FICRY

While some on Capitol Hill will use this month’s slight drop in unemployment rate as evidence of the stimulus’ slow but steady success, their excitement may be overlooking a couple of key statistical details. First of all, while the rate of job loss has decreased from 9.5 to 9.4%, the number of unemployed Americans is [...]

When you’re starting a blog people always tell you to “find your niche” and fame and fortune will follow. If you want to make it in the highly fickle and judgmental online world and become a bonafide internet celebrity (which would still only make you a D-list celebrity), you’ve got to do something that’s never [...]

Poverty in Detroit is forcing people to fish in contaminated waters, despite the government’s warning that eating Michigonian catch can be fatal. Journalist L.L. Brasier reported that the state of Michigan sold 703,695 fishing licenses in 2007” around the time the state began to slip into a deep recession. This means that the number of [...]

The New York Times recently reported on a grizzly new trend that is surfacing as the result of the crisis. Those who can no longer claim a place among the lucky employed might do well to heed the media’s warnings because there’s so little money changing hands these days, people are opting out of professional [...]

If you or someone you know is suffering at the hands of the FICRY, there may be ways to ease the pain. Check out this handy guide entitled “when the paycheck stops” put out by the afl-cio. The site, run by America’s Union Movement, provides information on how to get assistance paying utilities and handling [...]

In today’s financial crisis, 1 in every 9 Americans are feeding their families with stamps. There are currently 33.8 million Americans on food stamps– a number that far exceeds the the surge in food stamp users in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. In the past year, family participation in the food stamp program has increased [...]

It is clear from the plethora of bad news about the real estate situation across the United States that no place and no island, is safe from the effects of our recession.  The latest tale of riches to rags comes from The New York Times online front page, reporting on the New England luxury island, [...]

Ghost towns were so 19th Century. The newest industrial specters are the massive abandoned box-stores now littering the paved outskirts of any-town America. Lagging sales at America’s big box chains, such as Home Depot, Sears and Kmart, coupled with the bankruptcies of chain stores like Circuit City, Linens n’ Things and Home Depot’s high-end brand [...]

Today may be a truly a sad day for some American towns–no money for the absolutely necessary July fourth accessory, fireworks! Instead of celebrating our nation’s independence, the lack of money for celebration reveals dependence on our currently crummy financial system. The list of towns includes many places that have been hit hard by the [...]

Before today’s Supreme Court ruling, cable television viewership has been relatively unchanged by the FICRY. When Americans are unemployed, they tend to spend more time in front of the television, not less. After today, however, the television industry may be facing an unprecedented crisis. This morning, the Cable News Network lost a monumental Supreme Court [...]