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Apparently it takes more than the worst economic meltdown of our lifetimes to cure America of its cheerily naive belief—still disproven by statistics—that success in life is more due to hard work than the random lottery of who your parents are. The results of a survey released yesterday showed that people still widely believe in "the American Dream," with the majority of respondents saying that they expected to get ahead despite the economy, and that ambition was more important than external factors. So in the spirit of our rose-tinted brethren, we will view this as the very optimism that will bring our country back to prosperity, rather than a psychological defense mechanism evolved to suppress what would otherwise be an irresistible urge to riot and pillage on Park Avenue.