25% of Retailers Could Go Broke by 2010


Great! I can't afford to buy anything, anyway, and this will make me feel less sad about it. I bet all the salespeople who are about to be laid off will be comforted by the lack of anything to buy with money they don't have, too.

Dumbest new business of the recession? The True Religion Jeans on Wall Street. Good thinking. Retail's crumbling and Wall Street's crumbling, but I took 7th grade math, and double negative equals POSITIVE, bitches.

The 12 Days of Recessmas

On the 12th day of Recessmas, my true love gave to me:

12 Home foreclosures

11 Cuts in hours

10 Losses of benefits

9 Surprise layoffs

8 Hellenic riots

7 Hundred billion tax dollars

6 Subway line cuts

SELL YOUR GOLDEN THINGS!!!

4 Ponzi schemes

3 Auto Bailouts

Only 2 Presents

And a bonus for the CEO

Recession Getting Hard to Make Jokes About

Recent news that is not really funny:

1. First widely-publicized recession-related suicide, which wasn't even committed by leaping from a building, and is therefore not even old-school.

2. Shoplifting arrests up 10-20% (because of Christmacession), many being held until trial (probably after Christmas).

3. Number of Zimbabweans who didn't eat anything yesterday up to 12%, from 0% last year.

It's getting rough out there.

Things to remember:

1. Short, shiny dresses will make you happy even if you're starving (and will make this 1929-style living more like a costume party)

2. Recession-priced dumplings on 14th Street

3. Swiping coffee from a hotel lobby does not constitute shoplifting

Why the Tyrannosaurus Rex is the Mascot of this Blog
A good and important question

Fact: Tyrannosaurus Rexes (Reges) were the scariest dinosaurs that every lived, and the last dinosaurs anyone would have expected to die out.

There were some very pathetic dinosaurs that could barely get by even in the best of times. Mostly they were vegetarians. They were, of course, made even less likely to survive by the existence of the T-Reges, whose super-power added yet another significant threat to their already considerably dangerous lives.

Fact: All the dinosaurs died.

Even the really, really strong ones. And it was probably the T-Reges' fault, if you ask me, with all that tooth-baring and sub-prime mortgaging.


*Disclaimer: this posting is based on very little actual knowledge of dinosaurs. The word "fact" should be taken with a grain of salt.

MTA Cuts Service, Hikes Fares


The good news is that since you're unemployed, you have nowhere to go anyway.

Starbucks Cuts Employees' Hours, Makes Up Difference In Free Fancy Coffees
Read: the end is near...


...For all of us. Starbucks, famous for being one of the best employers in America (and for insuring even half-time employees), is cutting the hours of many of its workers. Expected promotions are not going through, and some employees' hours are dropping to levels that disqualify them for benefits.

The company is consoling its shocked workers by allowing them to drink fancy espresso drinks, once only discounted, for free. And thank god for that, because most of the Starbucks employees, when called into private meetings with managers to voice their concerns, stated that their greatest fear was that they might not be able to afford their daily Grande Nonfat Half-Caf Peppermint Mocha Twist. Problem solved.

Really, the Starbucks cuts are cause for major concern. Starbucks has taken over the country, and is now crumbling with it. Many of the naively optimistic unemployed have been taking solace in the fact that a Starbucks job would give them health insurance, and that Starbucks would always be there. The idea of Starbucks suffering from the economy seems to scare me more than the thought of large banks going under.

Is it time to bail out the people yet?

Unemployment Funds Running Out

Ah, no one saw this coming. 30 states are probably running out of money for unemployment benefits, and are solving this problem by (1) borrowing from the federal government and (2) raising taxes paid to the fund by employers. Ironically, these employers don't have any money, which is why they laid off their employees in the first place. And now that they'll have even less money, they'll probably lay off more employees, thus further depleting state unemployment funds. Yaaaayyy! Recessions are like fun games!

If you were trying to decide whether it would be worth it to pick up a couple of shifts a week at a coffee shop when it would mean receiving less money from unemployment, your new answer is yes. Yes it would be. Soon (a) there will be no more shifts available (since high school kids saving up for college, college-aged kids who can no longer afford college, college graduates who have already been laid off from their first jobs, this guy, and these upper-class-turned-upper-middle-class kids, are all competing for that one barista position); (b) there will be no more unemployment money; and (c) you will no longer be able to afford any coffee but that shit in the yellow can, and will wish you worked in an industry where such ambrosia flowed for free. Take the job. If you were waiting until things got that bad, the time has come.

