Recent Recession Porn: NBA Star Faces Foreclosure, Queen Begs for Cash, and More

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Here’s a top ten of recent stories that dwell upon how the economic downturn is affecting rich and poor, famous and obscure alike—a.k.a., recession porn. Because who isn’t fascinated with the impact of hard times lately?

1. Housing developers obviously like to sell to the rich. But the rich aren’t quite as well off as they were not so long ago. What to do? Remember the middle class? They need homes as well. Much like asking your second choice to go to the prom, developers and cities have taken renewed interest in building affordable housing.

2. The economic crisis has spread to enormous philanthropic organizations like the Ford Foundation, which recently offered buyouts to one-third of its employees.

3. Foreclosure can apparently happen to anyone. New York Knick Eddy Curry has been sued at least five times in the past year and a half for failing to pay his bills, and he is facing the impending foreclosure of his home in Chicago.

4. Even the Amish have been living beyond their means, and the recession is making members of one Indiana community rethink the way they were spending lavishly on fancy horses and pimped-out carriages.

5. Even with Brad Pitt on board, a film version of “Moneyball” is too much of a risk for movie studios to take in today’s economic climate.

6. Finding a place to pee may be more difficult than ever: As a money saver, states are closing highway rest stops left and right.

7. Too much debt ($400K) meant that one law school grad was refused entry into the New York bar.

8. The Queen of England publicly asks for a bigger handout from British taxpayers.

9. Across the country, budgets are way down for this weekend’s Fourth of July celebrations. Some communities have pulled the plugs entirely on fireworks. “Skies will be darker over some towns,” the Times writes, quite dramatically.

10. Feds kicked Ruth Madoff out of her $7 million Upper East Side apartment and seized her fur coat worth tens of thousands of dollars. Oh wait, actually this had nothing to do with the recession, but with the “extraordinarily evil” behavior of her husband Bernie.