The Way We Live Now: Cashing out. While we can. Take the dollars, or the pennies on the dollar, and be happy. Cut your losses. Follow Ralph Lauren's lead! Loot the museums! Call in sick! Run for the golden horizon!

Ralph Lauren is selling nearly a billion dollars worth of shares in his own company. Ask yourself, now: what does this fabulously wealthy and stylish mogul know that I, the average sap, do not? It's fortunate that you decided to read today, because we will answer that simple question for you, the sap.

He knows that it's time to get out. No time left to try to rebuild our crumbling institutions. The Brooklyn Museum has great art, special programs, and monthly free admission days, and they still can't get anybody to come. You have none of those attributes. What hope is there for you? Fairway has an UWS location, a devoted fan base, and all types of olives. Yet they are still close to closing down their cafe for lack of profits. You have an "efficiency apartment," a long list of detractors, and a single half-full jar of Spanish olives, at best.

Where is your hope? Have you seen it? Possibly in the Land of Illusion, but not here. Take some cues from others who are reading the reality on the wall, friend. The teachers of Newark are calling in sick to work like damn near every other day. It's not because they hate the kids, which they do; it's because they live in Newark, so they're right on the front lines of our collapsing society, close enough to see that their time is better spent constructing a fortified bunker than working, or whatever you do in school.

There's no confidence in homes, or anything else. Sell your possessions. Enslave your neighbor. Run for it. Worst case scenario, you have a great story about plundering unsuspecting countrysides.

[Pic via]