BARBS

We Americans are apparently going to snack our way out of the recession.

According to the latest research from marketing firm Packaged Facts, U.S. sales of packaged snacks will reach $81.6 billion by 2013 (up from $68 billion in 2008). And, Packaged Facts predicts, “salty/savory snacks should continue to eat away at the lead enjoyed by sweet snacks in sales.”

Why are we snacking with such gusto? Here’s their take:

Despite the dampening effects of global recession, consumers are snacking more than ever, thanks to pull-backs in restaurant dining, harried lifestyles that reduce opportunities for sit-down meals, and a growing consensus that several small meals or snacks during the day are actually healthier than the three-squares paradigm.

I’m not sure “salty/savory snacks” are what nutritionists mean when they suggest several small meals during the day instead of three squares.

In addition, as the sluggish economy fans job-loss fears, health insurance woes, and environmental and social justice anxieties, snack consumers are embracing a “value” mentality that prizes quality and “whole” ingredients, “better for you” recipes, and green production practices. While low prices are always a draw, consumers are looking for snacks with fewer additives or preservatives, and even spending extra dollars for organic and premium snack treats that can boost their flagging spirits over the long climb back to prosperity.

So, the tranquilizer for worries about unemployment, global warming and whatever “social justice anxieties” are, is expensive treats.

Fat is the new broke.

I am back home after three days at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, working with my MSNBC.com colleagues on their ongoing Elkhart Project, and one of the bumpiest airplane rides I can remember on my way into LaGuardia Airport this afternoon (and one of the chattiest flight attendants ever: by the time we landed, we’d all been forced to learn that she hopes to have grandchildren, is a cancer survivor, has to call her mother every time she lands, applied for but didn’t get a job at Continental, owns two of her own businesses, and gets a thrill each and every time she flies as if it’s the first time).

The Elkhart Project focuses on the economy and unemployment in one hard-hit community as a way of putting the national struggle in a more personal context. Thus, most of the work I did this week was with an eye towards that issue, although we did post a couple of cute pieces of video on the Elkhart Facebook site.

On our first day at the fair, we asked fairgoers whether and how the recession had affected their experience at the fair, a longtime beloved annual tradition for folks in Elkhart County and beyond. Here’s what some of them told us. See also this longer article on fairs in general as an economic indicator.

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I’ve heard of getting married for health insurance. But this, from today’s Wall Street Journal, was a new one on me:

Clare Tobin, 64, of Chicago, left a stressful job with health benefits to take a less-demanding one at a property manager that didn’t offer health insurance. Her husband couldn’t obtain individual insurance because of his diabetes …

At first, they maintained Cobra [continuation health coverage] under her former employer … paying $850 per month. But Cobra normally lasts only 18 months, and as expiration approached, the Tobins were stuck.

Ms. Tobin read through the Cobra language and realized if she experienced a life-changing event … her husband would be eligible to continue Cobra coverage for another 18 months. “So I felt if that is what it takes, we should get divorced,” she says. She and her husband obtained a quickie divorce and narrowly made the deadline. She says they felt having health insurance was more important than staying married.

Desperate measures, indeed.

Many years ago, in the late twentieth century, I earned (and that is the only word for it) a Juris Doctor (a/k/a law) degree. I even passed the final, horrible barrier to entry, the New York State bar exam.

Then I put the degree and the license to practice on a shelf, where they’ve been gathering dust ever since.

Growing up, I heard over and over again that a law degree could always be “something to fall back on.” Well, with the economy on a downward spiral and my own industry in tatters, maybe it’s time to explore the reality of whether I can still fall back. Can I really blow the dust off that law degree and use it all these years later? Would I let a doctor whose M.D. degree had been on that same shelf for this same amount of time perform surgery on me?

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Today’s newspaper brings further proof there’s good reason to be concerned about the financial health of GE Capital. The money I was worried about is now safely (?) tied up in a 10-month CD at four percent. Who would have imagined I’d feel happy about making four percent on my money?

Great segment on NPR’s Weekend Edition today about a family-owned car dealership in San Francisco that, after 53 years of selling Chevrolets, is about to stop selling all new GM cars.

Two quick movie reviews:

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Several more NBC colleagues laid off today. It’s a bad feeling. And I’m not the one who lost my job.

The headline in today’s newspaper: JOBS SLASHED AT VIACOM AND NBC UNIVERSAL.

The downturn in the media industry got even deeper Thursday, as more than 1,300 people who work at Viacom and NBC Universal lost their jobs.

Some of the people who lost their jobs are people I have worked with closely for many years. I knew the layoffs were coming, but it’s still hard to take when they hit so close to home.

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“After years of flooding Americans with credit card offers and sky-high credit lines, lenders are sharply curtailing both…”

Thank god. Maybe now we can all get back to pay-as-we-go.

New proof that the troubled economy is causing drastic bracket creep: last night, I stopped into my local 99-cent store to stock up on toilet paper.

I must point out that this particular 99-cent store is one of the most foul places I know: it’s dirty, it’s dusty — hell, it’s downright grimy. It’s crammed with absolute crap. The staff is surly, the plastic bags are greasy, the plastic razors are skin slashers, and the batteries have no juice.

But the saving grace has always been the Marcal toilet paper.

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“Oink! Oink! Congress Pigs Out. Rescue Plan Full of Pork.” That’s how the New York Post this morning describes last night’s Senate approval of the sweetened $700-billion bailout plan. All eyes now are on the House.

Over the past several days, David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer-prize winning former New York Times investigative reporter and author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill), has had harsh criticism for much of the MSM (and what he calls “the actors who play the role of journalists on t.v.”) on the breathless coverage of the financial “crisis” and bailout plan.

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