The economy sucks
I just got back from the dealership where we bought our car early last month. After being told by our salesman that they dealership was moving to the other side of town when we bought it, I learned today from the service and parts managers that they're being shut down all together; apparently the family that owned the dealership couldn't figure out a way to make it work on their other lot, thanks to the intricacies of how dealer franchises operate. The sales guy was right at the time, by the way. The parts manager told me that the ownership vacillated on what they were going to do several times over the past couple of months.
It's no secret that car sales are in the toilet right now; it's one of the reasons we got a very, very good deal on our new(ish) van. And new car sales being in the toilet reflects that the economy is in the shitter.
I also heard a local news program this morning that interviewed an editor at the local paper. He said that foreclosure actions -- not filings, but actions (in other words, foreclosures actually happening, rather than just banks filing foreclosures, which happen months ahead of actual foreclosures and can be diverted if customers dig themselves out of the hole) -- hit a decade and a half record high in the month of July.
Bonnie's looking for additional work right now, because the company she works for -- funded through state agencies -- offers her extremely limited hours. She's been looking for several weeks, and outside of one promising lead that didn't go anywhere, hasn't seen a thing, outside of menial retail jobs.