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Recession Briefing 11.30: Is Anyone Not on Food Stamps?

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

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. (New York Times) We’ve mulled the question of who should take them. (Recessionwire)

“If the United States succumbs to a fiscal crisis, as an increasing number of economic experts fear it may,” writes Niall Ferguson, “then the entire balance of global economic power could shift.” (Newsweek)

Growing ranks of U.S. citizens are heading to street corners and home improvement store parking lots to find day-labor work usually done by illegal immigrants. (USA Today)

Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired lifelong habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first time because of the recession. (Associated Press)

Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, says that it’s in the homeowners’ best financial interest to stiff their lenders and that it’s not immoral to do so. (Los Angeles Times)

Many more shoppers turned out for the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season over Thanksgiving weekend than a year ago, but they spent less each and favored lower-priced items. (Wall Street Journal)

Lawyer David Koller writes about how his layoff earlier this year from a corporate firm in Philadelphia forced him to re-evaluate his goals and inspired him to set out on his own. (Law.com)

The road from recession to recovery is rarely smooth, straight or short. It comes with detours, forks and even dead ends. And sometimes surprises. While each American recession is different, most major ones end with pessimism heavy in the air. (Associated Press)

Recession poetry? The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, whose mission is increasing public awareness of the urgent economic challenges America faces, has launched a Web site, FiscalHaiku.com, where you can be both poetic and concerned about the nation’s fiscal problems. (Miami Herald)

“When liberal interventions seem to be effective, a downturn can help midwife an enduring Democratic majority,” writes Ross Douthat. “But if they don’t seem to be working — or worse, if they seem to be working for insiders and favored constituencies, rather than for the common man — then suspicion of state power can trump disillusionment with free markets.”  (New York Times)

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Tags: eating, economy, family, Great Depression, holidays, News, shopping