The Wall St. Journal now has a slick “style” magazine supplement called WSJ. (Yes, the period is part of the name.)

Its fall cover depicts a gold-painted apple and the headline “Forbidden Fruit: Selling Luxury in the Age of Abstinence.”

Which is precisely what the section’s articles and advertisements proceed to do.

Page after page (88 in all) lauds the charms of gaudy wristwatches, private jets, Lincolns with “eco” features, fashions (including fur items), jewelry, wines, boots, hotels, purses, and accessories for rich white people of all adult ages and genders.

The cover, though, really says it all.

How do you sell things/services/experiences of little to no practical value, at a time when even CEOs pretend to be regular folks trudging through thes times like the rest of us?

By re-imaging them as icons of daring rebellion.

Be un-PC! Thrift, practicality—BORING! Show the petty little people of this world you don’t give a damn about them. Look as unashamedly silly as any “white gangsta” teen hanging in the malls.