howRDUdoin? is a blog about Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I have a degree in economics, a little fact that I generally slip into most casual conversations, because it makes me sound more intelligent than I am. So take it from me, a man with an undergraduate degree in economics from an expensive school: we are screwed, and if we’re not standing in bread lines in six or eight months, it will be a flippin’ miracle.

• Durham County’s starting to wake up to the fact that their revenue is going to be way way down, what with declining property values, less tax revenue, you know, the usual. So: no hiring, no purchasing, more freaking out. [abc11]
• With interest rates falling to perpetual “sale-ebration” levels, homeowners are looking to refinance their mortgages, post-haste, and some of them are successful. For this strategy to work, you will need a credit score of approximately eleventy billion. [MyNC]
• Financing’s ugly cousin, foreclosure, saw a 9% jump in 2008. It would have been much worse, if it weren’t for a new law that basically postponed a lot of foreclosures to 2009. [TBJ]
• Quick, how many counties in North Carolina? That’s right, an even 100. Quick, how many counties in North Carolina with higher unemployment? [WRAL]
• If you want to pinch pennies by keeping bees and getting your own delicious honey, you’re in luck! If you want to save cash by keeping chickens for their delicious eggs, wait until next month, please. [N&O Bull's Eye]