Cheeky New Ways to Connect

Have you been displaced by the downturn? Finding it hard to meet new peeps?

Perhaps this scene is familiar: You’re in a coffee shop, i.e., your new office. You notice a delightful specimen across the room immersed in your favorite novel. Handing off a business card on the way to the loo feels a little douchey. So you do nothing. Pretty soon, Mr./Ms. Sexy has vanished.

Missed connections. Opportunities wasted…

The Dust Clears, Women Rise

At Recessionwire, we call it “She-orientation” — a powerful, society-wide shift in which women are coming to play an increasingly important role in determining our economic, cultural, and political path. The trend has become evident in recent discussions of how to get more women into corporate boardrooms.

It may be that more skirts on Wall Street would have prevented the financial crisis. The dominance of adrenaline-fueled males on the Street, some argue, creates an atmosphere with less restraint and circumspection than an Animal House-style frat party…

Job Market Best in Year and a Half, Gallup Says

We’ll see what sort of effect the Dow bustage has on this bit of positive news, but according to polling company Gallup, the job market is back to where is was at the end of 2008.

Wait, 2008? Wasn’t that a few months after Lehman went bankrupt, Fannie Mae had to get rescued and Congress approved the $700 billion bailout? Well, yes…

The Upside: Era of New Frugality?

My Granddaddy Mitchell was a ‘Depression Man’ if there ever was one. He did not like to spend money. Ever. The term ‘eating out’ was not in his vocabulary. Nor was the word ‘vacation’. Each year at Christmas, he gave my sister and me a leather bag containing greasy-feeling pennies and nickels collected over a year’s time. His philosophy: you worked and you saved. Period. Granddaddy always seemed a little extreme, but today, his thrifty ways are back in style.

The Great Recession has given birth to a long-term trend of more disciplined and discerning shoppers, according to a new survey by Booz & Company. The study shows that frugality is “becoming entrenched consumer behavior that is reshaping consumption patterns in ways that will persist even as the economy rebounds.” Spending on beauty products is down, along with clothes, shoes, household products, and mobile phone service. Booz found that shoppers are less impulsive, do more research, and are more likely to clip coupons.

“Frugal behavior is now considered trendy,” said Matt Egol, a Booz & Company Partner. His colleague Andrew Clyde added that “this more cautious consumer approach to spending began even before the recession came into full swing but has since picked up speed.” Clyde further observed that “as the economy recovers, marketers need to better target their strategies to preserve the value of existing brands, and avoid destroying value through too blunt a competitive response across segments.”…

The Upside: A Better Way for B-Schools

The old ‘Greed is Good’ mantra of Wall Street may be going the way of big hair. A movement among business managers and executives of tomorrow to sign a voluntary pledge to uphold the common good today has created a soul-searching stir in academe and beyond…

Recession Briefing: Is This Really Better than the 70s?

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

Is the great recession really less miserable than ‘70s were? According to the “Misery Index,” we’re not faring as badly, but metrics like this are always fishy. (Christian Science Monitor)

It is the Wall Street equivalent of a coroner’s report — a 2,200-page document that lays out, in new and startling detail, how Lehman Brothers used accounting sleight of hand to conceal the bad investments that led to its undoing. (New York Times)

U.S. traffic fatalities last year reached the lowest level in 55 years, dropping nearly 9 percent from the previous year and demonstrating that the continuing recession has at least one upside. (Baltimore Sun)…

The Hard Truth about Fat-Cat CEO’s

Sometimes Recessionwire carries a certain bias, one that supports the out-of-worker and opposes the big, bad CEO. As a fair and balanced news source, we find it necessary to provide the reader a glimpse of both sides of the coin. What really goes on in the life of some of the world’s most powerful people? To find out, we get the perspective of the CEO of DASSCC (Dynamic Analysts and Synergetic Systems Consultants Corporation), Peter B. Gibbonsworth, in a segment we like to call: Myth…And Busted…

Screwed: 800 in the London Underground

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

Today’s Total: 1,942

London Underground transportation has planned 800 worker layoffs… 750 workers of Toyota Motor Corp.‘s Britain plants are faced with early retirement as Toyota ends its work-sharing system… 202 employees are let go from IBM in the latest round of layoffs… Las Vegas labor unions have not agreed to concessions, a decision which will result in 100 municipal layoffs… In an effort to cut expenses in the 2010-2011 school year, Seattle Public Schools have given layoff notices to 90 staff members.

Downturnaround Deals: The Knot, BikeBandit, Ann Taylor, Gap, Abe’s of Maine

We make it easier to keep your spending in check, with weekly deals hand-picked for Recessionwire readers by the nice people over at Savings.com.

Getting hitched? Save 15% off orders at The Knot. (See more The Knot coupon codes.)…

Recession Briefing: Foreclosures Slowing

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

The foreclosure crisis isn’t over, but the pace of growth may finally be slowing down. RealtyTrac said Thursday that the number of U.S. households facing foreclosure in February grew 6% from the year-ago level, the smallest annual increase in four years. (Associated Press)

The number of cosmetic-surgery procedures in the U.S. sagged for the second year in a row in 2009, according to an annual survey by a plastic surgeons’ association. (Wall Street Journal)

An economically depressed British town is filling empty storefronts with fake businesses so that the district doesn’t look so empty. (BBC)…