For as long as I can remember our country's success level has been primarily measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  Recently when the Dow went back over 10,000 after being pummelled for nearly a year, the media trumpeted this as a sign of the economy making a major recovery.

WRONG

How can you have a true economic recovery with unemployment near 10%? When digging a little deeper, the rise in the Dow was based on investment bankers making huge profits.  That's right, the same investment bankers who accelerated the collapse of our economy with their greedy financial trickery.  When our government bailed them out with our tax dollars because they were "too big to fail," they were supposed to take the money and lend it out to lower and middle class homeowners and business people. Instead the investment bankers went right back to making transactions which profited the very wealthy at the expense of those they were charged to help out.

Here's an idea....instead of measuring our country's health on the Dow Jones Average, how about using the world happiness index?  There is one.  It's based on factors such as health, education, sense of community, wealth, and free choice. The 10 happiest countries are:  Denmark , Puerto Rico, Colombia, Iceland, N. Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, and Austria.  The U.S. is 16th. 

For more info check out, http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/02/nations.happiness/index.html