5 or 10 years ago I was a bit ambitious and even ran for office at one point. However in between the current meltdown and and realizing we have had 2 meltdown in 10 years, along with socialized capitalism (bailouts and such), it has made me question whether chasing politics or trying to build behemoths (at least in Western countries) is worth it. I still want to be financially independent and love investing, but it seems like most of the bigger companies are not creating anything of value so I would rather get a decent job and use that as capital to invest and get out of the rat race. I used to want to climb to the top in the US. Now I want enough money to be relatively wealthy, but would rather live abroad. Anyone used to be ambitious but now because of the state of the world scale back their ambitions?