The Way We Live Now: Praying for a safety net. It's a little more fun plummeting off the precipice of financial doom when you don't actually know whether a net's there to catch you or not. Maybe! Feel the adventure!

It's your lucky day, soon-to-be-evicted Americans, because your government has deigned to provide you with some money to stave off homelessness. This is primarily because homeless people hog public services and, as an eyesore, pull down property values and, thereby, tax revenue, for the government. Early intervention in your pathetic life can save thousands of dollars down the road, for your municipality!

Indeed, it's forward thinking like that that has allowed for home resales to jump, and for home prices in the Hamptons to bounce back from their momentary lull. After some scary times there, the median price for a luxury home is back up around $5.5 million. Next time you start telling yourself a sob story about how the only thing keeping you from destitution and homelessness is a meager government check that could be yanked away at any time due to the vagaries of some hillbilly politico's home district, just remember: you could be a Hamptons homeowner, worried about the appreciation of your mansion.

It helps to have perspective.

As usual, it could be worse. You could be a stamp collector, a member of a dwindling, disrespected hobby falling into disrepair through disuse. So next time you meet that homeless man on the corner, mumbling about philatelism, instruct your local bureaucracy to cut him a check and send him on his way. Otherwise, he's coming to your house.
[Pic via]