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Recession Briefing: A Real Teeth-Grinder

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

In the wake of the recession more people are grinding and clenching their teeth, dentists say. A new survey by the Chicago Dental Society found that 65 percent of Chicago area dentists reported seeing an increase in jaw-clenching and teeth-grinding among patients in the past year. (Chicago Sun-Times)

“The ongoing Greek financial crisis is the same kind of crisis the United States might face a few years from now if we continue to make the same kinds of mistakes the Greeks have made over the last decade,” writes Anne Applebaum. (Slate)

Experts fear that a new wave of foreclosures will hit this year as prolonged unemployment makes it difficult for millions of homeowners to pay their mortgages — and many of them aren’t likely to get much help from a federal program aimed at keeping them in their houses. (Los Angeles Times)

The Obama administration’s economic-stimulus program has delivered about a third of its total $787 billion budget during its first year, much of that to maintain social services and government jobs and to provide tax cuts for workers. Now, the pace and direction of stimulus spending are about to change. (Wall Street Journal)

A number of industries in New York state, including financial services, terminated at least 5 percent of their workers in the current recession, which has fallen harder on men, minorities and those without college degrees, a report said on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters this winter as the economy founders and joblessness hovers near double digits — a “perfect storm of foreclosures, unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing,” in one official’s eyes. (Associated Press)

After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected. Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. (New York Times)

The U.S. risks falling into another “Great Depression” if the Federal Reserve is stripped of its bank oversight powers, a top Fed official warned Tuesday. (Huffington Post)

The White House is releasing its first annual report on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Wednesday, summarizing its progress on the first anniversary of President Obama’s signing of the massive, politically contentious economic stimulus package. (Washington Post)

While the younger generation of Wall Street leaders, very visibly led by Lloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, lobbies Congress against new regulation, their spiritual elders support the reform proposed by Paul A. Volcker and, surprisingly, even more restrictions. (New York Times)

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Tags: foreclosures, global crisis, global economy, Greece, stimulus