A lot of people don’t have money to buy new stuff these days. But unfortunately, lack of resources and lack of need don’t always go hand-in-hand. So whatcha gonna do when something you own doesn’t work the way it used to? Repair it!

Our Best of Craig’s List post from last week was so popular, we decided to go to the well once more. The following include obvious satirical rants, well-crafted hoaxes, and some genuine public displays of anger and despair. Again, from the archives of the Best of Craig’s List: I’ll wear your silly costume (Louisville) Times [...]

Our Best of Craig’s List – Economy Version post from Wednesday was so popular, we’re working on a new one. But as this particular post from the new crop illustrates a very specific anger about the banking crisis and bailout, wethinks it merits its own entry. Plus it’s funny. Long, but funny.

To the Debt Collector Harassing Me at Work (Pittsburgh)

Your voice is quite charming in a sleazy, condescending, I-Get-Paid-To-Harrass-People kind of way. You must be so good with the ladies – I can picture you on a date, with that deep “I am full of self-importance” voice, asking her “So am I to file you under deadbeat mistress because you won’t sleep with me after knowing me for an hour?”

I am assuming you are either 1. Just out of college and eager to prove yourself by threatening a faceless person on the telephone, 2. A wannabe lawyer who is not smart enough to ever pass the BAR exam and therefore miserable in life, or 3. Someone who was picked on a lot in high school and believes this job is his calling to get revenge on all those bullies who made life a living hell.

One of the extracts in our last entry about uncommon economic indicators, concerning Costco coupons, comes from this longer post on a Marist College history professor’s blog. Here is the entire post, which describes a fight over coupons at a New York City-area Costco: I am a regular Saturday morning grocery shopper at the Costco [...]

Ever check out the Best of Craigslist? These are posts that the site’s users have nominated as particularly interesting and/or humorous. They also can be telling indicators of the horrendous economy. Dear Future Hipster Neighbor (Portland) Dear Future late 20/early 30 Hipster Neighbor from the Mid-west/South/Idaho: I know you are the coolest kid in Iowa/Ohio/Idaho/Texas/Florida/etc [...]

The frugal debtor of the last post links to this post totalling up the cost of a daily visit to Starbucks: …I know people that come in to my office with one of these 20 oz. Starbucks coffee concoctions every stinking morning. I wonder if my co-workers took the time to consider the money they [...]

Last week we wrote about Blogging Away Debt, the chronicle of a woman who started out $38,000 in the red and has since whittled it down a fair amount. But let’s up the ante with Drowning in $166,356.75 in Debt, which starts out this way: I did something dumb, dumb, dumb. I went to an [...]

Craig Robinson is an artist and illustrator and the creator of Flip Flop Flyball, a collection of brightly colored “infographics”—maps, pie charts, graphs, and other appealingly presented baseball data. His work-up of 2009 Major League Baseball ticket prices illustrates one reason why attendance is down 7% this year, with 21 of 30 teams experiencing a [...]

Okay, it’s Friday, and it’s been a long, hard week of slogging through heinous health care industry practices and the reform positions of everyone in the world except for maybe Heidi Klum and Carrot Top.

Let’s just say, for the time it takes to read one meager post, that we’re still living in 1999, not 2009. Unemployment’s below 4%, the Nasdaq’s nearing 5,000, and you’re about to buy a house that’s going to double in value over the next eight years. You’re thinking about spending some stock option money on a trip to New York, because you’ve always wanted to take in the triumphant beating heart of capitalism from the eagle-eye view you’ve earned. Your only fear: Will Y2K put the VCR on the fritz just as you’ve sat down to watch “Ally McBeal”?