Beer: The Champagne of the Recession

Recent sales figures are backing up something that many of us have long suspected. It has to do with that magicial elixir that we all discovered in high school, survived on in college, and naively looked forward to being able to finally afford for ourselves once we got out in the real world and landed some jobs.

That's right, beer really can do anything - even conquer the recession.

Back in February NPR reported that the beer industry was showing a 10% increase in sales, even as most other industries experienced their worst year since the Great Depression. Describing it as a "good hedge during hard times" NPR explained why this sector has been so profitable this year even after rising commodity prices in 2007 increased the cost of production.

A few months later, beer is starting to feel the recession heat. Luckily, creative brew enthusiasts will not go down without a fight. Posh foodies all over New York are pushing a "beer pairing" movement that puts beer up there with wine in culinary legitimacy. They even offer seminars where the average joe six-pack can learn this fine art.

But the best news yet comes from across the pond. In London, one pub has begun a trend of letting customers barter for beer. (In case you're in the area, the owner's list of wanted items includes a screwdriver set, wire cutters, serving trays and a party pack of fake moustaches.)

Needless to say, this is truly inspiring news.

Unemployed beer-lovers everywhere can now find solace and strength in this, indisputable proof that no matter what this crazy world comes to, the people will find a way to get their drink on.

With Their Powers Combined....!

Awww. Teamwork.

Recipes for the Recession #3: Egg Drop Soup

This Recipes for the Recession comes courtesy of Clara, one ballin old lady who has become a YouTube star with her series of video-recipe clips. The recipes are from the Great Depression, so they're cheap as hell, (average cost under $.50 a serving!) plus they come flavored with great little anecdotes from Clara's youth.

Clara's recipe for Egg Drop Soup is different from the more familiar Chinese version because it uses potatoes. All the better, because they're a great way to thicken it up on the cheap. Think of it as Irish Egg Drop Soup.

What you'll need:
2 potatoes, an onion, and 3 eggs.

What you'll do:
1. Peel potato and cut into cubes. dice the onion.
2. Put potato and onion in a pot with 1 tbsp olive oil to brown, adding salt and pepper, and a bay leaf if you have it.
3. Once the mixture has browned, add 2-3 cups of water and let it simmer for 10 minutes or until potatoes are cooked. Taste and add more salt and pepper as needed.
2. Lightly beat 3 eggs in a small bowl and add to the water mixture, along with one whole egg for each person eating the soup.
3. Serve in a bowl over a piece of toasted bread. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese if you feel you really deserve such a luxury.

Total Cost: $2.20 (That's without the cheese. If you choose to go there, you're on your own. It's a recession for god's sake)

Embrace That Guilty Pleasure Like It's Your Own Hardbodied Romantic Hero

You may have noticed the recent crop of somewhat bizarre subway ads promoting an upcoming Lifetime series of Nora Roberts romance novel adaptations. You know, the ones where various washed-up actors sport awkward, pained expressions and clutch each other, shirtless?

Well, that campaign represents no isolated phenomenon. According to a New York Times article, it seems that the recession is driving even those who used to dutifully follow the news and force themselves to read the classics, to give in and join the escapist ranks of bodice-ripper addicts.

Harlequin Enterprises, leading publisher in the world of heaving bosoms and steamy propositions, reported that earnings were up 32 % this year, and even Barnes & Noble reported an increase in romance sales despite a projected 4%-6% decline in overall sales.

The genre has a definite cult following, evidenced by popular blogs such as this one, a sassy site (motto: "all of the romance, none of the bullshit") that gives clever reviews and letter grades to chosen novels. Others, like Teach Me Tonight host discussions about everything from gender roles and class distinction to authors' techniques for building suspense and character. As these sites show, the Romance following is more broad than stereotypes might indicate. The popular outcry in D.C. over a subway advertisement that made fun of the romance genre by placing it next to Plato's Republic, which the ad dubbed “Greater Washington Subway Reading” was marked with protests by self-described "feminists with PhD's" who resented the judgment being passed on the romance genre.

Further aiding this industry's recession-era growth: Romance fans are a loyal and voracious bunch, consistently buying 4-6 books a week, according to Sue Grimshaw, the romance buyer at Borders. The Times quoted one Atlanta reader who spends $100 a month on romance novels as saying, “I would give up something else if money was tight...I have my priority list.”

Save on Spouse

Free breakfast and a wife?!?

Best deal ever!

Pot -for-Profit

President Obama dismissed the question of marijuana legalization with a chuckle at his "open for questions" town hall last week, but really, this is no laughing matter (well, maybe, if you're already stoned...)

The question, which collected an impressive 3 million votes, was phrased, "With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?"

Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network, makes the case that it is our job as voters to make this an issue that legislators can't (or don't have to) laugh at anymore. The issue has often been aptly compared to the prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century, and in a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Nadelman stresses how similar the prohibition of marijuana is to that of alcohol - and the implications of the repeal of the latter, upon the realization that, "the evils of failed suppression far outweighed the evils of alcohol consumption."

