Pizza Marketplace -- Lately, it seems like every headline announces some sort of economic bad news: a tightening of consumer spending or another massive layoff or hiring freeze. Just last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 12.5 million people are unemployed nationwide. And while consumer spending edged up slightly in January – potentially good news for businesses that need Americans to open their wallets for their survival – these are still tough times. Consumer spending fell at an annual rate of 4.3 percent during the fourth quarter 2008, numbers we haven’t seen since 1980.
