Too many installments left on your Italian-design-Japanese-conception-China-made egg stirrer? Still feeling soreness on your lips’ job leasing? That hand-tailored suit weighted a bit too much on your earn-free-air-miles-credit card?

2009 will compel you to live within your own means.

Credit crunches will restore reason. We shall accept to drive cars less than five meters long with a hood ornament. Our children will skip obligatory attendance in each and every club around town. Fancy clothes will have to go without the three to four digit tag. It will be fine not to apply for a loan each and every time LCD screens grow an inch.

Behavioral change often inflicts painful resistance with a significant compromise on certain lifestyles we lead. We tend to worry about our “social image” and invest beyond our means to maintain stature. Try investing in culture, for a change, or have they not provided loans for it yet?

No, this will not drive consumption down, but rather oblige society to spend its hard earned income with much caution, and most importantly, within its means. If the demand for salmon pizza goes down, so will its price, and then you will be able to savor it, without credit card abuse.

This change will not occur overnight, and will take time. It should serve as a lesson to be learned, for times to come (wishful thinking).