Grim milestone: Barack Obama surpasses Jimmy Carter again, this time when it comes to America's pessimism about the future

Nothing says "change" like this headline: "Americans’ Economic Pessimism Grows, With Gloom ‘Pervasive’:

[A] CBS/New York Times poll from June ... showed that over the last year, more Americans have come to believe the current economic downturn is part of a long-term permanent decline and that the economy will never fully recover. In October 2010, 28% of respondents agreed with that statement, versus 39% last month...

..."Americans are so pessimistic about the economy now ... . And the level of public pessimism is actually higher than the deep 1981-82 recession overall," due to grim personal outlooks on a number of issues like jobs, retirement and health care, says Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at AEI who co-authored the report...

Mark Levin has said for years that "liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."

You would think after a pair like Carter and Obama, Americans would have learned their lesson. Electing leftists to high office is somewhat akin to giving a 16-year old boy a fifth of Cuervo and the keys to the Ferrari.

That is: many scenarios can play out -- and every single one of them is catastrophic.


Chart: Zero Hedge.