Good Friday? Maybe if you’re Warren Buffett. He got a bump of $10 billion last year; homeowners saw their home prices plummet by 10 percent. So what happens when equity gets all dried up?

Well, according to the economic experts in some of the stories linked below, it looks like the death knell could linger for a few more years. Hey, at least this week’s roundup of consumer-news items makes for good reading on this Good Friday. Now we bow our heads in prayer. Seriously.

  • Tastes like chicken: A crippled economy. A weak labor market. Higher energy and food costs. It looks like many Americans will be forgoing that organic ham this Sunday in favor of a cheap, watery Costco chicken. Retailers like to call being forced to scrimp in an economic downturn “trading down,” which is a friendly euphemism for “this sucks.”
  • It’s a seller’s market! No, it’s a buyer’s market! It’s a great time to buy! Actually, it’s none of the above, according to a story earlier this week at Fortune.com. Because home prices still have a way to go before they reach their average 25 percent decline, thanks to nearly a decade-long unregulated housing market. And now 20 million people — a quarter of U.S. homes — will be stuck in negative equity.
  • So what exactly caused this current mess and why did the Fed take the boldest action since the Great Depression when it facilitated the bailout of Bear Stearns? The New York Times created a short primer this week that explains how a deregulated housing market took out an entire global financial system.
  • And finally, attorney Mark Ireland over at consumerrightswatch.com has posted a Friday Funny that explores some of the problems consumers face in service-based economy. Lemons, anyone?

We will post an an interview on Monday at Minnesota Monitor with Mark Ireland about the mortgage meltdown, what to expect in Minnesota in the near future, current foreclosure-relief legislation and more.