Citing their ready availability and consistent quality, a report released Monday by the Brookings Institution confirmed that, as far as oyster crackers go, the nation is doing pretty good. The United States is currently in a very respectable place in terms of oyster crackers, and at present, any existing oyster crackerrelated concerns are minimal, said the reports lead researcher, Kevin Purcell, who offered the prevalence of oyster crackers in supermarkets, the rarity with which they are discovered broken, and the fact that packets of the crackersoften two at a timeare handed out free of charge with many soups and chowders as clear evidence that the country is in a solid spot, oyster crackerwise. Using these small crackers as our sole metric, the findings could not be any clearer: We are doing well as a nation. Our needs for oyster crackers are being met and then some. Could things take a downturn in the future vis-a-vis oyster crackers? Certainly. But there is nothing to suggest that we are moving in that direction as of now. Researchers acknowledged, however, that despite current positive trends, the country likely would never match up to the golden era of oyster crackers of the late 1840s. 