The Way We Live Now: huffing and puffing and blowing houses down. We're talking economically, okay? Home equity has evaporated. Deflation is inevitable. Credit card rates are increasingly usurious. Your safe investments are bubbles. And your painting's been stolen. Blows.

I'm sorry if you believed in the American dream. That was a serious miscalculation on your part. Needless to say, the idea that becoming a homeowner could provide you with lifelong financial security was false. A clever ruse, really; why take your chances in the wandering stock market when preying on overly confident overleveraged (temporary) homeowners is a sure bet?

But only for the predators. For the prey, the only sure thing is that you will be eaten. And you have been eaten, America. You have been eaten good. The only thing left is to take it with equanimity. Japan, for example, has stoically resigned itself to being stuck in a spiral of doom and deflation. Can we learn something from them?

We could, but we won't. It's not our way. Our way is to keep financing ourselves on credit cards, no matter how high the rates may climb. Then finally, when there's nothing left? When you can't borrow another buck from the bank? You bust the joint out. (Or you get into international art theft. It's really easy. But preferably, bust the joint out.)

There's just nowhere to hide any more. You want to flee the volatile market for the safety of bonds? Guess what, America: the bonds are a bubble. The bonds. Are. A bubble. They were supposed to be the safe things. It's not all love any more, America. Just try to take it with a mask of acceptance.

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