Redux: The Shape of the Recession

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

Will the Recession make women fat, or will we stop killing ourselves to be thin?

Body size is a moveable feast, and it changes according to cultural flux. After a long reign of fragile-looking, emaciated models, a strong, athletic form look may be making a comeback. First Lady Michelle Obama’s muscular shape recently graced the cover of Vogue, announcing a new look for the new reality. At the Academy Awards, Kate Winslett was queen of the evening, her gloriously curvaceous figure the envy of all. In interviews she announced – shocker!—that she is too busy to exercise and eats whatever she wants. Oprah Winfrey praised her “real” figure, telegraphing a message to women across American that it’s okay to sport a more natural look. The First Lady and the Academy Award Winner, substantial in both intellect and physicality, flaunt bodies that suggest strength and purpose. They look independent, normal, and accessible.

The Bull and Bear TiniMeter

Current price of one martini at the Waldorf Astoria’s Bull and Bear Bar: $18.50. That same amount will buy you these items, with change to spare:

1. 18 slices of pizza at 99cent Fresh Slice
2. 10 shares Ford Motor Company Stock
3. Round-trip ticket, NY-Boston on BoltBus
4. 3 pitchers of beer at Rudy’s Bar & Grill, + free hot dogs (before 5pm)
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Traveling Tight: Cruising the Recession

Think you can’t afford a cruise? Think again. The Recession is bringing on a boatlaod of cruise bargains. We’re talking $50 per day for a four-day trip from Miami to the Bahamas on Norwegian Cruise Lines. A seven-day Alaska cruise, usually more than $2,000 per person, for $499. Cruise bargains are so plentiful that Ken Heit of World Wide Cruises in Ft. Lauderdale recently suggested that “if you live in an expensive city like San Francisco, Chicago or New York, it might be cheaper right now to spend a week on a cruise ship than to stay at home.” Right. That’s as good excuse as any to check out of bone-chilling NYC.

Borderline Personality Disorder – Illness for Uncertain Times?

The postwar trauma of the 50s brought on widespread anxiety. The suspicion and paranoia of the ‘60s and ‘70s caused schizophrenia to capture the public imagination. In the ‘90s, patients were popping Prozac to cure what seemed to be an epidemic outbreak of chronic depression. In the 2000s recession? It might be Borderline Personality Disorder.

If the Recession era and BDP are finding each other, we Americans shouldn’t be surprised. We identify so completely with work that when we lose our jobs, we don’t know who we are. We leave little time in our busy lives for the things that can guard against emotional shocks, like maintaining social bonds, exercising, playing, and just having some downtime. We are transient and often unsure of our place in the scheme of things….

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…