Let’s visit our cartoon friend Odd Todd again, in Vacation Day.

Click to watch

More Odd Todd here, here, and here.

At first glance, this post from the blog Fired For Now might seem rather banal, as it simply asks its unemployed and other Great Recession-affected readers:What have you had to give up?

In reading through the answers, though, you may be hit with the reality of just what a profound effect this economic dislocation has had on the American public. Because just about everyone has had to give up something. It might be something as relatively undisruptive as a weekly night at the movies or it may be as catastrophic as a home or it may be as abstract-yet-psychically-damaging as peace-of-mind, hope about the future, and worry about what lies in store for your children.

But it’s that sense of deprivation, of a way of life lost that may never return, I think, that is one factor fueling the red-hot anger at, on the left, corporations, and on the right, government.

Some answers to the question: What have you had to give up?

Since my wife got laid off two months ago (she made almost double what I make), we have cut eating out to maybe once or twice a month (keep it under $30/visit), we avoid unnecessary driving to save gas and we haven’t visited family quite as much since most of them live over one hour away. Oh, and we cut down to basic cable TV, slower Internet access, cut Netflix, and got library cards.
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I’m all about the library now. We very rarely go out to the movies or buy books anymore. A lot of libraries are even lending video games now, so that’s something new to get my mind off of things, and saves a lot of money. If my fiance loses his finance job, we may very well need to move in with family, and give up a bit of freedom. But we’re trying to hang in there a bit longer.
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I did take in a roommate in March – but it was someone I knew who was facing more difficult economic times then I was. It has worked out well overall, but there have been some adjustments. I am, by nature, a very independent and private person…(and) when I’m upset, tense or facing difficulties (you know, all the things you feel after losing your job) I want to be alone. I miss having the whole house to myself once the kids are asleep. To just “be” and let my emotions go.
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All my vehicles are not less than 10 years old. For a time I gave up auto insurance, medical insurance, and new clothes became a thing of the past. Dish network went by the wayside. The house went into foreclosure twice and I fought it back out. There was a Chapter 13 filing too, but all along I’ve kept things rolling. Family has helped and been supportive in my efforts to reinvent a career as a web savvy business guy. I have developed a company and we are about to launch a new educational product which has wide market appeal.

My advice to everyone is, there’s so much crap we’re told we can’t live without, until we do… Seriously, I look at all the needless crap I see people defining themselves with and just laugh. My laptop is 4 years old. It works great…. I won’t buy another one, even though I can, until I really need one.

No offense, but I really have to chuckle at some of the posts. “Had to give up ‘NetFlix’” Wait until you can’t make school lunch money for your kids.

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Speaking of the U.S. debt, as we did in our last post — Keith Hennessy, who was a senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush, wrote a lengthy post on his blog a couple of weeks ago criticizing President Obama’s description of the Bush years as a “decade of profligacy.”

One argument, relating to the Bush-era tax cuts:

It is true that President Bush proposed, and in 2001 and 2003 the Congress passed and President Bush signed into law significant tax cuts, and that those tax cuts were not offset by spending cuts or tax increases. If President Obama believes that enacting these tax cuts without offsetting their deficit impact was profligate, then why is he proposing to do the same thing? His budget proposes to change the law to extend all of the Bush tax cuts except those Team Obama mislabels as “for the rich.” He is not proposing offsets for those tax cuts he would extend. It is inconsistent to argue that Bush was irresponsible when he did it, and that Obama is responsible when he does the same thing.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic wrote a rebuttal to Hennesey called “Rehabilitating Bush.” On Hennessey’s above-mentioned issue of the tax cuts, Chait writes:

This is sophistry. First of all, Hennessey waves off the portion of the Bush tax cuts that only benefit people making more than $250,000 a year, but there’s a lot of money there, so Obama’s determination to let them expire represents a significant difference with Bush.

Now, it’s true that Obama is keeping in place the tax cuts that benefit people who make under $250,000. But to equate that decision with enacting the tax cuts in the first place is absurd. Both public opinion and the political system have a huge bias toward the status quo. Once the Bush tax cuts were in place, anybody opposing them became a tax hiker. Hennessey understands perfectly well that Obama could easily maintain Clinton-era tax rates on the middle class if Bush had never cut taxes. Since Bush did cut taxes, restoring those rates in the face of unwavering GOP opposition would be a near-impossible task for Obama.

Now, Hennessey has responded in a new post. Regarding the overall strategy of continuing to cast blame on the Bush administration, he writes:

Even if I were to grant Team Obama’s characterization of what they inherited, they have the power to propose solutions. With enormous supermajorities in the House and Senate and a reconciliation process, they have the power to enact policies to improve the outcome, even if Republicans don’t play ball. They have so far not done so. I believe that at some point, failing to even propose policy solutions to a problem you argue you inherited makes the problem yours. Inaction is a choice which accrues responsibility over time.

Cited in today’s front page New York Times article on the inability of government to address the mounting national debt is research done by economists Alan J. Auerbach and William G. Gale.

Reading their paper (in .pdf) for the Tax Policy Center last year, titled “The Economic Crisis and the Fiscal Crisis: 2009 and Beyond,” provides some scary takeaways:

• The debt outlook is worse than the CBO is estimating and if the economy falters again, will become much more dire.
• Policies enacted to address the fiscal and economic crises have exacerbated the debt, but roughly 2/3 of the change from projected surpluses to huge deficits occurred due to tax cuts and spending increases implemented from 2001 – 2008.

