What Keeps You Awake At Night?

What keeps you awake at night?

What are the issues you worry about most? Are things headed in the right or wrong direction in your country?

This was the focus of a recent global survey "What Worries The World" by Ipsos MORI that surveyed adults in 25 countries around the world. The survey asked them to identify their top three worries.

Let's look at how people in the world view whether their country is headed in the right or wrong direction first.

Overall, only 38% of people think their country is headed in the right direction.

However, 90% of those in China like the direction they are going in. Saudi Arabia has the second highest percent that say they are headed in the right direction. Interestingly, those two countries have probably the most authoritarian non-democratic regimes of all the countries polled. Did they think someone was looking over their shoulder when they took the survey?

On the other hand, 88% of those in France think that they are headed on the wrong track.

Just 36% of those in the United States like the current direction.

What are the three biggest worries across the world? Unemployment, Financial/Political Corruption and Poverty & Social Inequality top the list of global worries.

Interestingly, none of these top global worries are on the top of the list of concerns for Americans but they were all in the top half. Unemployment was mentioned by 23% of respondents, Financial/Political Corruption 22% and Poverty/Social Justice 21%.


Here are the three issues that Americans find most worrisome.

1. Terrorism  35%
2. Crime & Violence  33%
3. Healthcare  29%

Other top worries of Americans included Immigration Control 22% and Moral Decline 21%.

You see what a major issue open borders has become in Europe when you see how big a worry Immigration Control has become an issue in many counties in the Eurozone. This is the big worry in Great Britain (42%), Germany (41%), Sweden (33%), Italy (32%), Belgium (27%) and France (26%).

Not surprisingly, terrorism is the biggest worry in Turkey (76%), France (55%) and Israel (45%) but with much higher percentages than in the United States.

I also found it interesting, in light of the fact that healthcare is one of the top 3 worries of Americans, that it is even a bigger worry in Australia (34%), Great Britain (33%) and Canada (33%) which all have some form of socialized health care. This would seem to suggest than anyone promising that further government control of health care in the United States is the answer to fixing the Obamacare disaster should be viewed with some skepticism.

What keeps you awake at night?

Ipsos did not include the election of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on the survey.

However, if they did, I am sure both individually would end up in the top three worries right now for most Americans.

In three weeks, we will not have to worry about one of them. They will be nothing but a footnote in history.

However, the other will have to confront those three worrisome issues that Americans have... and much, much more.

Of course, wasn't all of this supposed to be solved eight years ago when we were promised "hope and change"?

Do you remember?

What was that all about?

Terrorism
Islamic extremists did not hate us. If we got out of Iraq and Afghanistan and our President apologized to everyone in the Middle East we would not have to worry about terrorism.

Crime & Violence
The first African-American President was going to bring us unprecedented racial harmony and new opportunities to those in poverty in the inner cities that is the root cause of much of the crime and violence in our country.

Healthcare
A new affordable health care system was going to be instituted that would cover everyone, save the average family $2,500 per year and allow you to keep your current plan if you liked your current plan.

It seems we need a lot more change than we were promised.

Do you know anyone who might be able to deliver this time?