Quiz: Which Recession Spender Are You?

Did the recession bring out your inner coupon-clipper? Do you hate not be able to shop for fun? Or are you one of the happy few who hasn’t taken a hit to the bank account and continues to blithely spend? (Hm. Those people are probably not reading this blog.)

According to market research firm Decitica, there are four different kinds of consumer personalities coming out of the downturn. (Incidentally, company principal Val Srinivas says he was inspired by Recessionwire. Schweet.) Which type are you? Answer this multiple-choice question to find out:

In terms of spending, what has been your reaction to the downturn? …

This Time Isn’t Different

People from Wall Street to Main Street were caught off-guard as Lehman Brothers fell and the rest of the financial system seemed to be on the verge of collapse. But according to Carmen Reinhart, Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland and co-author of This Time is Different, global financial crises have followed a predictable pattern for centuries—and policy-makers and regulators should have seen this coming. Here is what she had to say about the state of our economy, the contributing causes of financial crises, and what we can do to help prevent them in the future.

Recessionwire: The recession has been declared officially over, but what does that mean for Main Street? How long can we expect the impacts of this recession to last on banking, credit, home ownership, loans and the job market?

Reinhart: In terms of the business cycle, we have either just bottomed or are bottoming right now…

Video: America’s “Great Unwind”

One should always be skeptical when a guy who makes his living from selling people stuff they don’t need starts talking about “empowering” consumers and how great it is that people are shopping less.And there are some annoying, ad-guy aspects to the talk John Gerzema, chief insights officer of Young and Rubicam, gave at the TED conference.

That said, he’s not wrong. From the start of the downturn, we saw changes developing in society—people would think differently about money…

Video: Let the Good Times Roll…

When New Jack City was released in 1991, times were indeed tough—New York City hadn’t yet seen Rudy Giuliani unleash his police force to clean up the streets; the dot-com and real estate booms hadn’t propelled Manhattan to epic heights of prosperity. But if the facade is better now, the times are tougher, at least by the measures above. First-time unemployment claims last month? Nearly double the “month” in New Jack City: 530,000 in September. Americans with income below the poverty line totals 47.4 million by at least one estimate. As for economic inequality—well, that’s an old story by now. Homelessness is only getting worse. And the national debt stands at $12 trillion…

The Recession Refugee

We looked like a mini-United Nations. There was Dorji, an older Asian male with an inviting smile and organized desk. Eshagh, the 15 year-old class clown, couldn’t stop laughing and barely made it past “Ich.” Hussein demonstrated his extensive vocabulary by speaking for five minutes about kitchen utensils.

Introductions took 40 minutes because none of us spoke the same language. Yet, we all found ourselves in Vienna, Austria, taking Beginners German for similar reasons. Theirs became apparent on the third day of the course, when we learned how to say our nationalities.

“Ich komme aus Afghanistan!” I come from Afghanistan.

Ich komme aus Somalia!

Mongolia!

Angola!

Then came my awkward, unexpected announcement: “Ich komme aus den U.S.A..”

Is New York Less Affordable Than Ever?

The snarkists over at Gawker used the I Can’t Afford to Love NY tee-shirt to bash hipsters (and fair enough). When we saw it, we first wondered why it hadn’t made the rounds during the boom, when real estate prices were hitting the ozone layer, instead of now, when rental and sales prices are coming down.

Maybe this is why…

Recession Shows the Real Meaning of Luxury

I only started realizing how out-of-whack the luxury industry had gotten back in October, while chatting with the well-respected publisher of a now-dead magazine at a charity event.

“You don’t watch Gossip Girl?” he said, incredulous. “But you’re in luxury!”

(That, of course, was when I still was In Luxury).

The next Monday I settled in to learn about my industry from a CW television drama about New York private school kids. After five minutes, I flipped it off, rattled. How was it luxury to watch 16-year-olds sporting handbags that even I couldn’t justify spending $10,000 on? How were they supposed to have acquired said bags? Is that what luxury had come to? Glee in watching people with expensive purses, and hoping that one day we might be able to own something similar?

How did this happen?…

Stocking Up on Recession Collectibles

Is the recession really over? Most days it doesn’t feel like it. But someday, it really will be over and done, and you’ll regret not having stocked up on recession memorabilia, for which there is no better time than the present. Whether you’re looking for recession collectibles—like, say, an authentic Bear Stearns trader’s vest—or just some funny tchotchkes, downturn memorabilia is plentiful right now.

Peter Siegel, the CEO of Gotta Have It Collectibles on East 57th Street in New York doesn’t anticipate much of this recession memorabilia holding up in value, since it is “basically of the moment, as time goes on it will slowly wane.” He said Enron memorabilia used to be big, but the value fell as people lost interest, and the same thing happened with Bernie Madoff items after his arrest. But can you put a price on nostalgia? Or gag gifts? Here are 10 of our favorite pieces of recession memorabilia currently for sale. Get it while it’s hot, or at least before the downturn turns up…

An Unemployed Girl’s Review of a Novel on Unemployment

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter makes a fine primer on unemployment for the uninitiated. But for the over-educated and under-employed (me, for example) that the protagonist Matt Prior is based on, it can be plain unsettling at times to discover your anxious likeness captured and distilled into eloquent, neatly packaged prose.

Matt is aptly named, as the recession has gone and rubbed its dirty feet all over him. But his hare-brained career choices are as much to blame for his situation as the forces of Wall Street.

Is the Age of Joy Upon Us?

Robbie Blinkoff, a consumer anthropologist and founder of Context-Based Research Group, a Baltimore firm that advises corporations on product strategies, believes that the recession is turning us into “grounded consumers.” He spoke to us about the rite of passage we’ve been through in the last year, how we’re all becoming happier, and why this will be the Best Holiday Ever.

So the “grounded consumer.” As opposed to what?

I’m a cultural anthropologist. What we’re looking at is people living within our culture—that culture defines our rules. Where our economy has taken us is to a point where we say we have a culture, but what we really have is a market. Market has supplanted culture and drives the way we live. Consumerism has supplanted cultural identity, like when there’s an eclipse the moon comes over the sun. People have been foregoing relationships in return for material goods—though nobody went out and said I’m buying an iPod because I don’t want to have relationship with someone.

Has this sort of thing happened before?

We did a study after 9/11, and people were realizing they’re more in control of their identities. Last fall—Sept. 29 actually—the market fell all of 129 points. This feels to me like Sept 11 without the terrorism. It was the same blue sky that day. This is going to transform us…