Better Off?

Jared Bernstein linked to these (1) three (2) articles (3) on the question of "are we better off than we were four years ago."

I love the analogy of the firefighters in article 1 and the roasting of modern "journalism."

It's striking to see how short Americans' memories were even before the 24-hour news cycle as seen in article 3.  Also, I predict a parallel trajectory to Reagan's presidency if Romney wins or Obama caves to the austerity pressure.  Prematurely withdrawing public funds will send us into another minor recession after pulling out of the '08 recession.  If Romney is President and is as ideological as he presents himself, though, the recession may last longer as Reagan famously indulged in huge deficit spending, which is surely the cause of the boom in job growth.

The amount of money lost in household wealth is shocking (chart in article 2).  I didn't realize it had dropped that much.

UPDATE:  Austerity measures like these proposed by the Republican VP pick.  I will likely revisit this article in a blog post tomorrow.  There is much to say about the proposed cuts.