Call it America's Age of Angst. The buzz of negativity seems to be everywhere. DECLINE AND FALL: WHEN THE AMERICAN EMPIRE GOES, IT IS LIKELY TO GO QUICKLY reads the cover headline for British historian Niall Ferguson's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Faced with an unemployment rate near 10 percent, a ballooning deficit, and a grueling partisan battle over health-care reform, both President Barack Obama and his Republican critics in Congress are complaining loudly about the government's inability to get things done. In the meantime, there's a growing sense that others—here, China is always first on the list—are steadily chipping away at America's leadership position in the world. The messages from the White House are somewhat schizophrenic. In his State of the Union Message, Obama expressed frustration about the gridlock in Washington. ... While claiming that he will not accept second place for the United States, he made it sound like that's where the country is heading if it doesn't change course. Vice President Joe Biden, who is dependably blunt, echoed that sentiment, charging that "Washington right now is broken." But in an interview with Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, he also lashed out at the "ridiculous" talk of America's decline. "Give me a break," he complained. ... But this time, the anxiety seems like more than a feeling. It is more deeply rooted in concerns about long-term trends, and warning lights are flashing in several places. It's harder now to shrug off the America-in-decline theories than ever before. – Newsweek

Dominant Social Theme: Not much to do but mourn.

Free-Market Analysis: As a newspaper devoted to analyzing dominant social themes, the Daily Bell occasionally turns to Newsweek to mine some of the best promotional presentations available. Newsweek, long affiliated with the Washington Post – the crown jewel of establishment newspapers – never misses the opportunity to offer up elite memes with confident and robust prose. This article, commenting on an article in Foreign Affairs no less (perhaps the journal that stands at the forefront of elite promotional reporting), offers up all the expected talking points and then some. In fact, the idea of the US as a country/empire in terminal decline is itself a dominant social theme, in our opinion.

Despite Pakistan's major military offensives against the Taliban last year, Gallup surveys show Pakistanis' evaluations of their government's efforts to fight terrorism didn't improve – or change much at all – in 2009 ... In neighboring Afghanistan, where residents also live under the daily threat of terrorism, the view was much the same. Even with an infusion of troops ahead of the August election, Afghans' grades for their government's efforts to combat terrorism did not change. Half (50%) of Afghans surveyed in September and October said their government isn't doing enough – essentially unchanged from the 46% who said this in June. Like Pakistanis, Afghans leaned slightly more toward saying the government is not doing enough. – Gallup

Dominant Social Theme: More progress: Gallup takes the pulse of Afghanistan ...

Free-Market Analysis: We had to read this twice, because we didn't believe it. Gallup in Afghanistan! And taking the pulse of the Afghan people with a fairly low level marginal sampling error – a statistical variance, in fact, that seems no more than what is achievable in the West. Will wonders never cease?

In its latest quarterly survey, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, said that 51% of respondents were unhappy about inflation, the highest proportion since the survey began in 1999. In February, China's consumer prices rose by 2.7% year-on-year, up from a 1.5% rise in January. The government has set a 3% target for inflation this year, but some analysts have said the true inflation rate is already far higher, after an enormous increase in money supply last year. In February, Chinese broad money rose by 25.5%, well ahead of the government's 17% target for the year. Analysts said that for the government to hit its target, it must now slow M2 money supply to 11.6% for the remaining 10 months of the year, a sudden deceleration and well below the country's average in the past decade. The PBOC's quarterly survey, which was published in the official China Securities Journal, also showed that the public expects inflation to continue rising next quarter. With food prices, in particular, rising rapidly, the government pledged today (tuesday) to start price controls on pork products. Inflation in China is now outstripping the interest rate on bank deposits and property prices, which are not accounted for in the CPI, have risen rapidly in China's cities. - UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: The Chinese will handle it? The technocratic leadership has terrific expertise.

Free-Market Analysis: We've been coming back to this story again and again because it could be one of the biggest stories - financially, anyway - in the world right now. The European Union seems to be gradually collapsing under the weight of sovereign dysfunction and in America the Federal Reserve has screwed rates down to zero and intends to keep them there - as unemployment and underemployment hovers (realistically) between 20-30 percent. Japan has lapsed into its umpteenth recession and Russia and the central European countries that are not in the EU aren't doing much better than they always have, which is to say not well at all.

On Capitol Hill, the plight of George S. Hawkins [boss of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority] and other utility managers has become a hot topic. In the last year, federal lawmakers have allocated more than $10 billion for water infrastructure programs, one of the largest such commitments in history. But Mr. Hawkins and others say that even those outlays are almost insignificant compared with the problems they are supposed to fix. An E.P.A. study last year estimated that $335 billion would be needed simply to maintain the nation's tap water systems in coming decades. In states like New York, officials estimate that $36 billion is needed in the next 20 years just for municipal wastewater systems. - New York Times

Dominant Social Theme: Time to rebuild.

Free-Market Analysis: It is one more seeming failure of big government in the US. Crumbling roads and highways get the majority of attention from the American press, but the problems with the nation's water and sewer networks are apparently just as severe. Some systems date back to the Civil War, and across the country municipalities are finding that water and sewer grids are aging out and need extensive overhauls. The result, according to the Times article excerpted above, is a national (municipal) movement to raise taxes or raise rates to pay for new municipal water and sewer systems. Yet these money-raising ventures are running into considerable opposition. Here's more from the Times article, above:

The U.S. Federal Reserve's framework is a corrupt one in that its regional banks are managed by board members who are officers from the very private institutions they are designed to govern, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz (left). Stiglitz, also a former chief economist at the World Bank, says if a country had come to him looking for aid while running a central bank in such a manner, alarm bells would have gone off. "If we had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance, this is a corrupt governing structure," says Stiglitz according to the Huffington Post. "It's time for us to reflect on our own structure today, and to say there are parts that can be improved." The New York Fed presently has on its board of directors Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, according to the Huffington Post. Lawmakers are currently negotiating a bill that would overhaul parts of the country's financial regulation. – MoneyNews

Dominant Social Theme: Might as well admit it.

Free-Market Analysis: One must consider Joseph Stiglitz someone who knows his way around the corridors of power. He was former chief economist at the World Bank and a winner of a prestigious prize for economics (one that is not actually THE Nobel prize but has the same name). His statements, reported above, are interesting for two reasons. First, they are coming from Stiglitz who is certainly an insider. Second, they are coming now.