When pondering the state of the U.S. economy, it is hard not to hear Michael Corleone's lament: "Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

The smattering of good news over recent months -- stronger home sales, sparks in the construction industry, increases in big-ticket factory orders -- almost immediately have been canceled out by bad news.

So it comes as no surprise that consumer confidence continues to falter. And the reasons are obvious.

While economists tinker and tout their trend indices, the American people eye something more real -- their own bottom line.

Few have been spared from this economy, especially in former industrial areas. In Detroit, there is a proposal to use abandoned land as infill farmland. Illinois and California are so broke their governments cannot pay bills. A full 10 percent of the American workforce cannot find work. Stores have been shuttered. Parking lots are empty. Even casinos are losing money -- or taking less of it than ever before. Kansas has yet even to entice a developer to submit an application for one of its once-conveted gaming licenses.

All of this on top of global crises: rising oil prices, military conflict without resolution, European nations on the verge of collapse.

Is it any wonder Average Joe and Jane are pinching pennies? Some of it could be prudence, but Americans care little for saving. What's more frightening is the prospect that many more Americans than economists will admit are facing a personal crisis that mirrors the Big Business capital crisis of 2008.

Undersaving and overextending have millions of Americans wondering if they'll leave the next generation anything more than a bill for the nursing home.

American Big Business was bailed out and, like it or not, things would be exponentially worse without stimulus packages put into place by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

But what about Average Joe and Jane?

Americans have seen their wages reach a point of stagnation. Ambition -- that drive toward the American dream -- has been tempered by fear. We, as a people, are hanging on to what we've got for dear life.

We are lucky in northwest Kansas. The housing crisis that decimated credit, jobs and savings has not rippled through. The jobless rate hovers around an enviable 4 percent. While state and local governments are struggling to make ends meet, they have done so without decimating the institutions that support so many with jobs and services.

There is a feeling that a personal credit crisis is looming. One hundred banks have failed in the United State since the crisis crested over the nation nearly two years ago. What will happen if 100 million personal credit crises happen all at once?

That remains to be seen.

Editorial by Ron Fields

rfields@dailynews.net