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BadCyclopedia

Cyclopedia Of Bad Things

At the Supermarket Checkout, Frugality Trumps Brand LoyaltyNovember 12

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When Summer Mills visited her local CVS drugstore recently, to save a few dollars she bought the store-brand facial scrub rather than the Olay version she normally uses.

“I thought I’d be able to tell the difference, but I couldn’t — I looked at the ingredients and they seemed almost the same,” says 30-year-old Ms. Mills, a stay-at-home mother of two in Ardmore, Okla. On her next shopping trip, “I’m going to buy the store-brand moisturizer and cleanser — it’s less money.”

Many Americans are changing their everyday purchases and abandoning brand loyalty, prompted by the persistent financial pressure of rising food, gasoline and electricity prices. Over the past 24 months, consumer prices have risen 7.8% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From coloring hair at home instead of at the salon to trying cheaper laundry detergents, new evidence indicates that Americans are modifying even minor household habits to save money.

Kimberly-Clark Corp. CEO Thomas Falk noted that sales of the company’s potty-training pants, once one of the biggest sales-growth products in the baby aisle, have fallen off in recent months. “You’re seeing consumers leaving children in diapers longer…the diaper is less expensive per pie

Badconomy - Economics Of The Bad TimesOctober 20

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More suicides? Fewer male births? Less back pain? More laxative sales?

Data points litter the landscape as economists, sociologists, psychologists and marketers examine the societal changes, big and small, trivial and traumatic, that accompany a bad economy. And with this particular version of a troubled economy — a stock market that goes into convulsions at 3 p.m., a looming global recession, a $700 billion bailout plan that may or may not work, and a jittery public wondering what is coming next — changes should flow as freely as profits in good times.

It’s one thing to measure changes in society, however, and another to ascribe causes. But if the causal link is elusive, you still might expect to see slack soda sales, more frequent car thefts and meaning-laden tunes at the top of the pop charts during a recession.

Terry F. Pettijohn II, a professor of psychology at Coastal Carolina University, is one of those who sees popular tastes shift with economic conditions. Take beauty, for example. “What we find attractive is not a stable currency,” said Mr. Pettijohn, who has stud

As America Crumles, It’s Pay Day For PawnshopsOctober 17

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At People’s Pawn in Springfield, Mass., the collection of DVD players, televisions and other electronics just keeps getting bigger.

As many as 200 a people a day come in to “sell all their stuff so they can get gas money,” said Efren Rivera, who works at the shop. “Some people have to pay their mortgages.”

The story is similar at EZ Cash Pawn in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the shelves are so stacked with electronics, musical instruments, guns, fishing poles, scuba gear — you name it — that people are being turned away.

“I have no choice,” said Robert DeSantis, the shop’s owner. “I have tools in the warehouse now — every single tool you can think about.”

With the economy in the tank and high energy prices eating away at Americans’ paychecks, pawnshops are prospering.

Unlike the bank, where tough times make it harder to get a loan, “with us, doesn’t matter what your credit is like,” said Todd Faircloth, owner of Georgia Loan and Pawn in Albany, Ga. “You can come in and borrow from us if you’ve got merchandise.”

Sometimes, pawning’s a good option
When you pawn an item, you are really taking out what financial professionals call a “secured non-recourse loan.” Sometimes, according to Jean Chatzky, a financial columnist and author of “Pay It D

The Day The Credit Died. How Americans Will Have To Live Without Visas And MasterCardsOctober 14

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An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to “come on up under the canopy and put your hands on” a new set of wheels.

But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.

“It’s just rough times right now,” Clark said. “Rough times.”

For Clark, and for a nation of consumers heavily dependent on credit, there are growing signs that those rough times could prove to be more than just a temporary problem, that they could be the beginning of a stark, new reality.

Is America’s long era of easy credit over?

Experts say that even when the current credit crunch eases, the nation may finally have maxed out its reliance on borrowed cash. Today’s crisis is a warning sign, they say, that consumers could be facing long-term adjustments in the way they finance their everyday lives.

“I think we’re undergoing

Too Big To BailSeptember 27

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“Bankruptcy of Neo-Capitalism,” shouted a headline in Wednesday’s Paris press. Scarcely since Hitler blew his brains out has the type been bigger or the contentment broader.

Almost everyone everywhere is enjoying the show. Each headline brings more laughs. The financial markets give people neither what they expect nor what they want, but what they deserve. What a treat to see people getting it - good and hard.

Near to home, that galling “millionaire next door” - many will take pleasure in seeing his portfolio of stocks marked down. “Stocks for the long run,” he used to say, smugly; the silly old coot will be dead before his stocks come back! He’ll have to work until he drops dead, just like the rest of us.

On Wall Street, the masters of the universe - who had the pay slips to prove it! - are now getting blown up by their own debt bombs. The top five firms on Wall Street were thought to be “too big to fail.” But Bear Stearns has been blown to smithereens. Lehman is exploding into small pieces. Merrill ducked and missed the bla