conservatives and Republicans to say religion’s influence is increasing in American society.

And, of course Progressives would be saying that, because the religion they are referring to is a modified “Christianity”, which preaches the salvation of the “Collective” and “Social Justice” for all.

Working hand-in-hand with “The State”, i.e. the Obama Administration, Liberal/Progressive Churches preach this watered-down version of the Gospel to their unwitting congregations, “tickling their ears” and telling them that whatever gets them through the night, is alright.

In these Progressive Churches, the glorification of social programs and modern culture has taken the place of the Glorification of God and the hunger for His Word.

I mean, Gay Marriages are being performed in America’s National Cathedral in Washington, DC!

And, in churches around the country, Bible Studies, Youth Meetings, and Choir Practices, have been replaced with Studies on Philosophy, Voter Registration, sponsored by Organizing For America (Obama), and Yoga Classes.

The very Progressives in Power who have been whining for years about the Separation of Church and State, are the ones responsible for the removal of religion from American’s Everyday Life.

And, the worst part about it…Americans let them.

As I have gotten older (54), I have noticed that, concerning the two generations that have come after me, have consciously moved away from organized religion. Their movement is a result of Christ not being taught in their homes, and parents and other adult role models not providing a Godly example in their young lives, as they were growing up.  Without someone providing that example in their young lives, as my Daddy did for me, they have no Anchor to hold them steady through the Storms of Life and no Solid Rock upon which to stand.

And, unfortunately, that lack of Moral Compass, not only affects these two newest generations of adults, but all of those in their lives, and, eventually, society, as well.

Which is why we are now living in an America, which is well on its way to embracing a nanny-State Mentality, complete with its Situational Ethics and “50 Shades of Gray” Morality.

Gallup.com tells us that 78% of Americans proclaim Christ as their Personal Savior. 

Well, Americans, its time to return to Him.

For our sake, our children’s sake, our grandchildren’s sake, and our country’s sake.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.- Ronald Reagan

Until He Comes,

KJ