Eat, Drink and Be Merry.

So here's some food for thought from a very wise, very informed, very anonymous friend of mine regarding the current economic state of the great U.S of A. (I pulled this from a candid, unscripted email thread that I was a part of today.)

"I don't mean to be pessimistic, but our eat, drink and be merry attitude has finally cost us. Most of us, including me, have had to do very little (sacrifice) to really enjoy the things that came so easy to us. I think we are going to have to suffer in some way, just like every American generation has. Somehow we've got to understand that we can't have everything and not do anything for it. I see that in my students right now. They feel entitled. Maybe they always have. But they seem to expect that they are going to have everything they ever wanted and it will just happen without having to do anything for it. In some ways it's a form of greed."-anonymous

In one word, what do you think is the cause of the current economic state??