Eight years of despair dude? What country were you living in for the past eight years. Here in America eight years ago the economy had collapsed along with the financial markets and 600,000 people were losing their jobs each and every month. The stock market had crashed to below 6500 and tens of thousands had lost their homes and retirements. Then in the middle of 2009 the economy came out of it's tail spin thanks to President Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and for the next eight years hundreds of thousands of new jobs were added each and every month. The housing markets recovered as the worst recession since the Great Depression eased off and slowly ended. Could have been even better recovery if the GOP obstructionists had not gone to such seditious lengths to keep President Obama's policies from bearing fruit. Your world of despair comes from watching too much hate TV and listening to too much hate filled right wing radio mr. manning. You really need to turn off TV.