An economy that fails for working people cannot work, in the long run, for the wealthy. You are better off being prosperous and paying tax than going down in the first-class cabins of a sinking ship. Life is a shipwreck. And we cannot choose whether we survive it or not. What we have to choose is how well we behave among the chaos, and what small decisions we make along the way to allow us to live with ourselves. And, of course, how well we commemorate the lives of those who didn't make it.

Cold River Drowning, First-Class Style

You have sung the hymns and heard the readings. This is the sermon. To begin on a somber note, the bubble and the bust of high technology, the debt build-up of American households, the obsession with a strong dollar -- all of this existed before we got George Bush. The late 1990s were a fine time, but they set the stage for a slump which began in late 2000, from which we have not recovered, and will not recover soon.
· Life is a shipwreck, you survive or you don't. [TomPaine ]