Storage places are cropping up faster than fast-food restaurants — a real sign of the times. Like many who had their homes foreclosed on or have been through the “short sale” process I had to store half of my worldly possessions in a storage unit. Along with the couches, lawn furniture and boxes loaded with Christmas decor many of one’s hopes and aspirations also lay passively in the sterile, mildly air-conditioned 10-foot by 10-foot space.

Few ventures are more depressing than visiting my storage space. The place is always bustling with activity — full of people looking to store their previous lives. Dehumanizing euphemisms are in vogue, and so the process of dismantling life as you knew it is called “downsizing.”

Storage places used to be frequented by college kids and empty-nesters, now young and middle-aged families whose lives have been permanently altered by this century’s “great depression” wander the lifeless, brightly cold hallways as they stack their belongings and adjust to their new reality.

Recently, the media have highlighted upticks in the economy; frankly, it doesn’t seem that way in the ’burbs of South Florida. U-Haul trucks line Kendall Drive on weekends as families leave their unaffordable mortgages and temporarily find refuge in rentals half the size.

Before the “righteous arbiters of fiscal responsibility” point out that many of us who were done in by the undertow of the financial turbulence should have never signed on to the faulty, “too good to be true” mortgage deals we undertook, I’m here to tell you, you are right — mea culpa. We should have known better and been more sensible. However, what is equally true is that we all fell prey to the seduction and permissiveness of an industry that knew the bubble would eventually burst and, worse yet, understood the catastrophic fallout that would follow.

While families in Westchester, Pembroke Pines, Schenley Park and thousands of communities across this nation now endure the adverse consequences of the gluttonous scam that the banking industry and Wall Street carried out, the villainous institutions were made whole by the federal government.

Finance execs who consciously made their fortunes while millions of us faced ruin, got off scot free and now live in extreme opulence. Ironically, their wealth has been amplified by the immense economic disparity that exists between the “haves” and the “used to have until I got hustled by a lender.”

The nearly extinct working middle class adjusts to the new rules of the game. Many of us are now “freelancers,” which is modern jive for hired hands who receive no health insurance or any other benefits. The one industry that seemingly has tremendous financial sustainability in South Florida and beyond is healthcare.

Most South Floridians who are victims of this economic malaise live in the very dangerous state of quiet desperation — uncertain about how they will make ends meet at the end of each month. It is this condition of unrest that is the No. 1 killer in American society today because it produces stress — the root of many, if not all of our maladies.

In a recent conversation, a concerned, elected official attempting to gauge where the problems exist so that we can better formulate solutions posed the question: “What is the new American reality?”

The answer lies in the overwhelming financial burdens most Americans face. Technology, outsourcing and an alarming rate of poorly educated, unemployable workers have led to a stagnant, no longer upwardly mobile middle class.

As millionaire Republican candidates crisscrossed the state this week promoting vague economic recovery plans, and the president delivered a State of the Union address that sounded more like a campaign stump speech, most Miamians continue to suffer the consequences of the economy’s bursting bubbles. How much more upheaval must it take for our business, political and civic leaders to realize the American dream as we knew it is in a heap of trouble — all wrapped in bubble wrap stored next to my recliner.