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…

Ode to the Blingrupt

Trevor Butterworth, a Wordie contributor, sent us a link to his list of economic crisis-crafted terms. And then this, a Jabberwocky rip-off, landed on our desk.

‘Twas ponzipaloosa, and the slithy brokerers
Did scofit and fraudit in the Davy Jones Index;
All bankholed were the financial sucktor,
And the drivelatives quantitatively fassets teased.

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.

The Layoff Effect

Sure, some of my friends have lost their jobs and my husband has taken a 10 percent pay cut, along with the 40 other employees at his think-tank. But I didn’t fully grasp the scope of this recession until I tried to rent a car at Los Angeles International Airport.

It took a two-hour effort to wrangle a rental car out of the lot to show me how mass layoffs can bring a swift-running society to a toddle. And as tens of thousands of jobs continue to be lost, I find myself fearing that the entire nation will devolve from wi-fi efficiency to dial-up.

The Local Joint That Was

The bistro was called Beato—an Italian word meaning “blessed” or “happy”—which is how I felt when it opened in my Seattle neighborhood during December 2006. The owner, a local returning to Seattle after a New York finance career and a round of culinary training, brought generous backing, an extensive wine collection, a great chef, white tablecloths, and cool servers into what was otherwise a big-screen brewpub neighborhood—along with fantastic Italian-inspired local fare.

We never guessed it wouldn’t last forever.

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…

The Down-and-Out Show for Our Times

Forget the movies. If you want some good old recession-era fare, you better have kept your HBO. Flight of the Conchords is the only place to find company in the misery, set to escapist “smile on your brother” sing-a-longs like Too Many Dicks (On the Dance Floor).

When it first aired in 2007, FOTC seemed like the pinnacle of Williamsburg Brooklyn writ large: fake New Zealand rock stars, unlucky in love, parodying musical genres in nerdy glasses—with a creepy stalker to boot. Funny at times, yes, but also grating in its hipster smugness, more or less the pay-channel equivalent of a night out in Williamsburg.

That, however, was a short-sighted, knee-jerk reactionary view caused by an allergic reaction to ironic tee shirts.

This is what the FOTC is really all about: being broke in the big city. It’s a 21st-century Dickensian tale of poverty, only instead of begging and pick-pocketing, the urchins wear thrift-store short-shorts while jogging and steal cushions from the local library.

The McOffice?

The many people who have been laid off from longtime office jobs are probably finding out something that, as a full-time freelance writer and editor, I’ve known for a while: It sucks to spend all day working at home.

The television is a constant temptation. Household chores suddenly seem a welcome and fulfilling activity. Snacks in the fridge call your name. Loudly. And your days can seem like they’re going nowhere.

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: 700 at JP Morgan Chase

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

JP Morgan Chase to close credit card service center, 700 jobs lost…Vodafone said to plan hundreds of job cuts at U.K. division…Lagardere Active to layoff 250 workers..China’s Founder Tech axes 200 jobs…

Read more…