While America struggles to get out of its current economic shit-pit, its desperate citizens are resorting to interesting methods of relieving their financial stress. Namely they're buying lots of sex toys and getting off like crazy.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 hasn't even come out yet and it's already made $32 million in the US. Most of the advanced sales are for midnight screenings, which are now certain to be nightmare mob-scenes. That advance is the highest in movie history.

Your new boyfriend Netflix just became more like your ex, the evil cable company, jacking up rates 60 percent on one popular plan and spinning it as a big boon to consumers. He's just daring you to dump him.

The White House released its annual salary report last week, and as usual, it's nice to work for Barack Obama: Most staffers who were there for more than a year got a salary bump. A bigger one than you did.

The Federal Reserve vaults are sitting on $1 billion — that's with a "b" — in unused one-dollar coins, shunned currency that has been piling up since 2007, when a government program made their production compulsory. That number could double by 2016, when the program is scheduled to end.

What better way to commemorate the fact that the Canadian dollar has surpassed the value of the American greenback than to give it the high tech makeover it so, uh, richly deserves?

There are many great moments in the "Well-Meaning Mitt Romney Nevertheless Struggles to Interact with Human Beings" genre. But this latest one, involving a child craftsman, ranks right near the top — perhaps a notch or two below the infamous "Who Let the Dogs Out?" incident of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2008. But maybe we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves.

Media mogul Barry Diller has a $100 million, 300 foot-long ("I like 'em long." - Barry Diller) mega yacht that he's been keeping at the Chelsea Piers, at the cost of $2,000 a day.

Few people are more reviled in the over-leveraged United States than debt collectors. They'll talk all kinds of shit to you on the phone about credit card bills, or student loans that you one day decided to stop paying (but eventually started paying again to clear your guilty conscience and to be a good person), sure, but they're also victims of verbal abuse and stupid laws and they're just not gonna take it anymore.

Just FYI, in case you were thinking of taking out a second mortgage: whatever you do, do not take out a second mortgage. A new report says that nearly 40% of people who took out second mortgages are now "underwater," a fancy real estate term for "broker than broke.":

"I was spending $2,600 a day, for six years, every single day," Flava Flav says of his drug use. Popeater does the math: Over 2,191 days (one leap year day included) this adds up to $5,696,600.

Like it or not, a pretty lady is way richer than you. And you'll just have to deal with it. Also today: HBO is making the classiest thing ever made, two funny ladies are teaming up to get your motor running, and Anderson Cooper has a new website.

Above is a chart of the exchange rate, in dollars, of the digital currency Bitcoin. That red arrow shows the price on Wednesday afternoon right after we published a story about Silk Road, a Bitcoin-powered online marketplace where you can easily buy illegal drugs. In the past 48 hours alone, a Bitcoin's worth has jumped from around $9.90 to around $14.

Cleaning up after college kids is lucrative. A profile in The Daily Beast reveals that Kia Grasty, cheerful custodian of Penn frat houses, makes $140,000 by mopping beer from rich kids' floors.

Warren Buffett, Melinda Gates, and some other middle-class Americans got together in Arizona to talk about giving some of their hard-earned dollars away to less successful, less ambitious Americans, and also "meet each other, compare notes, eat and laugh." They hope you'll follow their example.

As part of our ongoing coverage of Starbucks-related danger, we bring you the sad, sad tale of a tussle between one South Florida teen and his thirsty mom. O Starbucks, how your drinks are tearing this nation asunder!

Geez, the federal government sure has made the last year so tough for struggling oil companies to get new offshore drilling leases. And if there's one sector that needs a helping hand these days, well, it's oil. But thanks to House Republicans those dark days will soon be over! Yesterday a bill was passed — creatively titled the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act — by a vote of 266-to-149 to bring back offshore drilling auctions, which had been shelved in order to make sure safety and environmental concerns were addressed — a long, drawn out mess that was probably pretty annoying for oil companies.

The International Association of Fire Fighters—the sexiest of all unions—has announced that it's suspending all of its contributions to federal candidates "out of frustration with Congressional Democrats." Which is not an uncommon feeling these days! But the firefighters' union donated nearly $2 million to Democratic candidates for the 2010 elections, so their spending suspension may be taken a bit more seriously than mine. "We're feeling taken for granted," the union's president, Harold Schaitberger, told The New York Times, which seems reasonable—after all, they don't just donate money and support Democratic candidates; they also fight fires, in peoples' homes. IAFF's dough will now go to state and local-level candidates, especially in states where unions are being threatened by Tea Party jerkoffs. Expect Senate Democrats to respond by sucking up extra hard to rich people. [NYT; image via AP]

Today we put our heads in our hands as Dilbert creator Scott Adams went further down the rabbit hole of stupidity by ineptly defending Gwyneth Paltrow, talking about privilege and opportunity and all that thorny stuff. What is it about privilege that makes talking about it so hard? Probably it's because lots of people don't know they've had it.

Highly questionable ratings agency Moody's today classified Ireland's banks as junk — which is sort of like saying Ireland isn't trustworthy enough for a Discover card.