The Big D

"As the World Bank's experts struggled to find a historical analog for the slump, they said it had more in common with the Depression of the 1930s than with the severe recessions of the 1970s or 1980s."

-NYTimes, December 9, 2008

Recessiotarianism

So, you and the federal government have noticed that there's a recession. Maybe what tipped you off was the smell of fear. Maybe it was those 533,000 jobs lost in November that made the Feds a little suspicious. Or, if I know you as well as I think you do, you've known for months that this is a recession, but upped your language to a quiet "depression?" (with a little D, calm the fuck down) when you got laid off in November and stopped being able to afford food. Am I right?

Luckily, there is a diet just for you. Recessiotarianism is the first of example of Ways to Make the Recession Fun.* This is especially important for those layoffs (we'll nickname them "The November 533,000") who might be starting to feel a little stir-crazy now that they've realized that unemployment has no end in sight.

The general principle of Recessiotarianism is that you have very little money, so you should only spend it on food products that
A. are dirt cheap (the pocket principle)
B. will last long enough to be fully used (the buffalo principle) and
C. will provide you with enough nutrients to survive (the anti-starvation principle).

Take meat, for example. A recessiotarian will only eat meat if it is free. The healthier cuts of meat are expensive, violating rule A. Many healthier meats, with their low levels of preservatives, are also not time-enduring (unless made into jerky - if you see a deal on bulk meat and you want to dry some for the winter, it would be considered an acceptable exception). The cheaper meats, which violate neither A nor B, most certainly violate C, and might even kill you. Free steaks are allowed. Free buffalo steaks are allowed. Healthy and free. Free hot dogs are also allowed. You can't spend your money on hot dogs. You only have $6 and their only nutritional value is their high levels of death-hastener. However, it's free. Eat it with all the free ketchup and free mustard you like. Throw in some free relish. Fuck if I care.

What should a recessiotarian eat?

1. Produce.

Many produce items are shockingly cheap. Of course, this item requires regular visits to your corner produce store, as produce will rot. You save nothing by buying in bulk, as produce is generally sold by weight, so it's not worth the risk. Buffalo principle.

Don't be a brat. Artichokes? Asparagus? Tomatoes on the vine? RASPBERRIES IN DECEMBER?? NO. Don't give in to your pre-recession taste buds.

Sacrifices must be made. Other things you love but can no longer afford include:
- Cheese. (If you need to add a little of that fake parmesan from a can to everything, do it. It doesn't spoil or cost much because it's not real food.)
- Quinoa. (No meat or quinoa? No protein?! See magic ingredient #1.)
- Trader Joe's Pre-made anything. (During a recession, we either cook [NB: microwaving does not count] or we eat raw vegetables. If you need to visit Trader Joe's, it had better be for Two Buck Chuck.)
- Fancy drinks. (There are now four beverages in your life:
i. tap water
ii. coffee (brewed at home)
iii. tea
iv. liquor (post to look out for: Recession Boozin'))

Some of the best recession vegetables are:
A. Red cabbage. Delicious, full of vitamins, will make your salad prettier.
Medium-sized head of red cabbage: $1.25
B. Yellow cabbage. Also great for you, although not as delicious raw, in my opinion. A very good ingredient for making recession soups.
C. Spinach. Baby spinach? NO. Don't be ridiculous. We eat adult spinach during a recession. Sometimes we eat frozen spinach because it's actually pretty good, tossed in with a SMALL amount of butter (butter - not recession priced) and some pasta or something.
D. Onions and garlic. Both cheap and flavorful, plus garlic cures cancer or something.
Produce list to be continued.

2. Sources for carbs when you're having one of those I'd-like-to-feel-full-after-my-meal days:

I. Pasta. Whole wheat pasta? NO.
II. Rice. Fancy Indian rice? Special long-grain brown rice? PROBABLY NO. Check the prices. If you're at a magical grocery store where delicious rice and boring rice are the same price, more power to you.

3. MAGICAL RECESSION FOOD: BEANS!!!!!!
Even canned beans are cheap. Dried beans are even cheaper. Beans are delicious. Beans are full of protein. Beans are the new meat, the new quinoa, the new ice cream. And they're good for your heart.


*Disclaimer: Very few of these will be what the common man might call "fun," but they might help distract you from those sad 8 hours on weekdays formerly known as "work days."

rexcession, n.

(rks'sn)

1. The king of all recessions.
2008 - see: any newspaper

2. The best recession-themed blog of the recession.

3. The secession of tyrannosaurus rexes (reges) from a union of dinosaurs. An unlikely event, given that they were in charge of most of the unions. Obs.