Americans More Optimistic About Brangelina Relationship Than About Gas Prices 'Normalizing'

According to a study by the Drum Major Institute, a think tank, Americans are more confident that they will see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie celebrate their 25th anniversary than that they will see gas return to $3 a gallon. Despite the frequency of Hollywood breakups, 56 percent of respondents in the nationwide poll said they expected the couple to make it to their silver anniversary as gas prices continued to climb, while only 19 percent found gas prices more likely to "normalize." Eighteen percent expected neither option to come to bear. The survey question was part of a study on the widespread pessimism of middle-class families regarding the economy and politics.

So what does this say about America? That we can muster up more optimism for things we feel we intimately understand—like the tabloid-dissected Brangelina relationship—than the things we do not, like the intricacies of the global oil market, even though both are beyond our control?