Global Capitalism Event in NYC

On Tuesday, Janera.com, the website focused on community and content around global topics, will host an event at New York City’s Norwood Club featuring a talk by The End of Poverty author and Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs. He will be joined by Matthew Bishop, New York bureau chief for The Economist, who has recently coined the term “Philanthrocapitalism,” which is the name of his new book with co-author Michael Green, the economist.

When? March 3, 2009, 7pm

Where? The event will be held at the Norwood Club on 14th Street in Manhattan. There will be a cash bar. Admission fee: Members $25, Non-members $50. Membership to JANERA.com is free.

The Layoff Effect

Sure, some of my friends have lost their jobs and my husband has taken a 10 percent pay cut, along with the 40 other employees at his think-tank. But I didn’t fully grasp the scope of this recession until I tried to rent a car at Los Angeles International Airport.

It took a two-hour effort to wrangle a rental car out of the lot to show me how mass layoffs can bring a swift-running society to a toddle. And as tens of thousands of jobs continue to be lost, I find myself fearing that the entire nation will devolve from wi-fi efficiency to dial-up.

Depression-Era Dinner & Flick

One of FDR’s favorite meals and a damn funny movie make for an evening of festive frugality….

Dinner-and-a-flick can easily run you over $50, so why not whip out the cookbook and pop in the Netflix? Better yet, make it a themed evening with a Depression-era recipe and a classic movie. This chicken dish is a flavorful alternative to a wallet-breaking restaurant meal. Lucky for me, PBS was airing the 1958 fav Auntie Mame the night I made it. The film stars Rosalind Russell as lovable New York bohemian Mame Dennis and chronicles her hilarious responses to the Great Crash – which she mitigates by marrying a southern oilman, of course. Mame’s famous line, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving,” remains an excellent motto for hard times.

Recipe from The Tabasco Brand Cookbook
by Paul McIlhenny with Barbara Hunter

“Country Captain Chicken”

This chicken and rice dish has graced southern tables for many a generation and continues to be popular today…

At the End of Your Robe: Cashing in Your Cast-Offs

Each week, stylist Julie Greene offers expert advice on looking fierce in a financial crisis.

You’ve tried them on, mulled it over, considered repairs, and still can’t make certain clothes work for you. So they’ve been voted out of your closet, have been bid “Auf Wiedersehen.” Or, maybe you’ve decided to let go of some beloved pieces in order to put some money in your pocket.

Fortunately, one Fashionista’s trash is a Recessionista’s treasure (this goes for guys, too). As a former vintage clothing store-owner and power Ebay seller, I am all too familiar with the second-hand clothing market and how to get the most out of what you no longer need. Here are five ways to say farewell to your unwanted clothes with no regret or guilt—only gain.

Grieving for What Was Never Mine

The last time I saw my office, it gleamed.

L-shaped and lining the far corner of the room, the desktop was smudge-free and freshly polished. My flat-panel monitor stood proudly at the bend, my shiny laptop next to it. My Herman Miller chair was pulled up neatly to the desk, ready to offer support.

It was exactly as I’d always wanted it to be—as it almost was the moment I moved into the space, in the spring of 2007, when I was upped from an over-sized cubicle to an office with a door (a door!), my name emblazoned next to it.

Since then, I had added my chair, worked the lighting to soften the fluorescent glare, arranged the guest seats to be welcoming. It was warm, efficient, buzzing with possibilities.

Screwed: 14,000 at JP Morgan Chase

14,000 at JP Morgan Chase will find themselves jobless…At Yale University, about 600 staff jobs will be eliminated in order to ease budget concerns…300 Spokane Valley employees given notice of layoffs…An estimated 300 workers at Tiara Yachts in Holland will go on temporary layoff for at least a month…150 pinkslips are on the way at Kenosha Chrysler Plant…Mueller Co. announces 82 more layoffs…JW Peters sets temporary layoff of 81…

Recession Briefing 2.27

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Survey: Entrepreneurs less downbeat amid recession (Crain’s)
After the initial panic at the end of 2008, small businesses are now seen adapting to new economic realities.

A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas (NYT)
The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.

Obama plans boost for low-income housing (AP)
President Barack Obama is proposing a big spending increase for programs that provide housing to the poor and invest in neighborhoods with large concentrations of poverty.

Cookin’ for Love: Hot Tomato

When the hot blond fitness blogger peeks over her Us Weekly and purrs from the couch, “Baby, I’m in the mood for a little Italian,” a keen, anticipatory pleasure takes over all 5-foot-6-inches of me. Often though, all K-Food (as she will heretofore be known) really means is that she wants me to make tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce is easy enough to cook, especially for someone raised on it. But I like to reach into the immigrant’s cucina povera cookbook for an alternative to pouring it over pasta. You should too–face it, you may not be an immigrant, but odds are you’re working the whole cucina thing because you’re a lot closer to povera these days.

This recipe doesn’t have a name. It showed up at my mother’s house regularly in the 1970s, and reappeared in the Cobble Hill co-hab I share with K-Food—right around the time I noticed my fellow Conde Nast executives actually reading budgets rather than just nodding and checking out each other’s shoes.

Happy Holidays! Here’s Your Pinkslip

“I’m sorry to have to do this but, as we’ve lost a third of our client base and assets have plummeted, we must reduce costs and have decided to let you go. We no longer need three of you in investor relations. I know you have been here the longest, but I think Girl #2 and Guy #3 have more room to grow in the company (read: there is no upward mobility and we expect that you will leave us before they do). We appreciate your contributions and want you to know that you can come to us for recommendations for future employers.

Love in the Time of Layoff: A Gentle Response to Joe the Trader

In his post this week, Joe the Trader chronicles a meeting of the He-Man’s Unemployment Club. Roberto is the one who dumps the lunch he brings from home. Joe complains about picking up the iron and recycling the trash. Their girlfriends and wives, they say, spend too much on soy lattes and artisanal cheeses. I do love Joe’s humor—and I truly hope the gecko survives the downturn.
Yet like that New York Times article Joe gripes about, in which a stay-at-home Wall Street wife considers divorcing her unemployed husband because he can no longer deliver coin, Joe falls back on some too-easy stereotypes himself.