Phil Gramm touched off a firestorm when he accused Americans of being in a "mental recession" (as opposed to an economic one), and complained we were becoming a "nation of whiners." Was he right? Do we do nothing but complain these days and are we really worse off?

Take for instance food prices. Yes, groceries bills are going higher, but how high are they really in context? In 1919, an average American had to work over nine hours just to earn enough for a 12-item cart of groceries containing such basic goods as eggs, milk, sugar, meat, vegetables, and so on. Today? About 1.7 hours.

Contrary to popular conception, we are actually putting in fewer hours on the job than we used to. In 1950, the average American worked over 1,900 hours a year. Now it's less than 1,600.  Back then, you could expect to spend over 94,000 hours at work over your lifetime. Today, the lifetime total would be just over 65,000. We spend less time working on household chores, too. "Since 1950," according to Cox and Alm, "the annual hours devoted to work at home has fallen from 1,544 to 1,278."

So the rest of America is doing fine. How about here in Hawaii? There's no denying the vastly higher cost of living in the Islands, but there's also no denying certain benefits. For one, we live longer. The average life expectancy in Hawaii is the longest in the U.S.; 80 years versus about 78 nationally. Thinking of moving to Las Vegas because it's cheaper? Nevada's life expectancy is just over 75 years. Hawaii comes out well in other ways. Sperling's Best Places uses computer software to objectively rank various U.S. cities based on a variety of criteria. Honolulu is featured in a few of their "Top 10" lists, including Most Secure U.S. Places, Most Energetic Cities, and Least Stressful Cities. Hawaii's unemployment rate has remained around a steady 2.5 percent, less than half the U.S. average. Future job growth is estimated at over 26 percent, more than double the national average.

If things are so good, why do we think they are so bad? There's little doubt Americans have a grim view of current situations. Polls by Gallup and others show around 80 percent of respondents as being dissatisfied with the direction the country is heading. After watching assorted "if it bleeds it leads" newscasts and listening to politicians happy to exploit current economic woes for political gain, it's no wonder so many people have come to such a sad conclusion.

Yet it's too easy to blame the media and politicians for our "mental recession." After decades of phenomenal growth in the economy and personal wealth, the slightest setback becomes almost too much to bear. Most Americans alive today never had to deal with the very real hardships of world war or the Great Depression. Instead, millions of Americans have grown up feeling entitled to "the good life," filled with material possessions. When it doesn't come to pass quite the way we hoped, we get depressed and start questioning the very system, which explains why polling by GlobeScan points to Americans' losing faith in the free-market system. But before we start feeling overwhelmingly gloomy or pessimistic, we should consider the many ways in which are lives are better than the lives of those who came before us. We should look at how our standing of living compares to that of those in other nations. We should stop and realize sometimes things get a bit harder before they get better. We should take into account just how lucky we are to live in the U.S.A. in 2008.

And most of all, we should stop whining.

-GIR-

Brandon Bosworth is a freelance writer living in Hawaii and is GRIH's Publications Consultant.

Check out Parts 1 & 2 of "Nation of Whiners" at http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/GrassInReview/GrassInReview08-06-08.shtml and http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/GrassrootPerspective/Whiners2082008.shtml.