The majority of Americans are currently living on their friend's couch "just for a few weeks until my raise at Rite Aid comes through." In sympathy, our professional elected Congresswomen are also actual, real-life hobos.

Starbucks' war against loitering laptop hobos has taken a stark new turn, according to anecdotal evidence! We knew that roving Starbucks employees were politely—but firmly!—ordering long-sitters to buy something or get out. But now the pigs are involved.

Last week, we brought you the disquieting news that Starbucks had begun its plan to methodically rid its stores of freeloading laptop hobos. Isolated incident of a single laptopian overstaying his welcome, or foreboding foreshadowing of a new corporate policy?

Last month, word began circulating that laptop hobo headquarters Starbucks had a plan to force laptop hobos out of its precious coffee dispensaries. And now—judging by this lengthy blog post by a remarkably outraged man—the crackdown has begun.

The problem with kids these days is they don't know history. That, and the fact that they're narcissistic monsters. But let's focus on the history point: did you kids know that once, long ago, Starbucks was considered "fancy" coffee?

Are coffee shops, of all fucking places, going to become the latest bastion of rudeness in our society, in which a fellow American who simply wants to purchase a cup of coffee and sit quietly, for nine hours, typing on a laptop, with papers and shit spread out all over the table as if this is his personal fucking office, is "not welcome?"

Americans are a proud people. So even when we are completely broke, as we are now, we still demand that our natural fantasies of class and superiority be indulged. Welcome to the crappy cheap food place cafe, sir.

Ubiquitous den of violence and flim-flammery McDonald's has always been the haven of choice for urban and rural hobos alike. But with Starbucks moving aggressively to corner the hobo-gathering-place market, McDonald's is striking back with a billion-dollar hobo-attraction campaign of its own.

Starbucks' "cater to hobos" strategy is succeeding! Makes sense, what with all the hobos out there these days. The caffeine-'n-CDs-of-artists-you-used-to-like-before-you-saw-their-albums-on-sale-at-Starbucks chain is now the third-largest fast food chain in America.

Break out the hobo cake, Americans: the official unemployment rate has fallen to a mere 8.8%. Two hundred and sixteen thousand more of you have jobs now! The down side: you're still paupers.

Only some local hobos will use your credit card for unauthorized booze orgies when given the chance, while others will actually be honest, according to a Toronto Star study confirming research in peer reviewed journal the New York Post.

A young woman of higher class recently lent her American Express credit card ("Don't leave homeless without it") to a beggar and, miraculously, he returned it to her after making his requested purchases. This is an amazing story.

Starbucks, of late, has been relentlessly hobo-fying itself in order to attract the rubes and bumpkins who flock to America's finest coffee house, McDonald's. Hey rubes: now you can look at Miley Cyrus upskirt pix free, while drinking caffeine sugar!

Sir Ian McKellen, England's second most famous wizard, was sitting outside the Comedy Theatre in Australia in his Waiting for Godot costume when someone walked by and dropped money in his hat. They thought he was a real tramp. [Telegraph]

The Way We Live Now: Commuting the old fashioned way. Imaginarily, because who has an actual job? Who can afford cabs? Who can afford nickels? Who can afford homes? Who can afford spas? The homeless, that's who.

The Way We Live Now: Under fate's cruelly oversized thumb. How long must we be expected to do expensive things for free? Where is our reward for being rich? Or for being poor? Fuck heaven, pay me.

A short history: Starbucks owned upscale consumers. Then the recession hit. Upscale consumers disappeared. Starbucks weakened. McDonald's moved in to steal former Starbucks customers. Starbucks responded by going downscale. That seemed to work. Now: Starbucks plunges even further into hobodom.

In your frigid Thursday media column: Editorial turnover at Ad Age, Mediaite invites people more famous and attractive than you to their soiree, journalists prepare to forage, and Sarah Palin's only a few steps from the 99-cent store.

Bee Shaffer is the daughter of Anna Wintour, Queen of All America. Despite that fact she cannot "find" a "job," allegedly? It's because she keeps it too real, yall.

Ha! Apparently word has spread like wildfire through the nation's "heroin-addicted hobo" community about the Mad Max-esque, post-apocalyptic wasteland that is Williamsburg, Brooklyn, because they're descending upon the hipster utopia in droves to squat in the neighborhood's abandoned developments.