Be very afraid.

When people act because they are afraid, they easily give up their freedom to higher powers, of whatever kind they feel is going to quickly ease their fears. When people act with knowledge, they fight for those freedoms, and are not so quick to let someone else fix their problems for them. The loss of personal responsibility has quickly led other nations down the road to....fill in the blank- they're all in the history books.
I loved the Tracey Ullman skit they played during the SAG awards last month. She was playing an American anchor person holding a mike with a stern teacher face on saying..."Be Afraid. FEAR. CHAOS. Anarchy. Fear.." (paraphrasing.) It was so spot on and it was the only highlight of that self-congratulatory awards show. Anyway, she might well dislike conservatives (who knows) but her intuition to the rising heat of the paranoia that has come up the past few weeks is so intense it is almost laughable- if it weren't for the fact that so many people get caught up in the fear hype.
Be very afraid- if you can't figure out your own life and think that someone else is going to do it for you. Get a grip- or a glass of bubbly. There have always been bad economic times, there has to be, since they follow good ones. It's logical and cyclical. There will always be some generation that has to deal with bad job stats, low home values, high gas prices, etc. It just so happens it's our current problem, and alot of people in this generation aren't used to anything but fluffy soft Egyptian cotton in their lives. These are the type of people who would not know what to do if the world went on black out tomorrow. They would stand in front of their blank tubes waiting for Anderson Cooper to tell them what to do.
Those people may be waiting for, and may get some help the next few years. How quickly they will forget about that fear and will go right back to living like help was to be expected.
Doubt anyone will send the president a "Thank You" card.