Happiness Is Just $163,500 AwayS

The Way We Live Now: spreading fitfully. Moving warily. Gazing wistfully. Charging droopily. It would be an overstatement to say that good times are here; nevertheless, we can safely say that bad times are... somewhere. Here? That wouldn't be good.

Once upon a time the government had a good idea and that idea was to lower interest rates so low that ass is on the ground. Sure it's good unless you're actually a responsible person who saves money in which case your savings are fucked thanks to the magic of math. Now we can't even afford commas in America not a single one.

Buck up. Grit your teeth. Hike up your breeches. Blow this joint. We need to get by with what we have, and if that means that every defense contractor is working solely with Pick-Up Stix and every single student in a classroom has to learn to count using only stray grains of dirt and imagination, wellsir, that's exactly what will happen, because here in America we're bound by the same laws of physical reality as everyone else in the universe, despite our best efforts to see to it that that's not so.

The economic recovery, you see—how shall we put this—it spreads fitfully. It doesn't spread smoothly, like Nutella. It spreads in fits, like an epileptic being stretched on the rack. That's just how it spreads. Don't let it mess with your mind, like rising coffee prices at the same time as falling US global competitiveness.

You don't have time to sit around moping about the decline and fall of your own personal bank account and/ or life in general. It costs $163,500 per year just to be happy in New York City. Better get to work.

[Class Conscious Hamster pic: Lauri Apple]