And yet the America I report on is open and generous, charitable, decent and largely very peaceful.

BBC: The selfless America outsiders don't see

Equally, what once seemed like decent treatment for city workers, i.e. generous health care, pensions and pay, particularly for firefighters and police, is now seen as absurd featherbedding.

BBC: Debt and defiance in bankrupt Stockton, California

Wells Fargo has done better with its purchase of Wachovia, but decent longer-term prospects cannot obscure the fact that a generous stress-test process still required it to raise more capital.

ECONOMIST: The world's best banks

The survival of so many, thanks lately to generous loans from the Bank of Japan, has made it hard for the better ones to earn a decent profit.

ECONOMIST: How to waste $250 billion