Most Popular Stories of 2009

In 2009 we lost our jobs, launched Recessionwire, found new gigs, lost one and left another, found new new jobs and freelance work, made countless new friends and learned more than we could have imagined. It’s been kind of awesome, thanks in no small part to our readers. We love you! And here’s what you loved to read on Recessionwire in 2009…

10. In October, we suggested readers Get Their Recession Scare On, with our downturn-themed Halloween costumes like the Bear Market and the Housing Bubble. Hilarious, even though we left out Sara’s idea of tossing on a plastic poncho and going as TARP.

9. Bad enough to lose your salary—the Incredible Shrinking Severance Check adds insult to injury…

What We Lost (and Gained) in 2009

It was a very big year.

Several months ago we wrote about “recession speed“—the way things happened at an accelerated pace in the downturn. Banks failed overnight. Jobs vanished in a snap. In 2009, we’ve all experienced sudden losses, big and small. But (the upside!) we’ve also learned, earned and reaped some benefits. Here’s a partial roster of what’s been lost and found. What else should be on the list? Tell us in comments.

What We Lost

Jobs: The Department of Labor hasn’t put out official numbers for all of 2009, but adding up monthly data shows that more than 4 million jobs have been lost this year. More than 15 million people are looking for jobs in the U.S.

Any Sense of Job Security: See above.

Moviegoers in 2009: Make Us Laugh

When it came to the movies this year, it certainly was not our father’s (or grandfather, or great-grandfather’s) downturn. Like moviegoing in the Depression, more of us surely flocked to the cinema, but we were truly after an escape this time.

As Patrick J. Sauer noted earlier this year, Hollywood circa 1930 turned out films that reflected the times – Gold Diggers of 1933, Hallelujah I’m A Bum and Our Daily Bread, to name a few. This year, we had The Hangover. Clocking in at a $459.4 million global box office, I think we can safely say we weren’t eager to have our hard times memorialized on the silver screen just yet…

Turn Starting Over into Celebration: Create Your Own Holiday

A few years ago, I became somewhat befuddled about what to do with my life.

Okay, I was completely befuddled.

The cause was (as I put it) losing my job—being displaced, severanced and bridged to an early retirement. My 15-year-old daughter put it this way: fired, broke, preparing to sell the house. Don’t you hate it when your kids get it right?

Anyway, I did what anyone else would have done in my situation: I created a new holiday.

On my calendar, Arrival Day falls on any day in the week before Thanksgiving—though you can slot it anywhere during the year. On this day, the celebrant takes a round-trip on the Staten Island Ferry, across New York Harbor going out, and more importantly, coming back. Coming back past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, you imagine yourself as a new immigrant, with all of your belongings in a bag and your life savings—maybe $50 or $1,000—in your pocket…

Skipping Christmas Showed Me the Holiday Spirit

I am a Christmas nut, a secret Santa, a baker, an opulent tree decorator, keeper of the flame from three generations of Italian daughters. So it surprised the Dickens out of my family when I announced in 2008: “I NEED to skip Christmas!”

So that I am not labeled the Grinch, realize that my kids were 20 and 24. They were, I believe, secretly overjoyed to go skiing and shuffle off to visit a roommate in Mexico City. But I had embraced Christmas so hard, for so long, that every member of the family questioned me vigorously: Did I really mean this? Would I be OK with just dad and the cats? Really–no tree, no nutcrackers, no greens, no wreath? …

5 Ways the Recession is Good for Your Marriage

Forget the notion that economic worries and stress cause strife within a marriage. Despite what you might think, there are a lot of ways that going through a recession together—and all the anxiety that comes with it—can actually be good for couples.

And no, we’re not just saying this because divorce rates are down—even though they are. The reasons a recession can be good for marriages are a lot more fun than that. After the jump, we’ve put together five of our favorite ways the recession is turning about to be pretty good news for a lot of married couples…

Big, and Not a Failure (Book Review)

If you’re still trying to figure out where to point the finger on last year’s financial crisis, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big Too Fail” will offer some guidance, but not enough.

Beginning with the tightening of the credit markets in the fall of 2007, Sorkin, a New York Times reporter who heads a daily Wall Street blog called Dealbook, leverages his breadth of sources to portray a comprehensive view of the year leading up to the fall of Lehman Brothers and near-collapse of the entire financial system last fall…

Get Back to $100,000 in 140 Seconds

For many of us, one of the upsides of the recession is having the time to indulge in creative pursuits—like using the video camera you got last Christmas to film the dog sleeping. (I love it when they do that dream-chasing thing.)

Well, time to make all that time wasting creative experimentation pay off. Nikon is holding a contest for the best super-short video…

A Slimmed-Down Christmas — But Will It Last?

The chestnuts will still roast; Santa Claus will be just as jolly as ever—but there’s little doubt that the holiday season is different this year. From smaller Christmas trees and fewer extravagant gifts, to an increase emphasis on homemade foods and decorations, millions of families across the country are cutting back on expenses without sacrificing the holiday spirit this year.

It’s too soon to tell whether these back-to-basics holiday rituals will turn into lasting traditions or whether they’re just passing trends that’ll be gone as soon as the economy heats up again. In the meantime, we’ve put together a roundup of what’s different this holiday season.
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The US and China–Who’s Screwing Who? (Video)

Aren’t treasury bills hilarious? And what about that national debt? Bwahahaha..

Well, Saturday Night Live hasn’t been this funny in years, as it sends up Washington’s attempt to ignore the fact that China kind of owns us…