The Way We Live Now: Searching for scapegoats. You can't indict someone as a villain based purely upon the ravings of the populists, you know. Congressmen are not the enemy. Nor are airlines, or free Kiehls samples. Nor is sex!

Okay, sure, oldest one in the book, things start being less than perfect, the country goes broke, and what happens? "Congress, where 44 percent are millionaires, freezes pay." Don't go thinking they did this out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it—putting themselves at major risk of coming up short on their mistress's rent—because you simpletons can't get over the idea that millionaire Congressmen who just watched our nation's economy collapse don't deserve a raise.

Nice job. Real nice.

Airlines made $7.8 billion from made-up fees last year. Do you stop for a single moment to congratulate them on their financial ingenuity? Do you thank the nearest airline CEO for helping to get that cash circulating in the economy? No, you probably call for some restrictive new laws and flap your wings as if you could just fly yourself to Minneapolis for free, which you can't.

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Haiku of our doom?

The point, friends, the point is to simply think, think about what you are doing and why, why you are doing it. Getting you average economically illiterate American to appreciate the benefits they derive from Congressmen, airlines, and particularly airline-owning Congressmen is harder than getting a murder conviction in The Bronx, amirite? I right. "The public" is a group of bloodthirsty animals with poor accounting skills who must be kept under control. So yes, fine, we'll give you your tax deduction for pornography, if you give Congressmen their raise back. Cooperation is the essence of political economy. Take our word for it.

[Pic via]