It's morning here, I'm sitting at the desk, drinking coffee and I can assure you I'm OK mentally :) Also I can assure you that short facts in my comment ARE strongly related to current state of the market.
"Most prestigious nation on earth"? Update: (I had to puke.) You are just 'known'. Known as most militant and most dangerous. You are directly or indirectly responsible for every war in the last 60 years. If you sniff oil, or other form of money, you are ready to kill even civilians or children. You are also ready to send your sons to die for smell of money. You have biggest number of homeless in the world, even children and so we can continue whole day... but I still hope there are some people there who understand this and can do something with that. This is how we perceive you here in Europe, my fellow "Americans". :) or :(
Learn language which can be easily extended by c/c++, say python, php or ruby, so you can continue to improve your skills in c/c++ and learn new language at the same time.