Crash Survival Zone

In this groundbreaking 2008 book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Danish brand consultant Martin Lindstrom showed how neurology, as much as economics, drives consumer behavior. One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Lindstrom talks to TIME’s Sean Gregory, during a business trip in Thailand, about what’s buzzing around our [...]

The wishes of the “green shoots and mustard seed” crowd really hinge on whether the various organs of the suburban economy can be jump-started back to life — the production home-builders, the granite countertop outfitters, the mall and strip-mall gang, the national chain discount retailers, all the people who make Happy Motoring possible from the [...]

It’s not just erratic gas prices and a bad economy that’s hurting automakers. It may be that Americans are changing.

By Nate Silver

This is surely one of the signs of the apocalypse: Americans aren’t driving as much as they used to.
In January, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Highway Administration, Americans drove a collective 222 [...]

Frugality and safety are in; bling and plastic are out. The economic meltdown has sparked a major shift in our financial values. And one that’s likely to last.

Millions of Americans are rediscovering the merits of thrift during this deep recession. No surprise: We’re cutting up credit cards, dining in more often, and forgoing trips - [...]

The “ruthless pragmatist” is actually passionate about a central moral issue of modern American life — the lopsided distribution of political and economic power.

By Robert Reich

The President seems to me especially thoughtful and passionate about one of the great moral questions of domestic policy today: widening inequality of income and wealth, and therefore of opportunity [...]

The nature of “homeownership is the foundation of middle class wealth” has changed from accumulating wealth by paying off a mortgage to speculating in housing by taking on more debt.

Once upon a time people spent decades paying off their home mortgages. That reduction in debt to zero left them equity. Those who paid rent for [...]

By Richard Florida

The Pew Research Center recently asked a sample of Americans what they consider to be life’s necessities. Here’s a chart with the key results.

Felix Salmon reacts:

Felix Salmon reacts:
I’m quite surprised that the landline phone is still considered more of a necessity than a cellphone — I can’t imagine that’s going to continue to [...]

On April 14, President Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University, trying to explain why he was taking on so many economic issues so early in his administration. He argued that the country needed to break its bubble-and-bust cycle and cited the New Testament in calling for a new economic foundation for the nation. This [...]

Keeping the unemployed busy is an exercise in denial — and social control.

By Barbara Ehrenreich

In most parts of the world, from Paris to Beijing, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not here, though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.
Many reasons — from Prozac to Pentecostalism [...]

Wal-Mart has a unique vantage point for tracking the recession. How it’s playing in the grocery aisles.

…more…

Newsweek