Britain as a whole is not in the grip of some general 'moral decline'.

BBC: Riots: Tony Blair warning over 'disaffected youth'

Plenty of Americans fret about moral decline, youth violence and the rest of it, but their concerns hardly add up to an encompassing fear for the future.

ECONOMIST: Lexington

Its exact form is not yet clear, but it seems likely that legislation will be approved later this year, against approving background noise from politicians lamenting the moral decline that has led to widespread abuse of the old bankruptcy law.

ECONOMIST: Deeper in debt

This decline is being driven less by moral qualms about execution than by practical worries about whether the right people are being executed.

ECONOMIST: Timothy McVeigh��s execution