Friday Financials: Even our identities are weakening!

It’s Friday, which means it’s time to bring on the budgetary hope. In the past few weeks we’ve brought you the zinc lining in the dark, hanger-on clouds. However, the rising cost of scrap metal has forced us to halt the use of zinc. We apologize. This week, we offer the fool’s gold lining in the storm clouds. Brassy faith. Shiny pyrite worth about two cents. Happy Friday!

• The magic number? It’s zero. And according to Mark Zandi at Moody’s Economy.com, about 10.6 million homeowners — 21 percent of first-mortgage holders — will have zero or negative equity in their homes by June of this year. The good news? Every day, hundreds of consumers are sending “jingle mail” — the keys to a rotten home — to lenders. It’s like that time you wore Zubaz and had less shame because everyone else was doing it. Strength in numbers, right?
• Clothes are good for covering up lots of things. Like rising inflation, for example. While the cost of everything else is rising (energy up 17 percent in the last year alone), clothing costs actually declined by 1.3 percent in March. But that’s all about to change. Higher fuel and manufacturing costs will cause retail prices for clothing to increase next season along with everything else. The good news? Those two wrestling dudes are selling those multi-purpose sleepwear/gymwear/dudewear Zubaz again for under 30 bucks.
• You’re not the only one suffering from the economic hit. Identity thieves are also feeling the punch of a sagging economy. They’re now getting as little as 40 cents for each stolen credit card. And entire identities? Those are selling for a measly two bucks apiece. The good news? European identities are worth twice as much as American identities. Then again, we always knew that.