5 Bubbles Waiting to Pop (Including My Apartment)

Welcome to the Bubblesphere, ‘09. Remember the signs? Irrational exuberance. Excessive risk-taking. You’d think we’d learn our lesson, but it’s tricky to see a bubble until it pops. Nobody has a crystal ball, but there are indications that these five potential bubbles may soon deflate in dramatic fashion.

Screwed: 2,110 More at Caterpillar

A daily review of the employment fallout around the country.

Caterpillar will increase previous layoffs from 20,000 to 22,110 … Corning says it will cut 13% of the workforce through the end of 2009 … Mountain View legal team Fenwick & West laid off 36 staffers and plans to freeze associate salaries for a year.

Recession Briefing 2.2

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

Gametime in the NFL: Super Bowl or Recession Bowl? (AP)
The stadium was filled with fans, but they didn’t buy the T-shirt. Big bashes were cancelled, but that didn’t stop the Boss from rousing the crowd with a nostalgic rendition of “Glory Days.”

In a Sole Revival, the Recession Gives Beleaguered Cobblers New Traction (WSJ)
Shoe repair gets a new shine as frugal customers opt to fix footwear rather than buy new. The recession breathes life into a dying industry.

Paris’ haute couture designers snub recession (AP)
Récession? Quelle récession? French designers turn out rhinestrone-encrusted frocks and sumptuous spring garments. The credit crunch is not a creative crunch, sniffs Dior.

Redux: Will the Recession Spark a Music Revolution?

Little known fact: Many of America’s quintessential cultural elements – the hamburger, the hotdog, Hollywood, baseball, horse-racing and rock-and-roll, to name a few – can be traced to Great Depression. We’ve been shocked into recalling that financial markets feature cycles of contraction and expansion. But culture does, too. Oddly, these cycles appear to be inverted. When the market contracts, culture seems to expand. Innovators emerge, values shift, and tastes change. People begin to play outside the box.

The Book Reporter: Crash Proof

Peter D. Schiff deserves a gold medal, while most of us deserve a dunce cap. Schiff, an economic commentator and stockbroker, was once dubbed “Mr. Doom” and “Chicken Little” by the media for his dire warnings about the real estate bubble and the shaky state of the American economy.

Blago’s Guide to Getting Fired

Recessionwire salutes Blago for facing the firing squad with rare aplomb. After mounting a week-long PR campaign in which he teared up, praised himself, and flirted with the ladies on The View, he showed the Illinois legislature his middle finger by skipping his impeachment hearing.

Is America Throwing in the Towel?

Slate’s Daniel Gross ponders the closing of a Circuit City store on Broadway as a sign of the times. Once, in happier days, a company the size of Circuit City would have filed for Chapter 11 and launched a new game plan. But dire predictions about the length of the recession may be putting the kibosh on optimism, despite the enthusiasm for the new president. Could our “Yes We Can” president be facing a “No We Can’t” economy?