Well, if you had any money before, you definitely don’t now.  If you didn’t have any money before, you haven’t lost anything yet, so you are probably generally happier than those who have lost lots.  So, having lots of money wouldn’t have been a winning strategy for being happy these past weeks.  So, if by next month we can safely call this winter a “global great depression” kind of winter then we can officially start living the boring story we will tell our grandkids in about 20 years.  Providing we don’t get killed in a gasoline riot, or die of starvation for some reason.  But that’s just part of the great story we will tell one day, and the more “boiled Tevas for dinner” and “burning old PCs for heat” spice you can add to the story, the less likely your grandkids will get bored and just start surfing the net with their wearable computers and contact lens displays (a la Rainbow’s End).

To that end, I found an excellent post on Neatorama that details past financial crashes (all American it seems) but it’s important to remember that crashes and economic crappiness is usually followed up with a period of wealth and prosperity.  

So, while we now live the story we will tell with stick-shaking, spittle-flecked intensity to our progeny in the future, we can at least be fairly certain that there will be a period of time we will conveniently forget to tell the grandkids, the part after the “Big Downer” when we started making manhole covers out of elephant ivory, and snorting sweet Arabian crude oil through hollowed-out narwhal tusks.  Oh wait, that was the 80’s.  Crap.

Better bury your nickels in the backyard, son.

(Editor’s note:  Had caffeine today, fortunately it doesn’t show in my writing.)