Shake the slab of flesh, taunting for a fetch,
Time to ring the chime
Whet the appetite, teeth are grinding tight,
Reinforcing life
Drooling down the sides,
Eyes are bulging wide
Yes, the price is right
The cut is very tough,
Gristle’s good enough
They all need a bite
No tolling of the bell, just the one to hell
There they’ll all know
Thimbleful to chance, pay the luxury tax
Do not pass go
Try and bring the beef, see what is to keep
Not a pretty sight
The cut is very tough, you bit the big bluff

Take another bite

– Prong
David Leonhardt:

The notion that the United States needs to begin moving away from its consumer economy — toward more of an investment and production economy, with rising exports, expanding factories and more good-paying service jobs — has become so commonplace that it’s practically a cliché. It’s also true. And the consumer bust shows why. The old consumer economy is gone, and it’s not coming back.
Sure, house and car sales will eventually surpass their old highs, as the economy slowly recovers and the population continues expanding. But consumer spending will not soon return to the growth rates of the 1980s and ’90s. They depended on income people didn’t have.
The only major economic burden I have to bear is a mortgage, and even that has me working longer hours than I want at a job that often drives me insane. I don’t mind making the sacrifice for the time being, but I would much rather look to simplify my life even more than struggle indefinitely like this. I have no idea how most people manage to sleep at night with the amount of debt they’ve incurred for all the shit they have that they don’t need.