The End of History and overconsumption

It occurred to me sometime this ending that the whole supersizing trend: cars, houses, compensation, restaurant portions, malls, as well as the pseudocosmopolitanization of America: a mocachino in every pot, seared ahi tuna on every grill, really got rolling in earnest after the end of the Cold War 20 years ago. At that point in time, the great narrative of history having come to a close, not with a bang but with a whimper, America really got down to indulging its taste for just about everything. What else was there to do, after all? We had won.

And the last decade has been little more than a steady realization that history hasn't really come to an end, after all, that there were forces below the surface all along, in places little suspected: the Middle East, China and now Brazil. We shall see how it plays out.