Perhaps you've been congratulating yourself on having less than $200,000 in student loan debt, telling yourself your own student loans aren't so bad. Well, stop that! The 2010s are the decade of "Feeling Bad About Your Student Loans."

Whoa, this whole "debt ceiling" thing sure is scary, right? Can you imagine a national default? All together now, American paupers: "Yes, we can fucking imagine it. Welcome to the club, rest of America."

Good news on the national debt competition front (it is a competition, yes? Check this): the size of America's national debt will soon equal the entire size of our annual economy! I'm no "certified economist" or "New Yorker term-coiner," but I believe the official name for this economic period is "The Tipping Point." Think of it as the gateway to fun!

Wal-Mart—the hellish trinket-stuffed warehouse that is, in a horrifyingly literal sense, America's favorite destination—has instituted totally free online shipping, for the holidays. Try to resist now, hippies. This will change everything, for the worse.

The Way We Live Now: putting our faith in pure voodoo. We actually have no idea if these "regulations" and "cutbacks" and "painful reactions to a financial crisis" will actually "help" at all. But hey, see what sticks, right?

The Way We Live Now: Having those same old troubles again. Remember that time, not too long ago, when we had the incident with, you know, the world economy plunging into hellfire and chaos? That thing? Yea. Comeback time!