A happy new year awaits those who already have, with austerity for the rest of us.
It became identified with the austerity of wage and pension cuts, with heavy taxes through our inefficient tax authority, rather than good governance, equitable taxes and deep reforms that would have lifted much of the burden from the middle and lower classes.
The optimists would like to see the trials as lagging indicators of poor corporate governance, providing a welcome contrast with the austerity of today's boardrooms.
The elegiac vocal lines find support in Mr. Andriessen's vividly colored contemporary harmonies, tinged with the austerity of medieval modal music.
There was lushness, and beauty, he said, contrasted with the austerity of most classical productions, certainly at the Royal Shakespeare Company, at that time in England.
It would be naïve to pretend that the Tavianis, however expert and engulfing their film, can provide more than temporary relief; and yet, as "Caesar Must Die" suggests, there is no earthly reason that mercy and compassion cannot cohabit, like cellmates, with the austerity of art.
But it's magic, too, because in this age of diminution and vulgarity at the movies, Malick conducts himself with the austerity of Chaplin and Kubrick – doing it his way, disdaining the press, but getting people to pay for it all.
The BBC would doubtless face challenges on the scope of what it does and could not expect any increase in the licence fee out of line with austerity in the rest of the public sector.
With austerity the order of the day in European capitals, their financing suddenly looks a lot more precarious than it did two years ago when commercial rivals, reeling from the ad slump, envied their steady revenue.
At the same time it is also stricken by high levels of public debt and unemployment, and struggles with austerity policies as consequences of the Eurozone crisis.
