The Way We Live Now: Too close for comfort. Hell is other people, and it's getting hot in here. The vaunted income gap—that which protects us from dirty inferiors—is shrinking. You poors aren't buying enough scratch-off tickets!

And who's getting hit the hardest? The top 1%. The heroes. The supermen. We can't help but read a dismayed tone into the WSJ headline, "Income Gap Shrinks, At Cost to Rich."

This is not normal. The poor know how to be poor already. What do the rich know about losing income? It's troubling, to say the least. When the top 1% of earners earn slightly less, innovation in America is destroyed, and Russia comes out on top. Try to imagine the world that this single WSJ photo caption implies: "Anthony Carmenate, in his home near Boston, has struggled since losing his $500,000-a-year job in asset management."

Scary, isn't it? Yes. Scarier still because one of the traditional economic leavening agents that kept the poor in their proper place—gambling—is not being embraced as enthusiastically as it should, by the desperate underclass. If you people don't support your state lotteries with your meager bit of disposable income, who is going to pay for your kids to go to school? The rich? A preposterous thought! They can build their own schools, or send their kids to public schools supported by their property taxes on the rich side of town. You, the poors, send your kids to crappy schools supported by the laughable taxes you pay on your hobo property. Lottery money makes up the difference! Gamble or die uneducated!

Whew. We must admit today's dark projections have us positively exercised. We offer a tip in the amount of $3 in scratch-off tickets to the first member of the underclass to fetch us an ice cold glass of lemonade and a bamboo fan. Additionally, we offer you a free investment tip: buy in Florida. Condos down there are going like hotcakes. Get in on the ground floor. Fifty Feet in Paradise, kids. It beats the hell out of broke ass Stuy Town.
[Pic via]