South Florida hit hard, with a 73% increase over April last year.
The number of businesses and consumers filing for bankruptcy is increasing rapidly in the state and the nation.
In the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s Southern District of Florida, there were 73 percent more business and personal bankruptcies in April compared with a year ago, according to [...]

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Bernanke seems a bit worried. Maybe we should all be a little bit worried.

Bernanke urges more action to stem home foreclosure crisis
WASHINGTON (AP) — A rising tide of late mortgage payments and home foreclosures poses considerable dangers to the national economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned anew as he urged Congress to take additional [...]

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Bush is being kinda vague here. When does this “slowdown” disappear? Is it at the moment we receive our checks? Is it after we purchase a fill up at the pumps? Or maybe it’s at the exact moment our checks go into the hands of big oil? That’s the one I’m betting on. So I’m [...]

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With gas prices now averaging $3.50 per gallon across the nation, car buyers across the country increasingly are abandoning SUVs and pickups in favor of smaller crossovers and cars.
This is a problem for used car dealer, Ivan Hoyos. “Nobody is buying used SUVs,” said Hoyos, 35, who stopped accepting them six months ago. “The truth [...]

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by Chalmers Johnson

The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room” — the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White [...]

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600-650 customers get their power disconnected daily? That’s a lot of people!
It’s good that we’re no longer in winter. But what about those hot summer days coming up?

Unpaid utility bills soar as economy sags
CHICAGO — Hundreds of thousands of utility customers are at risk of disconnections as the sagging economy drives up the number of [...]

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I think Bush may be wrong here. Then again, hasn’t he been wrong on nearly everything?!

Many states appear to be in recession
The finances of many states have deteriorated so badly that they appear to be in a recession, regardless of whether that’s true for the nation as a whole, a survey of all 50 state [...]

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Everything is going up - except wages.

Food goes up, so do prices at some McDonald’s
KNOXVILLE (WATE) — Recently, a number of Knoxville area McDonald’s restaurants started advertising a price increase.
Although [an area] manager didn’t care to explain the price increase, the sign blamed it on the higher commodity and transportation costs.
“With everything going on now-a-days, [...]

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This republican economy, (YES, I said republican), is literally robbing us of our livelihoods. Any worse, and it could mean murder!

Burglaries Have Surged 21 Percent
Burglaries are on the rise in the District, with police blaming the souring economy as a contributing factor in a 21 percent increase in break-ins over the same period last year.
Criminals [...]

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Two stories currently at Yahoo! News:

Wall Street gains as investors weigh Citi, Google results
NEW YORK - Wall Street topped off a strong week with a big rally Friday, after results from companies like Citigroup Inc. and Google Inc. helped ease investor anxiety about the health of corporate profits. The major stock indexes at times rose [...]

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Via Balloon-Juice, via Yglesias:
Progressive Media’s first ad. George Bush and John McCain are in agreement over the economy.

[[ Video ]]

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No shock here…….Republican economics has taken hold.

The gap between rich and poor in many states has broadened at a quickening pace since the last U.S. recession, which could make it difficult for low-income families to weather the current economic downturn, according to a report issued Wednesday.
Since the late 1990’s average incomes have declined 2.5 [...]

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