by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

A recent survey discovered that 79 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. is on the wrong track right now.  As a nation, we may not agree on much, but this is one thing that almost all of us can agree on.  Needless to say, the economy is the number one reason why so many people are dissatisfied with the direction that the country is heading.  Over the past four years the cost of living has risen much faster than paychecks have, and as a result our standard of living has been going down.  Now we have reached a point where tens of millions of U.S. consumers have been squeezed bone dry, and as a result businesses are failing all over the nation.