The Way We Live Now: Misprioritized. We blow our emergency cash on suits. We spend all our time thinking about the lottery. We acquire stress ulcers while our wealth actually grows. Straighten up and fly right—for America.

NYC's unemployment rate: 10.3%. So what is the governement doing with its super emergency funds, to help the poors? "Using a 'national emergency grant' of $11 million in federal funds to help those laid off on Wall Street shift into other fields." Wall Street, they say! How about helping all those people now employed in pulling cans out of my trash in the early morning hours for recycling money!

I tell ya: Priorities are backwards these days. Take Belgium, as the most obvious example. You would think that the citizens of Belgium would be putting their brainpower towards dreaming up exotic financial instruments that can help their little country diversify out of the waffle business. Especially Belgian mathematicians, should be doing that! Instead what are they doing? Calculating the odds of the national lottery pulling the same numbers twice. It's four million to one, okay. Now go invent some derivatives.

I tell ya: People aren't grateful these days. All this bellyaching. Lazy journalists constantly writing about "recessionomics," to scare us. Here's a fact for you, Gloomy Gus: American household wealth grew by almost 4% in the second quarter. Do we sensibly invest that money in index funds? No, it all goes to male eyebrow grooming. They were crooked from recession tears. And deservedly so.
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Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.