While Nadelman covered the issue of how much money is needlessly spent on prosecuting marijuana offenses, the point made at Obama's town hall goes beyond Nadelman's argument to press the issue of how much money could be gained by taxing marijuana as a cash crop.

Stephen Easton, conducted research for The Fraser Institute about the implications for legalization in Canada, and approximated that taxing marijuana "could translate into potential revenues for the government of over $2 billion."

Meanwhile, other initiatives in criminal justice, such as the proposal in Maryland to abolish the death penalty due to its high cost, suggest a willingness among lawmakers to compromise their tough-on-crime if the savings are high enough. If bills like this (and similar ones in Montana and New Mexico) pass, they will set a precedent that may be hard to ignore when it comes to marijuana legalization.

The heavily moral rhetoric used by politicians and special interest groups to villanize drug use and would seem to predict an insurmountable cultural resistance to legalization. However, as history has proven the people's voice to not exactly dictate policy, we can assume that this is more lip service than the genuine reason for strict anti-drug laws.

No, the major obstacles to legalization at this point are most likely not the anxieties of concerned voters; instead, they are those massively powerful but eerily quiet political players in the game of Capitalism. Big pharmaceutical companies make a huge amount of money not only on medications that marijuana might replace (more of a theoretical position), but also on urine analysis tests. Alcohol manufacturers might also suffer from the existence of another legal and popular recreational drug. Finally, private prisons, which are filled with low-level drug offenders every day and are one of the most profitable industries out there, would suffer. And these prisons have significant lobbying power, thanks to large and regular campaign donations paid to the candidate who will keep them in business.

You'll Get By, With a Little Help From Your Friends

Ron Lieber writes the Your Money column for The Times and wrote two articles recently on just how and when to throw a line to your friends who are in the financial shitter.

In keeping with ancient male tradition, Lieber got these great ideas from his wife, as he admitted when interviewed on WNYC last Monday.

The first presents a seven-pronged approach chock-full of cheerful euphemism: for example, "playdates" is babysitting in disguise; "mac & cheese" refers to comestible charity (and a great idea for the next Recipes for the Recession!); and "remodeling" means helping friends sell unneeded furniture (or even their home) for some extra cash.

One of his more interesting (and surprisingly simple) ideas in this article is to offer friends access to your office and/or office supplies - for instance inviting them to use your office's fax machine or printer during their job search, or even giving them a space to use free internet access (away from the crowds and terrible music at Starbucks.)

The second article deals with the question of money-lending etiquette (which is apparently a big fat deal for old people.) According to Lieber, standard concerns involve deciding whether your assistance will be in the form of a grant or a loan; whether to ask first or just plow ahead; whether to gather a group of donors instead of acting alone; and, finally, options that exist for giving anonymously (church congregations are your best bet.) The best story from this article describes a man who lost his job (and health insurance) to find out only weeks later that his young son was sick with a life-threatening illness. Friends and family together scraped up $4,000 to offer the family within hours! Most importantly, they put it in a Paypal account, so the family couldn't pay it back even if they tried.

The Road To Knowledge Is Paved in Family Money

This year, "elite" colleges all over the country are taking a closer look at the financial stats of their applicants and targeting for admission those who can pay full tuition, according to the New York Times.

As you might well guess, the decision comes out of these private schools' own heightened financial need, having suffered from the same economy that's left Joe Highschooler's family unable to afford higher ed.

But schools aren't abandoning that classic and oh-so-comforting "need-blind" philosophy. In fact, what's surprising here is that these colleges haven't and don't plan to cut their financial aid budgets. Instead, the shift in their admissions policy is supposedly the result of greater demonstrated need among those applicants who have requested financial aid. (As in, they will accept dumb rich kids to pay the way for poor smart kids.) But even the schools who champion this new admissions policy admit that "the inevitable result is that needier students will be shifted down to the less expensive and less prestigious institutions."

In other words, “there’s going to be a cascading of talented lower-income kids down the social hierarchy of American higher education, and some cascading up of affluent kids,” according to Williams College prez Owen Schapiro.

The Times reported that the colleges in question plan to judge applicants' ability to pay not only by whether they have applied for aid but also on factors such as ZIP code or parents' background. This seems unnecessary as well as creepy. I can only assume that these considerations are a way to ensure that even students who don't apply for aid their first year (clever student!) can be flagged as a potential $ drain later on.

As much as I'd like to throw some spitballs at prez Schapiro and his like, I think that we are all implicated in the exaggerated, illogical reverence for private higher education in this country, and the resulting lack of attention, funds, and prestige reserved for public institutions. So we can't blame the private colleges in question alone for this sad state of affairs, because to do so would be kinda like blaming drug dealers for the world's drug problems (instead of a worldwide, age-old, human craving for narcotics,) and we all know how messy that can get.