Recession Briefing 9.17: Grocers Feeling the Pinch

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

Supermarket prices are plunging as the global downturn drives down the cost of staples such as wheat, corn and milk and grocers fight for the wallets of penny-pinching consumers. (Washington Post)

In the economic downturn, teenagers around the world have focused their spending cuts on clothes, games and food, according to a survey by a social networking site. (Reuters)

A Wells Fargo employee is now out of a job after spending the summer partying in a foreclosed mansion in Malibu. (Washington Post/EconomyWatch)…

Recession Briefing 9.8: More Meals on Wheels

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

With the economic downturn, restaurateurs have struggled to find funding to open full-scale restaurants — so many are opening gourmet food trucks instead. (Reuters)

El Centro, California, now has the highest rate of unemployment in the nation, at 30.2%. (NPR)

Like the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Great Recession seems destined to turn many Americans into lasting coupon-cutters, scrimpers and savers. (Associated Press)…

Recession Briefing 8.17: A Cocktail to Kill the Recession

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

Brian Redzikowski, executive chef at Bond Street Beverly Hills serves up a blueberry cocktail these days called “Is the Recession Over?” Here’s the recipe. (Vanity Fair)

The recession, tight job market, depressed stock portfolios and mounting bills have prompted a growing pool of new game show hopefuls: unemployed white-collar professionals seeking quick-fix stimulus packages to keep afloat in turbulent times. (USA Today)

How has the recession been affecting one affluent Westchester suburb? One resident describes how she’s now “squeaking by” on just $300,000-a-year. (Washington Post)…

8 1/2

It’s not a Fellini film. It’s the percentage of people now unemployed in America.

This surreal number has made it official: this is the longest recession in the country since World War II, beating out the contractions of the early 1970s and the early 1980s, which lasted 16 months a piece. And if you count part-time and discouraged workers, the unemployment rate would be a whopping 15.6 percent. Economists say that the job losses are unlikely to let up anytime soon, a point underscored by Secretary Geithner on NBC’s “Face the Nation”. He said that the typical pattern of an economic turnaround shows that only when businesses begin to hire again will there be an unemployment peak…