By bad I mean bad enough not to being able to afford things like food. That's how the arab spring started - food prices spiked beyond affordability. If you have

By bad I mean bad enough not to being able to afford things like food. That's how the arab spring started - food prices spiked beyond affordability. If you have responsibilities like family, people value their (relative) comfort, even if it's dwindling, over the risk of physical injury and chance of losing everything. Healthcare. 45,000 people die per year of health insurance (or lack thereof) in the U.S. This number may improve under the PPACA ("Obamacare") but insurers will fight and struggle against it, and as soon as Republicans regain control (which is inevitable) we'll see new laws that allow health insurance companies to kill even more people. The one thing that makes it not revolution-provoking is that it's mostly old, sick people who are affected. Also, people think they're better off than they actually are, that because they "have insurance" they're not going to get fucked over. "Obamacare" improved the situation, but he had to fight hard to get very little progress, and I think that his work will be undone in the next 5 years since it didn't change the underlying problems. This situation requires a complete overhaul (single-payer system, or public-option at the least). What I'm saying, however, is that things legitimately are that bad. Dying of health insurance is the 21st century's version of dying of starvation. It is, nonetheless, completely unpredictable when and how these things will come to a head, and there's still a possibility that society will reverse its own decline in another way.