Coming up: The Age of Restraint

The Age of Restraint. A phrase coined by Peggy Noonan who is famous for coining phrases. There is a certain sense of satisfaction in your faithful correspondent as he slides easily into geezerhood, striving for the coveted title of "Old Fart*" in seeing the younger generation suddenly realize that restraint rather than consumption can be a virtue. The richest society on the planet ever has suddenly discovered that there really are limits. Or as Noonan puts it:

There's something else going on, a new or renewed sense of national shame. Or communal responsibility. Or a sense of reckoning. Whatever it is it's a reaction to the excesses of the O's, a reaction against the ways of those who caused the mess on Wall Street and Main Street. It is a reassertion that there actually are rules, and that it is embarrassing to break them in a way so colorfully damaging and destructive to everyone else.

The excesses of the Os. Or the Double Zeros as I like to think of them. Apparently they topped even those of the 90s.

* though I recall that a girlfriend of mine told me after meeting my father, "Well, he certainly isn't an old fart."

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