Recession Diaries

"She's back!" screams the cover of Reason, the magazine "For Free Minds and Free Markets," featuring a photo of right-wing icon Ayn Rand looking suspiciously like the Bride of Frankenstein. (Seriously. Did you ever see the two of them together? I didn't think so.) Like Frankenstein's monster,...

Real estate prices have bottomed out. Depending on the market-- Las Vegas, Arizona, Southern California -- house prices can be insanely low. In Broward County, Fla., for example, homes that once cost more than $200,000 can be had for as little as $30,000, many as foreclosures. Now that the days...

Beloved One, I have the Courage to Crave Indulgence for this most opportune business venture... Look familiar? A day doesn't go by day that I don't receive an e-mail from people with names like Dr. Fortunate Goodpence or Mrs. Pius Motubo soliciting my aid in recovering millions from banks in...

Consumers are notoriously fickle in their allegiances and interests -- remember those food-assembly kitchens that were all the rage a few years ago? But the recession has sobered buying habits, and increasingly, more companies are viewing Americans' recent conversion to thrift as a long-term trend,...

As he nears the end of the line for his Man in a Van Project, Aaron Heideman of Grants Pass, Ore. has only begun to process the stories he gleaned from his cross-country recession odyssey. After losing jobs himself due to the sour economy-not once, but twice-the 29-year-old set out to chronicle the...

All your life you wanted to do something outlandish for a living. But that cushy corporate gig and the frills attached to it stopped you from turning your passion into a profession. Enter recession, pink slips and voila your ticket to be your own boss. Unemployed folks are taking the leap of...

I recently learned how to avoid arguing about money with my spouse from an unlikely source: composer Phillip Glass. Not Glass himself - I'm hip, but I'm not that hip. No, I got marriage and money advice from Glass's setting of the classic Jean Cocteau film Orphée, which is having its West...