A big news story in my area:  A company that owns and manages residential rentals in Sioux City, IA, is going bankrupt.  Hundreds of people have been given less than a month's notice to move out of more than a dozen buildings scattered around the midtown area of the city. 

These are people who were already living on the edge financially.  The apartments were below standard because the landlord wasn't maintaining them properly but the tenants couldn't afford to move anywhere else.  Now, there are not enough apartments available elsewhere to house them all.  It's also creating headaches for the police who will have to keep an eye on all these vacant buildings in what's already a high crime area (by Iowa standards).

Added to that, the only grocery store within miles of that same neighborhood, inhabited largely by elderly, disabled and low income people, is going out of business. 

Whatever the "burdens" might be for Madoff's investors and others, none of them have to worry about having food to eat and a roof over their heads.  The same can't be said for my friends and neighbors. 

Stock market crash?  Pshaw.  None of these folks had money to invest in the stock market - they were lucky to be able to scrape together enough to rent the roach infested and inadequately heated hovels they were living in.  And now, even that has been taken away.

cross-posted at Debbie Does Nothing