Broken In Brief: Economic downturn threatening hobo way of life

With national attention focused almost exclusively on the solvency of the banking, housing and automotive industries, little notice has been paid to America's hobo class, which is enduring several hardships of its own. While the long-term effects of the recession have yet to be fully realized on America's upper and middle class, the country's hobos are already reeling from a combination of reduced Amtrak lines, rag scarcity, and a marked decrease in both the quantity and quality of worn shoe leather.

"This really is a dramatic and unexpected turn," explained George Cherrington, chair of the Itinerant Downtroddenness department at Columbia University. "Nobody expected that we would see, simultaneously, the debunking of Reagenomics as a salient economic policy while witnessing such a downgrade in the quality of life amongst those at the literal shit-heeled bottom of the economic ladder. What's truly troubling is the impending inflation of the overall hobo population, which will only exacerbate the material problems we're already seeing."

Many hobos, having forsaken more traditional employment options such as manual labor, thievery, and performing crude sexual acts on day traders behind car washes, have been pushed down to a new and frighteningly brutal level of poverty, one that often involves ingesting dirt and recycling urine for purposes of bathing.

"I was honey dipping for a gump in Bangor last week and staying in this knowledge bus with these two rum dums who'd been padding the hoof since July. They were stemming just to get by, the pair of angellinas. I should have spotted them for the crumb-covered bindlestiffs they were but, you always want to give another 'bo a chance. Ah, well. Here's hoping those jungle buzzards greased the tracks or caught the westbound."

At press time, reporters were still attempting to determine what in the fuck Joe Barnacle was saying.