• Certain financial markets have reflected a noticeable perception that the U.S. could, incredibly, default on 5-year U.S. Treasury debt.

Abstract

In 2009, the federal deficit will be larger as a share of the economy than at any
time since World War II. The current deficit is due in part to economic weakness and
the stimulus, and in part to policy choices made in the past. What is more troubling is
that, under what we view as optimistic assumptions, the deficit is projected to average at least $1 trillion per year for the 10 years after 2009, even if the economy returns to full employment and the stimulus package is allowed to expire in two years.

The longer-run picture is even bleaker. We estimate a fiscal gap – the immediate
and permanent increase in taxes or reduction in spending that would keep the long-term debt/GDP ratio at its current level –about 7-9 percent of GDP, or between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion per year in current dollars.

Recent trends in credit default swap markets show a clearly discernable uptick in
the perceived likelihood of default on 5-year U.S. senior Treasury debt, a notion that was virtually unthinkable in the past. While it is difficult to know exactly how to interpret these results, it is clear that – although fiscal policy problems are usually described as medium- and long-term issues – the future may be upon us much sooner than previously expected.

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An interesting debate on the discussion web site Plastic about the viability of worker cooperatives (a business model that Michael Moore touted in Capitalism: A Love Story) encompasses economics, philosophy, and business ethics.

The initial post…

Not a Mere Factor of Production

There is this bookshop on 57th Street, South Side. Finding your way through the store is like a discovery in itself: secretly unfolding, a series of forking, book-lined paths winding around, crossing room after room after room (yellow Philosophy Room, blue Asia Room, blue History Room, back through the Table Room into the Green Corridor towards the Green Downstairs and further) filled with books, books, books: and the occasional, simple, wooden chair.

Tacitus’ Annales in Latin, Love All the People by Bill Hicks, Steinsaltz’ Talmud translation, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, a Hittite dictionary, all five volumes of Michael Spivak’s ‘Differential Geometry’, George F. Kennan’s memoirs, Carl Sandburg’s Life of Lincoln, Sara Paretsky’s essays, The Irony of American History (Reinhold Niebuhr): they’re all there.

If you ask the customers why they like coming here, some of them will politely mention that, by the way, this is the bookstore where Barack Obama is a member too. Yes, a member: for the most remarkable thing about this bookstore is that it represents an alternative economic model: it is a co-op, a cooperative business, with clients taking a direct share (and voting rights with that) in the company they’re buying from.

Cooperatives are more common than you might think.

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Despite all the unemployment, bankruptcy, and business failure out there, commerce continues all over America. It’s not easy for the little guy, but a company called MicroBilt, which sells data services to small businesses, is offering help.

In a somewhat brilliant promotion, MicroBilt has hired a local North Carolina comedy duo, Rhett & Link, to produce commercials at no charge for small local businesses nominated by people over the Web.

The commercials are aggregated at the site I Love Local Commercials. I’m not sure where else the ads have run, but they have garnered hundreds of thousands–and in at least one case, millions–of page views over the Web.

Here are four particularly amusing ads that might have been created for “Saturday Night Live.”

Except they’re real.

See more of these commercials here.

About 12% of the U.S. population now uses food stamps. But how easy is it to apply?

Here’s a post from someone who tried to enroll in the program, from the blog On Food Stamps, which attempts to document “the experience of living on a restricted food budget while maintaining a diet that consists of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and other nutritious, sustainable food.”

I realize that many people reading this Blog might not be aware of just how difficult it is to actually access food stamp benefits, so I want to explore this topic a little bit.

I will start by asking you to try something. Figure out how to get food stamps in your city or county. Start with Google (lucky you, you probably have a personal computer). I’m not giving you any clues. Find the number, and call the office. Tell them you want to see if you can get food stamps and see what they say. Report back to me in the comments section, I’d love to hear your findings.

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From The Big Picture financial blog: Last month, a record-high 38.2 million people were enrolled in the food stamp program, which in 2008 was renamed the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.

Below is a chart that shows participation in the program from 1969 to last year.

Record number on food stamps

In this episode of EconomyBeat, we have stories from people who have a very specific niche jobs, which is often a good game plan in tough times. Do something you love and something unique, and you’re probably better off than most of us. The person you will hear from in this story is KellyAnne, and she’s a sound healer. But I also want to highlight the person you won’t hear, the producer Evan Roberts. He has also found an interesting niche vocation. Evan’s company Audio Heirlooms creates custom made, intimate, NPR-style audio portraits for private individuals and businesses. Families pay him to chronicle a birth or a wedding so their story is preserved. It’s pretty brilliant and, it turns out, very successful. Anyway, so this piece is not an Audio Heirloom, it’s actually from another series Evan made for the website SFist about San Francisco Odd Jobs. And it’s amazing, and not because it’s about a sound healing, I generally don’t truck with any of that stuff, but this piece is so great because listening to KellyAnne do her sound healing will chill you out. So be prepared to relax into this one.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 6:45 — 4.6MB)

Do you have a piece you think should be considered for the EconomyBeat Podcast? Put it on PRX, and add the tag ‘ebpodcast’.

There’s an endless party of CrunchBerries, SpongeBob, and air guitar going on over at Odd Todd’s place as he issues– in the form of another web cartoon–a state of the union report, on the one-year anniversary of his lay off.

Click on the image to watch.

Laid Off: Annual Report