The Book Reporter: Bad Money by Kevin Phillips

Painting a portrait of a declining global hegemon, i.e. the United States, Kevin Phillips pulls no punches in telling us just how irresponsible and delusional we’ve been. It’s all there in Bad Money – debt, consumption, and our failure to understand the cultural forces (the Religious Right, oil dependence) that cripple us. Phillips, a leading economist and former Republican strategist, is now a political agnostic who finds much to blame in both parties…

Redux: Digging the Downturn

Looking back to the Great Depression to see the path ahead.

Can we garden our troubles away?

During the Great Depression, people turned back to the land, growing vegetables in small suburban yards and vacant city lots. These subsistence patches were dubbed “depression gardens” and helped feed the nation during hungry times. People ate what they picked from their gardens, bartered their produce at stores for luxury goods like coffee, and traded regularly with neighbors. Folks reminiscing about those difficult times recall how much food could be coaxed from a few hundred yards…

Lemonade Maker: Jim Dowd, IT Entrepreneur

Profiles of people who are seeing opportunity in a pile of economic lemons.

Jim Dowd, 40
Gloucester, MA

Before recession: Technology Strategist
Now: Entrepreneur and Co-founder, HelpGuest Technologies. HelpGuest connects people who need tech support with people who can provide it.

How are you making lemonade?

A. We want to be the good guys. Remember Jimmy Stuart’s character George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life?” How he used his business to make people’s lives better during hard times? That’s who we want to be.

With all of the layoffs and companies going under, a lot of people have been cut adrift. Either they have been pushed out from under the corporate IT support umbrella or they have support to give but no means by which to offer it efficiently without the context of a corporation. That’s the niche we fill.

Global Capitalism Event in NYC

On Tuesday, Janera.com, the website focused on community and content around global topics, will host an event at New York City’s Norwood Club featuring a talk by The End of Poverty author and Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs. He will be joined by Matthew Bishop, New York bureau chief for The Economist, who has recently coined the term “Philanthrocapitalism,” which is the name of his new book with co-author Michael Green, the economist.

When? March 3, 2009, 7pm

Where? The event will be held at the Norwood Club on 14th Street in Manhattan. There will be a cash bar. Admission fee: Members $25, Non-members $50. Membership to JANERA.com is free.

Depression-Era Dinner & Flick

One of FDR’s favorite meals and a damn funny movie make for an evening of festive frugality….

Dinner-and-a-flick can easily run you over $50, so why not whip out the cookbook and pop in the Netflix? Better yet, make it a themed evening with a Depression-era recipe and a classic movie. This chicken dish is a flavorful alternative to a wallet-breaking restaurant meal. Lucky for me, PBS was airing the 1958 fav Auntie Mame the night I made it. The film stars Rosalind Russell as lovable New York bohemian Mame Dennis and chronicles her hilarious responses to the Great Crash – which she mitigates by marrying a southern oilman, of course. Mame’s famous line, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving,” remains an excellent motto for hard times.

Recipe from The Tabasco Brand Cookbook
by Paul McIlhenny with Barbara Hunter

“Country Captain Chicken”

This chicken and rice dish has graced southern tables for many a generation and continues to be popular today…

Screwed: 14,000 at JP Morgan Chase

14,000 at JP Morgan Chase will find themselves jobless…At Yale University, about 600 staff jobs will be eliminated in order to ease budget concerns…300 Spokane Valley employees given notice of layoffs…An estimated 300 workers at Tiara Yachts in Holland will go on temporary layoff for at least a month…150 pinkslips are on the way at Kenosha Chrysler Plant…Mueller Co. announces 82 more layoffs…JW Peters sets temporary layoff of 81…

Recession Briefing 2.27

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

Survey: Entrepreneurs less downbeat amid recession (Crain’s)
After the initial panic at the end of 2008, small businesses are now seen adapting to new economic realities.

A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas (NYT)
The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.

Obama plans boost for low-income housing (AP)
President Barack Obama is proposing a big spending increase for programs that provide housing to the poor and invest in neighborhoods with large concentrations of poverty.

Screwed: 3,200 at Nortel

A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.

Nortel plans to sack an additional 3,200 workers world-wide over the coming months…Cisco begins first wave of a planned cut of up to 2,000 employees…Interface Inc. said it will pinkslip another 290 employees…

Recession Briefing 2.26

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

Cadbury sees chocolate eating rising in recession (Reuters)
Chocolate eating is on the rise in the current economic slowdown, while chewing gum is suffering, according to British confectionery giant Cadbury.

Employers using recession as pretext to discriminate against women (Daily News)
A lawsuit charges that some financial firms are using the Wall Street meltdown to prune the few women who have managed to climb the corporate ladder.

What Recession? Christie’s $28 Million Chair (Fast Company)
Apparently not everyone is scrimping. Yesterday a collector paid more than $28 million for a leather armchair.

Farewell, Year of the Rat

Today marks the beginning of the Tibetan New Year, and the Year of the Rat has mercifully passed. In Tibetan culture, rats are the animals who know how to get their little paws on all the treasures. We’re on to the Year of the Ox, inspired by a more thoughtful, steady animal, so the signs are auspicious.

The New Year is normally a time of celebration, but dampened this time around by the brutal Chinese crackdown on a recent wave of peaceful protest in Tibet. Last night at New York’s Tibet House, people gathered to hear Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman discuss teachings that provide solace in times of turmoil…