So you think the Dow Jones industrial average, in 3 days dropping a total of 950 points (500 on Monday, September 15th and 450 Wednesday, September 17th), renowned investement brokerage – Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy protection and the Federal Reserve stepping in with an emergency loan to keep American International Group Inc., one of the world’s largest insurers, from going under – has nothing to do with you and your lifestyle?

The poor and the working-class are used to everyday struggle, but what about you – middle to upper-middle class folk, who are job title and buzz rich, but cash poor – fronting like you got it when you don’t. You may be lucky enough to still have a job, but what about those mounting debts from those apparel purchases and restaurant meals on your credit cards? And what about that sub-prime mortgage you got for your condo? Did you factor in those ballon payments you had to make on the place when you closed the deal? A friend of mine told me about people he knows that had stock options in Lehman Brothers, whose value has been recently been trading between .20 and .60 cents per share, and have lost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in this financial debacle.

And what about you real estate prospectors? Did you think the good times were to going last? Though places like New York City, until recently, have stayed relatively above the mortgage crisis that has crippled the real estate markets in many locales across America – have now begun to feel the effects. Because of the weak U.S. Dollar and a strong Euro, many foriengners have been buying properties across NYC like hot cakes, but now that buying has cooled as a result of the ripple effect of Wall Street’s financial downturn. So who’s going to buy these apartments now?

If people don’t see the damaging effects of what greed and vanity can do to us individually and as a society, we will experience another Great Depression.

Oh, and don’t let me start talking about you hipsters…