In 2008, the global economy collapsed. But ever since bottoming out in 2009, we’ve been on a gangbusters recovery. Is it all going to come to an end soon? See for yourself.

Forget East-West, North-South, rich-poor: The new main division in Earth's population is an ever-growing rift between the frightfully obese and the frightfully hungry, experts say.

Psychologists at the University of Winnipeg recently completed a three year study whose results indicate that—and I'm paraphrasing slightly here—heavy texters and tweeters are just horrible, shitty people.

Here, some new research findings on the current economic climate, which we sincerely hope that you are reading while at work. *Forced, desperate smile* Some economists decided to find out how length of unemployment affects your chances of finding a new job. So they sent thousands of fictitious resumes out to respond to thousands of job ads, and, long story short: "the likelihood of receiving a callback for an interview significantly decreases with the length of a worker's unemployment spell."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a projection earlier this week warning that 42% of Americans may be obese by 2030, USA Today reports.

You think because you "took the stairs" this morning that you can eat whatever you want? Nope, because we're all fat. The fat people are fat. The skinny people are fat. The regular people are fat. The young and old are fat. You're fat. I'm fat. Your mom's way fat. We're fatter, in fact, than we thought.

A report published yesterday in the Public Library of Science's PLoS One journal (clever) suggests that the body mass index (BMI), the formula commonly used to determine whether an individual is of a healthy weight, may be underestimating obesity in almost 40 percent of cases.

Julian Fellowes' Edwardian soap Downton Abbey returns for its second season Sunday night which is very excited news indeed. The first season was filled with many a twist and turn and, very often, this news was delivered via ominous letters that our beloved characters stared at blank-faced. In fact, each of the first season's seven episodes included at least three instances of characters receiving news, most times troubling news, in a letter. Here are all of them.

The bad news is that nearly 50% of people under 25 in Greece and Spain are unemployed. The good news is you don't live in Greece or Spain. The bad news is unemployment applications are rising here, too. The good news is that the federal government gives you 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. The bad news is, not for long! The good news is, you still have a job. The bad news is, one in five Americans believe they'll lose their job next year. The good news is, you're not one of them.

Good news, eagle-eyed watchers of economic indicators: women's heel heights are going down, which is a foolproof positive sign for our nation's finances.

Yesterday Ben Bernanke and the Fed went ahead and spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying securities in a paltry attempt to do a teeny tiny bit to help stimulate the economy. Today: another stock market collapse. Ho hum.

In August, the United States of America, the mightiest economic power the world has ever seen, created the following number of jobs for its citizens: zero. Zero new jobs, according to the very latest jobs figures released this morning, which "show an economic recovery that appears to be puttering out."

Perhaps you've been congratulating yourself on having less than $200,000 in student loan debt, telling yourself your own student loans aren't so bad. Well, stop that! The 2010s are the decade of "Feeling Bad About Your Student Loans."

Whew! Sure is poor out there today! (How poor is it?) I tell ya, it's poor!

You just love eating bananas from the supermarket, right? Well, you better get your fill because a fungal infection is threatening to wipe out the yellow fruit that we all take for granted.

We've all been spending the last few weeks skimming through silly, summer news stories like the president having an illegal war in Libya and the global economy drifting perilously close to a double-dip recession, waiting on edge for real news about Sarah Palin getting back on a bus and driving through more states. When oh when will the Tour de Grift resume for its promised second leg through the Heartland? Perhaps never, sadly.

The economy added a whopping 54,000 non-farm jobs last month, and the official unemployment rate is now back to 9.1 percent. That's really, really bad.

Kids these days just don't have the good attitude they used to. I believe the relentless diet of drugs, junk food, and pornography is really getting to them.

GDP grew an anemic 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011. To blame: The ten million snowstorms that slowed construction and closed businesses, rising commodity prices, decreased government spending, and the failure of the American experiment in general.

The American empire took another small step towards its inevitable fall this morning as the S&P cut its outlook on the nation's credit rating to "negative." The chance that our national credit rating will be downgraded from its current AAA rating some time in the next two years is now "at least one-in-three."