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Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. Somehow, we’ve decided as a nation that borrowing money to pay for the money we have already borrowed is a good idea. We’ve also decided that buying on margin is a fine way for the United States Treasury to be spending uncollected tax money. We’ve also decided that spending $1 trillion dollars more than we make is a sane national budgetary practice.

There really should be no doubt about where the current financial crisis came from. There is no mystery here. We were all spending more than we received. California was doing it. New York was doing it. The entire nation was doing it, from sea to shining sea.

For anyone who thinks we weren’t participating, think again. What was our opinion when taxes were cut? When prices increased for product we were purchasing, what did we do? Did we scale back? Did we start shopping at Walmart? Did we charge it? Did we use our home equity line of credit? Where we pushing for hybrid cars 20 years ago? When gasoline shot through the roof, did we stick with our cars? Or did we start taking mass transit?

Each of those items above (and countless others) contributed to the financial crisis we are in today. We all played our part with our desire for “rollback” pricing and consumption beyond reasonable means. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with consumption. Consumption is a critical part of our economy, but it isn’t going to dig us out of anything. Money can’t buy happiness, and money can’t buy a happy economy either.