Lemonade is a Sweet Recession Documentary

What’s good about getting laid off? Helping kids with cystic fibrosis. Starting a coffee roasting business. Teaching yoga. Becoming a painter. Lemonade is a beautifully shot 40-minute documentary about a group of people who used to work at an advertising agency, and the opportunities they created for themselves. It’s so appealing, we won’t even point out that our Lemonade Makers came first.

Oops. Just did.

Recession Obsession: Economy Bites

We’re enjoying a new web show, Economy Bites, that just hit our radar screen. Created just last year in the heart of the recession, it’s dedicated to making cooking cheap and easy — perfect for those of us who have less money without out jobs or less time because we’re working so hard to stay employed.

Hosted by Texas native Allie Schwartz, the show’s motto is, “Cook on Sunday, eat til Thursday.” It’s not exactly gourmand fare. If the Food Network is steamy, glistening food porn, then Economy Bites is amateur food porn…

The US and China–Who’s Screwing Who? (Video)

Aren’t treasury bills hilarious? And what about that national debt? Bwahahaha..

Well, Saturday Night Live hasn’t been this funny in years, as it sends up Washington’s attempt to ignore the fact that China kind of owns us…

Video: The Recession Took My Escalade and Stripper Money

Not sure how we missed this Daily Show segment on how the downturn has taken the bling off rappers. As Slim Thug says: We used to roll, 20 dudes, tour bus, all around the whole country. These days you get…a van.

Feel his pain.

Recession Briefing 10.19: From Middle-Class to Homeless

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

If Congress fails to pass an extension of unemployment benefits, Ricky Macoy of Quinlan, Texas plans to take it out on the Republican Party by camping on his congressman’s lawn. (Huffington Post)

Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters. (New York Times)

The entire financial crisis in seven minutes. (YouTube/iheartwallstreet)…

Cash4Gold Will Save the Country (Video)

The geniuses who brought us the $2 trillion bailout have a new plan for raising cash. Check out the video after the jump.

How Hollywood Gets Hit By Recession

Remember the days when everyone in L.A. wanted to be a slasher? You know—actor/director, screenwriter/producer. With film budgets being but, some celebs will have to take on less glamorous roles…

Video: Work the Way It Should Be

Working? Nope, we didn’t think so! Thankfully, College Humor’s Hardly Working series will help remind you of how it was back in, oh, 2006 or so. Remember? Go to job, turn on computer, fetch coffee, return to desk, look at computer, pick up coffee, head to co-worker office/cubicle, catch up, return to desk, click through emails, rinse and repeat. Pretty much like now, except you also collected a paycheck.

So you’ll love the guy who shows up in a camouflage shirt only to not be seen by his co-workers. Or the time the office’s favorite band stopped by. Or the discussion of the movie one of the employees saw the night before. Ah, life before the recession. These clips are new, but they sure are nostalgic…

Trillion is the New Billion. Or Is It? (Video)

“When you look at it, it doesn’t seem all that big,” says a snappy new video put out by our friends at Mint.com. “But it’s a huge number.”

One Trillion Dollars Visualized is meant to wow us with examples of what you could buy with that vast sum. Like, with $1 trillion, you could buy a $3 latte every day for the next 900 million years.

Thing is, when you look at it, it really doesn’t seem all that big…

Recession for Men (Video)

It’s not Monday—it’s Manday. There’s been a lot of very serious chatter about how much more men are suffering in the downturn. (See Recession Lexicon: Mancession.) But we’re all about bringing you the the lighter side, too. To appreciate this takeoff of the whispery, angst-ridden Calvin Klein fragrance ads, it helps to have been of television-watching age in the 80s. Thanks to Funny or Die!