NEW YORK - August 19, 2010 - The decline of the western economic model will bring about hyperinflation and decades of painful readjustment, Egon von Greyerz, founder of gold investment intermediary Goldswitzerland.com told CNBC Thursday.

NEW YORK - August 18, 2010 - Billionaire trader and political manipulator George Soros is clearly not optimistic. The latest SEC filings are out on the Soros hedge fund, Soros Fund Management.

Between the end of March and the end of June, Soros lowered his stock investments from $8.8 billion to $5.1 billion in the fund.

CAMDEN, New Jersey - August 15, 2010 - Richard Gaines is one of the best-known faces on Camden's Haddon Avenue. It is a rough-and-tumble street, lined with cheap businesses and boarded-up houses, and is prey to drug gangs. Gaines, 50, runs a barbershop, a hair salon and a fitness business. He works hard and is committed to his community. But Haddon Avenue is not an easy place to make a living in the best of times; and these are far from the best of times.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania - August 13, 2010 - The head of the Philadelphia Housing Authority can relate better than most housing officials to the mortgage default problems facing many Amerikans. That's because Wells Fargo Bank has foreclosed on his $615,035 condominium in the upscale Naval Square development in Philadelphia.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida - August 12, 2010 - Homeowners aren't the only ones getting hit by the real estate Depression. RE/MAX Partners, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida franchise of real estate company RE/MAX L.L.C., is closing its doors after five years of deteriorating home sales.

July 14, 2010 - More than 15 million Amerikans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50% in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program’s almost 50-year history.

Evidence of rising economic hardship is ample. There’s one commonly used standard for measuring it: the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty rate. It guides much of federal and state spending aimed at helping those unable to make a decent living.

WASHINGTON - August 12, 2010 - The employment picture is looking bleaker as applications for jobless benefits rose last week to the highest level in almost six months.