Recession Briefing: Wall Street Bigwigs Get Grilled

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

Comparing Wall Street titans to shady car salesmen, a committee investigating the financial crisis grilled the nation’s top bankers Wednesday in the latest example of Washington’s smoldering anger at an industry many there feel hasn’t atoned for its role in the slump. (Wall Street Journal)

President Obama plans to call on Thursday for taxing about 50 big banks and major financial institutions for at least the next decade to recoup all taxpayer losses from the bailout of Wall Street. (New York Times)

The last time the nation’s debt was this big compared with gross domestic product — 70.4% of GDP — was immediately following World War II. How did the Greatest Generation pare it down? It didn’t. It grew the economy faster than the debt, pushing down the debt-to-GDP ratio and making debt payments easier to manage. (USA Today)…

Recession Briefing 12.30: Workers Abandoning Vacation Days

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

The rough economy has claimed another victim: employee vacations. Two-thirds of American workers failed to use all of their vacation days this year, according to a survey released Tuesday. (New York Daily News)

Though single women account for only 46.5 percent of the female labor force, six in 10 are now jobless. 59 percent of adults in poverty are women, according to the latest Census report, which found an extraordinary discrepancy between the poverty rates of single women (20.8 percent) compared with married ones (6.2 percent). (The Big Money)

Nearly one in three metro areas have started to recover, but virtually none of the nation’s biggest cities. One likely reason is that the nascent economic recovery started in the nation’s midsection, from south to north, a part of the country that has relatively few big cities. (MSNBC)…

Recession Briefing 12.29: Goldman Sucks

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

Some of the more tangible expressions of populist rage at Wall Street and Washington over the financial crisis are on t-shirts and other collectibles. Angry, snarky designs came fast and furious in 2009, going after Goldman Sachs , the financial industry bailout, President Obama’s economic policies, and many more. (Business Insider)

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of giant bond manager Pimco, says that we shouldn’t trust the nascent economic recovery. “We’re on a sugar high,” El-Erian says. “It feels good for a while but is unsustainable.” (Associated Press)

It was a rough year for Ponzi schemes. In 2009, the recession unraveled nearly four times as many of the investment scams as fell apart in 2008. (Associated Press)…

Recession Briefing 12.28: Downturn Upends Courts

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

New York State’s courts are closing the year with 4.7 million cases — the highest tally ever — and new statistics suggest that courtrooms are now seeing the delayed result of the country’s economic collapse. (New York Times)

After a year of observing their parents pinch pennies and fret about the economy, the nation’s teenagers may be coming to grips with reality. Sales are down sharply in recent months at nearly every major retail chain catering to teenagers, and interviews with teenagers suggest that the reasons go beyond their own difficulty finding part-time jobs. (New York Times)

Economist Paul Krugman said on Sunday that there’s a “reasonably high chance” the economy will contract in the second half of next year. (ABC via Huffington Post)…

Recession Briefing 12.22: No Time for Crime

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

High unemployment. More people needing government vouchers for food. Fewer owning their homes. Yet for all the signs of recession, something is missing: More crime. (Associated Press)

The recession’s jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks. (Washington Post)

A growing number of community banks that got federal bailouts are failing to pay quarterly dividends they owe to the government, including two banks that got aid after congressional intervention on their behalf. (Washington Post)…

Recession Briefing 12.10: A 50 Percent Tax on British Bonuses

The British government wants to levy a one-time, 50-percent tax on banking bonuses over $41,000. “I am giving them a choice,” said Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. “They can use their profits to build up their capital base. If they insist on paying substantial rewards, I am determined to claw money back for the taxpayer.” (BusinessWeek)

A new survey shows that employees are unhappy with the way they’ve been treated in the downturn, and many plan to quit their jobs next year. (Chicago Sun-Times)

The public thinks more highly of politicians, lawyers and insurance companies than bankers, thanks to their big bonuses and taxpayer bailouts. (Bloomberg)…

Recession Briefing: Sin Is In

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

More people are turning to vice amid the recession. “People are staying up until the wee hours of the morning, there’s an increase in smoking, drinking and sexual behaviors like surfing porn and using hookers,” confirms Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and relationship columnist. (Forbes)

A different breed of house flipper has begun to proliferate: one who seeks bargains at foreclosure auctions. Unlike the boom-time flippers, the latest generation needs cold cash, lots of local-market knowledge and strong nerves. (Wall Street Journal)

Economic analyst Ed Yardeni runs the numbers on the effect of the economic stimulus on jobs and determines that the Obama administration has spent $246,436 per job saved or created based on the $157.8bn that has been awarded so far. (Reuters)

Recession Briefing 11.30: Is Anyone Not on Food Stamps?

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

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. (New York Times)

“If the United States succumbs to a fiscal crisis, as an increasing number of economic experts fear it may,” writes Niall Ferguson, “then the entire balance of global economic power could shift.” (Newsweek)

Growing ranks of U.S. citizens are heading to street corners and home improvement store parking lots to find day-labor work usually done by illegal immigrants. (USA Today)…

Recession Briefing 11.19: Making America Run

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

Americans are lacing up athletic shoes and signing up to run in 5Ks, 10-milers and even marathons in record numbers. Running “gives you something to control — you can’t control the stock market or the economy, but you can control your health,” said Ryan Lamppa with Running USA. (Agence France Presse)

With the national unemployment rate above 10%, and employed folks looking to bolster budgets by taking second jobs, the competition for seasonal retail, movie theater, package-delivery and other holiday posts is fierce this year. (USA Today)

A Human Rights Watch report on Cuba takes the government of President Raúl Castro to task for, among other things, jailing those without jobs. The report cited the cases of dozens of people charged with “dangerousness” for being unemployed. (New York Times/Economix)…

Recession Briefing 11.17: More Going Hungry

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

The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago. (New York Times)

Massive financial fraud schemes like Bernard Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme may attract lots of headlines. But as the effects of the recession wear on, it’s small-time financial crimes that are thriving, experts say. (NPR)

Some 15.4 million taxpayers could receive smaller refunds than they expected or owe taxes next year because they did not have enough money withheld from their paychecks as part of the Making Work Pay tax credit program. (Washington Post)…