Boggles my mind as well, Michael. To be fair, the income disparities - particularly in California - are huge - so some legitimate gripes there about the "state of the economy".

I think that deep down, most folks have a certain level of unhappiness they need to maintain. When times are good, someone cutting in front of me at Costco can garner the same reaction as a medical emergency if things have been going poorly for the past couple of months. It's almost as if my "unhappiness meter" is stuck at 7, and if things really aren't all that bad I need to manufacture some outrage to keep things in equilibrium.

This got exhausting, so about 10 years ago I reset mine to 3. Frankly, if my wife is still sleeping next to me when I wake up in the AM, I'm playing with house money the rest of the day...