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Recession Brieifing 11.03: The Underwear Model of Economics

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

The “underwear model” as an economic metric has recently gained in popularity, following Alan Greenspan’s to an NPR correspondent to the effect that the less men’s underwear is sold the worse off the economy. But the metric might not be as revealing as it’s purported to be. (New York Mag)

The pain of the financial crisis has economists striving to understand precisely why it happened and how to prevent a repeat. (Wall Street Journal)

Artist Andres Zapata has been working on a project called Recession Nation, collected photos, short stories, visual art and poems from Baltimore and abroad. He recently published them in the book “The Recession Nation Project.” (Baltimore Sun)

Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say. (Associated Press)

Two sectors that led the collapse of the economy over the past two years — manufacturing and housing — are now emerging as among the biggest drivers of growth. (Washington Post)

Strategic default, or voluntary foreclosure, is fast becoming a major challenge to the government’s $75 billion effort to keep distressed borrowers in their homes. About 588,000 borrowers walked away from homes last year, double the number in 2007. (USA Today)

The fragile economy won’t rebound quickly enough to rescue some of the nation’s largest charities from a bleak holiday giving season. (USA Today)

Policy makers could offer quick relief to small businesses by empowering the Small Business Administration to provide more credit, writes Mark Zandi.  (New York Times)

Could there be a healthy upside to an economic downturn? During the Great Depression of the 20th century, life expectancy increased in the United States. (ABC News)

Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%. (Wall Street Journal)

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Tags: art, bailout, economy, health, personal finance, philanthropy, real estate