The Way We Live Now: Bartering. And gambling. Bartering and gambling. We've regressed.

The Way We Live Now: In a cul-de-sac in Moreno Valley, California.The NYT has made it the national headquarters of recession-oriented media interest! Meanwhile, back in New York, the Hamptons crumble, and everyone's ready to kill to be a plumber.

Inglourious Basterds opened well! And since the flailing Weinstein Co. had mucho loot riding on this, they are saved! Right? No. Not really.

Callie Rogers was once the world's luckiest teenager. You see, at the tender age of 16, Ms. Rogers won £1.9million lottery. That was, at the time, about $3 million. Now it's all gone. That's good and bad. But mostly bad.

The Way We Live Now: "Poised to grow." Seriously, is that supposed to be encouraging? Your beard is poised to grow, Bernanke. You're rich. You'll be fine. The rest of us? All hoping we win that Free Banana Suit.

Did Starbucks just raise prices or lower prices? Both. From each according to his ability, and to each according to his need. Starbucks is fomenting socialism through macchiato pricing.

What, exactly, is McKinsey's strategy for cutting costs at Conde Nast? Having parsed today's worthless anecdotal evidence, we now know: Let Vogue do whatever she likes, and make the poor meek New Yorker staffers suffer to make up for it.

The Way We Live Now: Gobsmacked. What's this, unemployment is going up? But we were so optimistic there for a minute. And now our Swiss Bank is closing up shop. Don't tell us to be positive! Positivity has failed us!

Gen Art is ostensibly a nonprofit organization dedicated to "showcasing" designers, filmmakers, and artists by throwing hipster parties and film festivals. Not quite Amnesty International, but whatever. But one pissed-off tipster tells us Gen Art is mismanaged, and deserves death.

The Way We Live Now: Counting the many things we can't afford. We can't afford plastic bag taxes. We can't afford lemonade stand licenses. We can't afford our own crayfish. And why should we? This is America or whatever!

This is the new path to success: quit Wall Street, drive a cab, and then make it big in the TV business. Are you listening, laid off derivatives traders? It works!

The Way We Live Now: Off someone else's credit card, mostly. It's the only way to afford Panera sandwiches and still have enough left over for our health care premiums. Hope this "riskless" paper we invested in pays off!

The Way We Live Now: Staycationing. It's one made-up trend word that actually is true! Wherever we are, that's where we're staying, cause panhandling's just as good in Missoula as it is in Honolulu.

The Way We Live Now: Honoring the honorable Chairman Mao Zedong, with economic might! Capitalism, Communism, what does it really matter, as long as it glorifies China? They're not the ones renting textbooks and dreaming of Lotto tickets. That's us.

The Way We Live Now: Set Adrift on Memory Bliss. Or that could just be the choppy harbor waters under our new, floating raft home. We bought it with a microloan! Rats! Jesus! We're seasick hobos, now.

The Way We Live Now: Peachily. It's over, people. The economy is "leveling out." The Fed says so! So please, stop doing poor things. In particular, stop your pandemonium-plagued grabs for free money from check-cashing spots. It looks bad.

The Way We Live Now: Splendidly! Assuming we're in one of the right fields: Wall Street trading, administration of 501(c)3 canine charity groups, or lottery ticket buying. Everyone else: buzz off, brokies. That means you, Jesus!

The Way We Live Now: Still unemployed, why the fuck do you keep asking? Hamptons parking sticker theft can only keep us going for so long, ya know. If New York doesn't get a Wal-Mart soon, it's panic time.

Gordon Ramsay is famous for three things: Cooking, cussing, and overseeing a rapidly declining restaurant empire. But fame conquers all! Gordon can be the Donald Trump of food. It's okay.

The Way We Live Now: Alone. Abandon the kids! Or better yet, don't have the kids in the first place. They're the reason you're broke. And they'll just grow up to hide out in tax havens and rob taco trucks.