Does the baseline from where they started to measure the fall include things like the house with the mortgage that was worth 4 times more on paper than it is now worth, and the financial investment that were inflated ? 

The 2007 baseline may take into account the following:

The real estate market correction of 2006–2007 reversed these trends. ... Some of the cities and regions that had experienced the fastest growth during 2000–2005 began to experience high foreclosure rates. ...

On the basis of 2006 market data that were indicating a marked decline, including lower sales, rising inventories, falling median prices and increased foreclosure rates, some economists have concluded that the correction in the U.S. housing market began in 2006.

"Living in an area with multiple foreclosures can result in a 10 per cent to 20 per cent decrease in property values." ...

In March 2007, the United States' subprime mortgage industry collapsed due to higher-than-expected home foreclosure rates .... 

National home sales and prices both fell dramatically in March 2007 — the steepest plunge since the 1989 Savings and Loan crisis. According to NAR data, sales were down 13% ..., and the national median price fell nearly 6% to $217,000 from a peak of $230,200 in July 2006. ..

Somewhat paradoxically, as the housing bubble deflates some metropolitan areas (such as Denver and Atlanta) have been experiencing high foreclosure rates, even though they did not see much house appreciation in the first place and therefore did not appear to be contributing to the national bubble. This was also true of some cities in the Rust Belt such as Detroit and Cleveland, where weak local economies had produced little house price appreciation early in the decade but still saw declining values and increased foreclosures in 2007. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble)

So the 2007 baseline already looks pretty bleak to me...

Among them: White births in US no longer a majority. I for one would prefer an America for Native Americans, but I will put up with all the other colors in the meantime.

It looks like, though, that only 2/3 of the US elderly fly into expensive clinics on their own private jets:

As many as one-third of the elderly die owing more in medical fees than they have in assets, according to a new study.

[Excerpt] When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965, he noted that its benefits to older Americans were not only medical, but financial: “No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime.”

Fifty years later, Dr. Amy Kelley, a geriatrician at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, has amassed disheartening evidence that L.B.J. was wrong.

Her team’s study of health care expenditures during the last five years of life, drawn from the national Health and Retirement Study, tracked people over age 70 who died between 2002 and 2008.

Almost half the 3,209 people in the sample, she reported, had heart disease; a quarter had diabetes; 20 percent had dementia. They started with average assets of $107,000, including their homes. In the year before their deaths, about 20 percent were nursing home residents. Their average age at death: 84.

During their final five years, 18 percent of these old people ran up out-of-pocket expenses greater than their total assets. If you exclude their houses (the kind of asset you can’t easily use to pay for drugs or doctors), a full 33 percent owed more in medical expenses than they had in assets.

More: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/l-b-j-was-wrong/

I was wondering how come I knew so few millionaires in the US. The above definition of a US millionaire -- average assets of $107,000 -- has cleared up things for me. I may know more millionaires among the US elderly than I think.

On a lighter note, America and Americans as presented by American movies, exclusively:

1) No American pedestrian can ever be sure they won`t be hit by a car, either on a sidewalk or inside a shop or even on a roof. That`s because American criminals trying to escape American cops and American cops pursuing American criminals drive their cars anywhere; sometimes they even use roads.

2) Americans make their cars stronger than their buildings. An escaping criminal (or the patrol in pursuit) can drive right through a building and go on uninjured (both the criminal / patrol an the car), but the building is left in sore need of repair, if it does not collapse altogether.

3) Americans seldom, if ever, lock the doors, and if they do, the locks are very easy to pick. Anybody and anything can wander into an American home.

4) The most dangerous place in America is the shower. One is almost certain to get slaughtered or killed some other way when taking a shower. It`s usually a knife, held in a most unprofessional way by some maniac, but it might be some other thing, sometimes. The next most dangerous place (except for sidewalks and ground-floor shops and things) is the bathroom, or, to be more precise, the bath.

5) If there`s a lot of books, especially old books, in a flat, one can be about 90% certain the owner of the flat is a dangerous maniac. The rest 10% are just ordinary weirdos / scientists.

6) Physical conditioning of American gentlemen is nothing if compared to physical conditioning of American ladies. Where the former wear three-piece suits complete with ties, the latter wear an expensive shred of luxury cloth with straps and never get a cold.*

7) The most popular / effective American remedy for anything and everything, from catching a cold to having one`s head bashed down or being forced to politely receive the Mother-In-Law, is either "Take an aspirin" or "It`s not your fault".

8) Oh my, nearly forgot... Last not least! Very untidy nation, Americans. Even cops throw disposable coffee-cups and things outa their cars, sometimes with the panes not lowered - which is a good thing, because the garbage stays inside the car, in that case!

There`s more, but I think the above about sums it up.

It`s a good thing Americans produce books as well. Because were one to be guided by movies only...

*Well, this seems to be not really exclusively American.

Yup, the car is central to the American culture. BTW, once in the US I quickly learned that when you buy horses or cars, you always haggle.

Even in New York, Some People Don't Lock Their Doors

IT’S the lore and lure of bucolic small-town living: The community is so safe, people don’t even lock their doors. But Joyce Weisshappel, a 63-year-old vice president with the Corcoran Group, a real estate company, does not live in a small town; she lives in Manhattan, in a luxury apartment building. And she doesn’t think she has ever locked her door in the 30 years she has lived there — she doesn’t even know where the keys are.

Why would she lock the door, she asks. There are 24-hour doormen, delivery people cannot enter the building unescorted and she’s never heard of a crime being committed there.

The No Lock People: You may doubt their existence, particularly in big cities like New York, but people who do not lock the doors to their houses and apartments do exist — and in surprising numbers. A 2008 survey by State Farm Insurance of 1,000 homes across the country reported that fewer than half of those surveyed always locked their front doors. And while people who habitually lock their doors are incredulous that others do not, those who don’t lock are surprised that anyone would be shocked by it.

In fact, just as there are cat people and dog people, Mac people and PC people, there seem to be Lock People and No Lock People.

[...]

Oh, but my post was about movies, not about real life...