The Way We Live Now: Austerely. Everyone is! Greece is. Nevadans are. You know Chile's not living it up. Everyone is dead broke, it seems...except the fancy Japanese. Are we gonna stand for that?

Not to come off as all hot headed and warmongering. Let's take a sober look at the real and pure xenophobic facts. But sure does seem like most of the world's good folks are pitching in together, austerely. Greece is so austere it has its very own austerity plan and everything. The alternative is even more austere! Chile is really just one big pile of rubble and Hillary Clinton right now. That's pretty austere. In Nevada, home owners are begging to have the assessed value of their homes reduced, in order to get lower property taxes. They love austerity that much.

Even the US Postal Service is prepared to give you much, much worse postal service, all in the name of austerity.

But oh, hey, what's this, a big fancy man parading around in a golden limousine? That would be a little nation called "Japan," where the unemployment rate fell to a mighty fancy 4.9%, and the economy grew nearly 5% last quarter. Yea, because they're all fixing the Toyotas with which they tried to kill us! Must be nice.

The austere must antagonize Japan, to win!