I like the concept. It's especially ironic, since the one thing we have succeeded at as a society is the ability to provide luxury goods at very reasonable prices. It's the essentials, like education, health care and sound public administration which are rapidly becoming too expensive.

The fact remains, we are a civilization, that in spite of its wealth, has lost its confidence and purpose and is wracked by insecurity. You can dismiss this as weakness, (notice how common the term "whining" has become lately?). I prefer to think it is a universal subconcious recognition of a fundamental problem. And we tend to have a rosier picture of it than most since we live in the most prosperous society on the planet! It is tempting to blame enemies, foreign and domestic, for causing the problem or for causing discord by spreading the illusion of a problem, but that is just a simplistic answer.

We live in a conflicted society, the only thing we all have in common is a loss of optimism and a sense of borderline despair. Only our reasons for feeling that way differ. (See my response to TB, below).