Amidst headlines of high unemployment and housing foreclosures, there is one demographic that has been doing well in the past year.

Frugality was expected to be the word of the year, but proportional savings have actually decreased in the last two months rather than grown.

After a strong start to the year, consumer confidence has retreated this month, dropping almost 19 points on the RBC Index from the high point in January.

Job security has been the bottom line for employees across industries over the last year, and companies have counted on the severely constricted job market to ensure retention of top performers.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech to the Economic Club of Washington revealed his concerns over a possibly slow rate of economic recovery.

For the first time since the early 1990’s, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s insurance fund to protect consumers’ deposits has a negative balance.

Stronger Dollar? What It Means to the Average Consumer As measured by six major currencies, the US dollar has appreciated 19% during the past three months (August to October 2008). To be specific, the US dollar index is now at 85 up from the low of 71.3. The reversal takes the valuation of the US dollar back to October 2006 levels. It just experienced its best week of appreciation in almost 16 years. By any measure, the stronger dollar was unexpected by the financial market in terms of its speed, timing, and magnitude. Typically, a strong currency should be the sign of the strong economy. However, everyone knows that America’s biggest financial institutions today are insolvent and some had even filed for bankruptcy. The government is also spending millions to “bail-out” everything from banks to insurance companies to auto manufacturers. If that’s not enough, the value of commercial real estate is sinking together with residential real estate.

"We're not heading toward a depression," the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard said in an interview for washington post. "We've learned a few things in 80 years." "What we are witnessing is mass selling on a global scale due to a combination of sheer panic and fear, combined with complete uncertainty over the future of the world's major economies," GTF Global Market U.K.'s Head of Derivatives Martin Slaney tells AHN.