Real Housewife of New York Sonja Morgan filed for bankruptcy in New York yesterday. She listed about $13 million in assets and $19 million in debt. Being secretly poor is an epidemic with these ladies!

Screw the oil market — look no further than the flagging fortunes of American icon Ed McMahon for an uncanny barometer of our nation's volatile economy. The man whose face in your mailbox once reflected decades of surging domestic wealth has reportedly suffered a financial decline mirroring our war-addled vortex of national debt: $1.5 million, to be exact, half of which is owed to American Express, with another $644,000 owing on a palatial house he can't seem to unload: