The Way We Live Now: Up to expectations. We see the expectations, and we fulfill them, "being all that we can be," we tell ourselves, while in fact wallowing in the sordid, muddy, lowness. Of expectations.

Barclay's profit rose to almost $15 billion last year. Would you have expected that a year and a half ago? We think not.

A proposed "requirement that stock and insurance brokers act in their customers' best interest" is being opposed by stock and insurance brokers. What did you expect?

The New York comptroller's office is holding onto $9.9 billion of the public's money, simply because nobody has claimed it yet. Is your name on the list for some free cash? Don't expect it.

Bank robbers have gotten so lazy that they're using taxis as getaway cars now. The expectations that banks give a fuck are at an all-time low.

Dutch dairy farmers who left their little dairy farms in the Netherlands in order to start bigger dairy farms in the US are now mad because the man who was supposed to help them do this did not in fact help them do it, but he says hey, there's a recession, and plus the price of milk sucks. Did Dutch dairy farmers expect that they would not have their hearts broken by America, somehow? If so, why?

Poor small time vendors who hoped to make a few bucks selling candy and bouquets for Valentine's day from small folding card tables had their dreams cruelly shattered, as their investments failed and nobody bought nothing for Valentine's day, because we are all broke and consequently love is dead. We told you that was gonna happen.

These things are to be expected.

[Pic: Rosino]