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…

Screwed: 5,500 at Lonmin

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

Platinum producer Lonmin Plc will shed up to 5,500 full-time workers…Florida’s Seminole County schools face between 400 and 1,200 job cuts…Manitowoc will eliminate 400 jobs at Shady Grove plant…California’s Paramount Unified board of education will warn of about 225 layoffs…

Recession Briefing 2.25

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

Obama Assures Nation: ‘We Will Rebuild’ (NYT)
The Prez gives another command performance. President Obama urged the nation on Tuesday to see the economic crisis as reason to raise its ambitions, calling for expensive new efforts to address energy, health care and education even as he warned that government bailouts have not come to an end.

Dow: Triple-digit rally after rout (CNN Money)
Stocks bounced Tuesday, a day after falling to nearly 12-year lows, after comments from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that downplayed bank takeover fears helped to spark a big rally. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 236 points, or 3.3%, its best day on a point basis in over a month. The Dow ended Tuesday’s session at the lowest point since May 7, 1997.

Redux: Barter is Back

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

If past crises are any indication, a cash shortage won’t stop the wheels of commerce.

During the1930s, people without money started trading goods and services as a way to keep themselves afloat. Workers exchanged labor for room and board. Students traded farm produce for tuition. Moonshiners, bless them, exchanged goods with just about everybody.

People with skills in high demand did especially well. Someone who could bake delicious bread or sew quality clothing could draw people from miles around to barter for their products. Eventually, people established more formalized barter groups like The Unemployed Citizens League, which had 200,000 members across the country at its peak…

Screwed: 20,000 at Royal Bank of Scotland

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

Royal Bank of Scotland plans restructuring and job cuts that may affect up 20,000 workers across 60 countries…Boise-based Micron Technology Inc., maker of memory chips, plans to cut as many as 2,000 jobs…Layoff notices go to another 1,100 Boeing workers…Toronto-area steel distributor Russel Metals Inc. is shedding 500 jobs…

Recession Briefing 2.24

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

U.S. Is Pressed to Add Billions to Bailouts (NYT)
The government faced mounting pressure on Monday to put billions more in some of the nation’s biggest banks, two of the biggest automakers and the biggest insurance company, despite the billions it has already committed to rescuing them.

Man Living in Cave Hit by Recession (ABC)
That’s right. For nearly five years, Curt Sleeper and his family have lived in a cave. His mortgage is about to come due and he can’t refinance. So now, the 17,000-square-foot, subterranean home is being auctioned off on eBay.

Layoffs on the Menu

It used to be that if you were out of work, you could always wait tables. Freelancers, actors, and recent college grads have long relied on this economic truism as a hedge against hard times. But a Saturday piece in The Orlando Sentinel that caught our eye suggests that the times are a-changin. Sandra Pedicini’s “Slump takes toll; servers lose jobs as restaurants cut back” chronicles the woes of restaurant staff as tips dwindle and layoffs pile up faster than food orders. Waitstaff at the acclaimed Manuel’s on the 28th at the Bank of America Center’s top floor once held some of the most enviable jobs in town. Last week, these servers joined the ranks of the 91,700 restaurant, bar and food-service workers across the country who have found themselves jobless in the last six months…

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