Well, an America Dream is home ownership and it's up.

"Here is an interesting stat that came from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Homeownership rose from 64% in 1994 to 69% in 2004. Since 2004 the rate of homeownership has declined nearly a point to 68.2%."

therealestatebloggers

HOMEOWNERSHIP RATES:
United States: 2000: 66.2% 1990: 64.2% 1980: 64.4% 1970: 62.9%
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/owner.html

Stock market has been rising:

As far as Africa goes [and this significant to the US in terms of our national security]. There is some progress in fighting Malaria [there is still a lot is left uncompleted at this time].

We making significant progress in the war against Terrorism.
Our military has significantly improved in it's ability to fight this threat- and other types of threats.

The war between India and Pakistan is cooling off- and hasn't escalated. Iraq has a democracy. We have had no major wars and this 8 year period on global scale has been relatively peaceful. Though in terms of global security there remains many problems. Sudan continues to fester with little international will to intervene. Pakistan continues to be a region of instablity.

Illegal Drug use:
A United Nations (UN) report released on Monday shows that, globally, illicit drug use, production has declined. But it fingers a key trouble spot: Afghanistan, which has nearly doubled its opium production since a decade ago and last year pushed global yields to a record high.

According to Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the amount of land globally devoted to producing coca fell by 29 percent to about 156,900 hectares between 2000 and 2006[PDF]. A sharp drop in Colombian production was the main reason.

The US has seen a dip in cocaine usage, though Europe has seen a slight uptick. Still, The New York Times reports, the UN's data indicate that on virtually every level the illegal drug trade is receding, prompting Mr. Costa to say that efforts to contain the problem appear to be working. "
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0626/p99s01-duts.html

And considering that our effort in Afghanstan is making slow but steady progress and we have leadership in that country that though may not be effective at stopping it's drug trade, sees the value of doing so. Therefore as security conditions improve in Afghanstan we could see more effort to hinder this illegal trade.