News

Recession Briefing 8.18: Gold-Panning on the Rise

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

High gold prices, combined with increasing economic uncertainty, means that more families are including gold panning in their vacation plans. Gold panning for some people is more than a hobby: It’s a source of much-needed income.( USA Today)

91,100 Manhattan households feel more comfortable hiding their savings in closets, in pillows — even in brown paper lunch bags — than in banks. (New York Times)

As a result of the recession, visits to national parks were up about 4 percent in the first half of the year. (Deseret News)

Some economists expect a powerful recovery, others a sustained but muted one. Some even say it will be neither: a fleeting rebound quickly followed by a second slump. (Wall Street Journal)

Women with M.B.A.s have fared during the recession as well as their male counterparts, according to a new study. (Wall Street Journal)

Many economists who were caught off guard by the brutality of the downturn are accentuating the negative, bracing for head winds that could cause the recovery to be weak. (Washington Post)

Many professionals are leaving corporations for classrooms as the economy continues to wallow and frustrated employees reconsider career trajectories. School districts nationwide are seeing a rise in these applicants. (Dallas Morning News)

The U.S. economy isn’t giving dentists many reasons to smile yet. 84 percent of dentists said the economy was having a negative or strongly negative impact on their practices. (Reuters)

The delinquency rate on U.S. mortgage loans hit an all-time high in the second quarter, but the pace of growth for the rate slowed, a possible sign the mortgage crisis may be beginning to turn the corner. (Associated Press)

While easy money can be thought of as a temporary positive (a sugar high), the end of panic and changes in mark-to-market accounting are more fundamental, write Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein. What they do is take Armageddon off the table. (Forbes)

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