Mea taxima culpa

As a middle-class American, I know it is my fault. What is? (Ask rather, What is not?) In this case, "it" refers to sluggish sales at this most sacred retail time of year, the Holidays.

I should be out there buying, purchasing, acquiring, getting; I should be stretching every last atom of what credit remains to me helping to prop up the giant edifice and grease the vast machinery of American Consumption, without which, apparently, the economy of the entire world is grinding to an ungainly halt.

Yet I confess to confusion: I am told I neither save enough nor spend enough. With impatience I await the far more specific orders that are bound to emanate profusely from the Obama White House. Perhaps these orders will be simplified by Obama's new tax policy. If I have no money left after taxes to misuse, surely I can't make any more bad decisions, and the great ship of State will right itself and sail forward once again ...