"Horrible"

Consumer Confidence Tops Expectations by Being Merely Horrible, Partially Explaining Black Friday Bloodlust

This seemed like a real Welcome to the Crisis article: The reporting of bad news in a manner halfway between cynical and bemused; the Thoreau quote for dramatic emphasis; the photograph that might have been people running from a mad gunman as easily as the shopping frenzy it actually was.

In the Crisis, any potential advantage is exploited as fully as possible. Not that people will be less moral - some may be, of course - but that the smallest savings or the most meager bonus becomes more important than it was a few years before. Or, if that isn't always the case, our vigilance for such activity and action makes any visible evidence of it of interest - a funhouse mirror held up to our own souls.