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We Americans are a happy lot. Just ponder some of these recently published stats (and noted in The New York Times today in David Brooks’ column). Some 86% of Americans are content with their current job (General Social Survey). On top of that, 76% say they are satisfied with their household income (Pew Research Center). And the future makes us happy, as a some 62% of these happy folks say they expect their future to be even happier in the coming five years (Harris Poll).

On the flip side, Americans are downright unhappy (disgusted is a more appropriate word) with our government. An alarming 80% of Americans believe that the current Congress has accomplished nothing. Zilch! The big goose egg! We generally think that whenever the government gets involved it means nothing but incompetence and inefficiency. Here’s how bad things have gotten: We are more displeased and unimpressed with government than we were in 1974 when the Vietnam War was wrapping up and Watergate was all the buzz.

No matter how happy we may be with our private lives, our happiness is not as full as it could be if our government lacks our trust and respect. Let this be a reminder to us all, but especially to our young people: pay attention to who is running for office at the local, state and national levels; get registered; and vote for the candidate you believe will restore faith, efficiency and progress to government. Our happiness depends upon it.

The current issue of Newsweek (October 22, 2007) has a story about how the anemic housing market, the rise in fuel costs and general economic anxiety have led people to choose to scaling down rather than trading up.

The piece, entitled “The Latte Era Grinds Down,” makes this point: “For the past several years, American consumers at every rung of the income ladder have been trading up—splurging on a growing array of luxury products, from $4 lattes to $4,000 handbags. With easy access to credit, especially home-equity loans, middle-class Americans began regularly trading up for items that appealed to them, buying food staples at Kroger but splurging on Kobe beef at Whole Foods. Suddenly, everybody was a luxury consumer—for certain items.

“But as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Now many of those same Americans who traded up are shunning luxuries and returning to basics. The upshot: many of the companies that expanded in the hopes of reaching a mass audience of luxury consumers are suffering.”

Our cars, houses and even are coffee mugs are being down-sized. (Cheap coffee at McDonald’s is enjoying a sales boom.) In a recent survey, 70-percent said they were not spending as much on certain accessories such as watches and bags.

But don’t despair! The article also notes that trading up expert and author Michael Silverstein “points to powerful, long-term trends that suggest customers will continue to reach for luxury. Real income is still growing, and ‘trading up has been driven over the long term by women going to work and earning wages that are closer to parity with men.’”

That said, the situation makes for an even stronger argument that, now more than ever, trade up brands must market with real insight and conviction, not to mention providing what we at Barefoot have coined “Reasons to Rationalize.” This downturn, if indeed that’s what it is, can actually help some smart luxury brands build business by seizing consumers’ attention (and pocketbooks) while competitors are inclined to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

There is a lovely piece (as almost always) in the “Lives” section of today’s New York Time’s Sunday Magazine. Called “Money Always Talks,” the essay is about a woman and her daughter as, together, they walk around Southampton and take in the mesmerizing sites of great wealth to be found there.

The most striking part of this piece written by Daphne Merkin was her commentary on how many of us feel about the wealthy–and the money at their command. I thought it relevant to the notion of trading up, particularly in the luxury marketing segment. More specifically, I think it sheds light on the guilt and uncertainty many of us feel whenever we spend more than we have to for something, be that a guitar, a home or a private jet. Here’s an excerpt:

So, as it turns out, Ernest Hemingway was wrong, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: The rich are different, not only because they have more money but also because they elicit such an oxymoronic barrage of responses. They’re worse, and they’re better, reviled and adulated. They stir up envy, and they invite respect. Most of all, they make us think we would do better if we had their dough (exercise more discerning taste, give more generously to worthy causes, assume a more modest air). Or, at least, we want the option to prove our lofty conjectures. As Kingsley Amis wrote before he got lucky: “I want to prove that money isn’t everything.”

Is it or isn’t it? In the history of love-hate relationships, our paradoxical romance with money ranks among the oldest and the most enduring. And there is no end in sight.

Good stuff. Though I remain convinced that should I become one of the super-wealthy, I will buck the trend and do far greater good with that cash than most anyone. Well, I’d be in the top 30% anyway. Well, at the least the top 70%-80% On a good day, anyhow.