Recession Lessons from the Jersey Shore

Toss out your econ books and get your nose out of the financial section, because the best real-world lessons for surviving a recession aren’t in any textbooks or newspapers. They’re staring you down on Jersey Shore—the MTV reality series about eight 20-somethings struggling to find their true selves while living in a world awash in recession.

Okay, so the actual focus of Jersey Shore might not entirely be on educating people about the recession, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned from watching it. After the jump, five recession lessons we’ve picked up from watching Jersey Shore.

Start performing at work or you will be replaced. Slacker employees may have had more leeway in the past, but employers have the advantage in a recession where the unemployment rate is hovering at 10.4 percent. Take it from Angelina, who got fired from her gig at a T-shirt shop for failing to show up and was subsequently booted from the show…

Will the Millennials Be the Worst Generation Ever?

Is this the most depressing (or recessing?) story to come out about the downturn or what? We’ve all heard sad tales about lost jobs and lost homes, but Don Peck’s feature for The Atlantic is about a lost generation.

Citing a litany of statistics, studies and observations –mostly about past generations — Peck argues that this stretch of deep unemployment will shape the character of today’s young adults for the worse. They’re likely to earn less and drink more…

The End of the Trend

Bid goodbye to waiting lists for nail polish colors (at the risk of dating myself, remember Chanel’s Vamp?), figuring out how to work mustard yellow into your wardrobe, and short-lived fashion trends in general.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal story, the past few years have seen the death of the trend. (WSJ.com has a pay wall, but you can get around it by Googling the headline.) “Everything is in style,” the creative director of Doneger Group consultants told a group of retailers.

Christina Binkley reports that we’re in an age where women can more easily wear what looks good on them. The must-have of the month is gone. And before you bring up gladiator sandals and harem pants — gladiators had a good long run given how damn distinctive-looking they are, and harem pants seem to have died in the desert. Thank God…

Recession Lexicon: Layoff Lit

n./ a memoir or novel about losing a job, a house or your life savings to the recession

Well, you know it’s been a long downturn when the book publishing industry has time to put out recession-themed fiction before the economy recovers. We read the recent New York Times story about forthcoming books…

Layoffs: Now a Major Motion Picture

The first time John Wells had his script about corporate layoffs ready to go, the timing was less than ideal.

He’d been inspired by a brother-in-law who lost his job in the dot-bomb, but the economy got back on its feet pretty swiftly, and there didn’t seem to be an appetite for his movie, The Company Men.

You can see where this is going, so I’ll spare you the transition.

The mancession movie, which stars Ben Affleck (yay), Tommy Lee Jones (double yay) and Chris Cooper as smug executives who lose their jobs, finally started shooting in 2009 and is being screened at Sundance right now…

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.

Nine 70s Flicks to Make You Feel Better About the Recession

I tend to romanticize the 70s as an era. I am charmed by the idea of people “finding themselves” while making dramatic, life-changing decisions in pursuit of authenticity. And in our troubled times, there’s something especially cathartic about watching others caught in the vortex of events they can neither understand nor control, but nonetheless work heroically to resolve. As my wise Buddhist friend once said: “falling off the path is the path” — it’s when we’re faced with challenges that we have the opportunity to grow and to discover the boundlessness of our own mettle.

One great thing about the modern age, though — Netflix and YouTube make watching these old flicks easy and affordable.

Shaft (1971)
This prime example of “Blaxploitation” film tells the tale of John Shaft, a badass African-American private detective (the smokin’ hot Richard Roundtree) on assignment to retrieve the kidnapped daughter of a mobster…

Get 80 Wines for $50 on Friday

Bottlenotes, our favorite online wine company, is offering Recessionwire readers a special deal for tomorrow night — $10 off its Around the World in 80 Sips event in New York.

There will be wine from five continents, plus artisinal cheese, charcuterie, pickles, chocolate, and cigars. All that and no tip required!…

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? …

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…