photo © 2004 Rob Holland | more info (via: Wylio)

That subconscious response is why nutritionists often recommend dieters serve their meals on smaller plates.  Even if you clear a salad-sized plate of food, you’re still coming in under the calorie count of a full dinner place – a mind game that helps keep you on track with weight loss goals.

And that same psychology appears to apply with overall consumption too.  This weekend the WSJ reported on Commerce Department data indicating that 11.2 percent of American spending in 2011 is for non-essential purchases (exclusive of requisite items like food, housing and medicine).  Despite a recession and mass unemployment, people are still shopping for wants beyond their needs; in 1959 such goods only accounted for four percent of spending.

This growth in non essential spending seems to parallel with the ever expanding square footage requirements of American home owners.  The average home in 1950 was just 983 square feet compared with 2349 square feet for new homes in 2004.

Purchasing a home typically means moving into a large space. Thus, owners grow into a  new space buying items to furnish extra rooms and to cover empty walls and to fill the nooks and crannies that give a home character. The advertising industry — having created the Pavlovian need to keep up with the Joneses — and a consumer technology sector — with routine product enhancements every 18 months or so a la Moore’s Law, combined with environmentally tone-deaf planned obsolescence — ensure a steady drum beat of purchasing whenever dollars can be spared.

Buying habits encourage an eventual move into a larger home when the perfectly sunny abode at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac no longer seems quite as spacious. With packing comes the tossing of dated furniture and appliances that can be upgraded to shiny, new replacements. Disposing of forgotten tchotchkes or ill-fitting clothing creates even more opportunity to spend.

And it creates a kind of geographic inertia that tugs on an economy in crisis.  Ever so slowly, the cost of relocating for more lucrative — or any — opportunities creeps toward burdensome and cost prohibitive. People get tied to more than the roots in their community; they get bogged down by an obesity of stuff.

Thursday night, Cramer voluntarily took part in a lengthy dialogue with Stewart about the culpability of the financial media in the economic meltdown.

I blog at wordpress.com, which means I can’t embed flash, sooooo I have to send you away to The Daily Show to view the unusually lengthy interview. Pundits and commentators will hopefully be talking about this interview today like adults, not snarky adolescents.

Go here, and bask in the glory of real journalism disguised as pseudo-journalism. Like a pit bull, when the interview gets uncomfortable, Stewart wouldn’t let go.

Ask yourselves why people who claim to report “real news,” don’t go in for the kill like that and do their job. Based on the failing economic models of newspapers, it seems pandering to advertisers (not writing too negatively about the companies that ante up) might not be the way to go. I’d buy a paper that went for the jugular and did some real investigative reporting. But maybe that’s just me wanting to stick it to corporate America.  Would you?

PS. For the record, I’d like to be adopted by Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. How cool are they?

At that time the average job hunt took 4-6 months, and I had squirreled away 6 months of savings.   Since I planned to hit the ground running with lots of ideas as to places I’d like to work and the type of work I wanted to do, as well as scores of networking events and heavily researched job hunt strategy, the 6 month window seemed reasonable to me.   And shelling out thousands of dollars a year to work with someone on creating my best life, it seemed time to take a bigger step and a greater risk than I had up to that point.

Fast forward to March 2009, and I’m still without a full-time employer, which was NOT the plan.

I have worked my network to get my resume in the door at companies and organizations with openings that look interesting, as well as to land informationals to have a better understanding of certain fields.   In sticking with my golden rule, I’ve helped a lot of people I meet at networking events find resources and contacts they need.

I’ve lost count of the number of job applications for positions ranging from Executive Assistant to Associate Director in a variety of fields with a wide array of responsibilities or lack thereof.   I signed up with several recommended temp agencies that never called, despite my high scores on their tests, and my following their rules of engagement.  My resume has been sucked into the black hole of the crumbling retail world.  Three different “professionals” rewrote my resume.   (The person who charged me the most, helped the least.)  I  send handwritten thank-you notes to each individual I speak to in relation to a job opening, unless I’m going to be sending follow-up materials — in that case, I may email my thank you note with the requisite attachments.

Basically, I’ve conformed to the job hunting check lists written by (aspiring) career advisors and no pay dirt as of yet.

Lots of rejections, though.  In the past 18 months, I have been told that I’m overqualified; I’m underqualified; I’m simultaneously over and underqualified (yes, it can be done!); they loved me, but Candidate X holds a Roladex that is a source of envy; sorry, there’s been a hiring freeze; you’d be bored in this role and leave; damn, they pulled the funding for the position; we decided to promote internally instead; and the list goes on.

But I’m coming to believe the hardest and least planned for roads can bring the great rewards and life lessons.

I’m lucky.

My family is able to float me while I try to navigate the quarterlife quagmire; I’m cognizant of that privilege.  It’s a lifeline not readily available to many people.   Thanks to the recession twenty percent of Los Angeles county residents receive government aid of some sort, and more than one in ten Californians is unemployed.  Though it’s the worst unemployement rate in a quarter century, it’s expected to get considerably worse before it gets better.

As singleton with no mortgage or car payments pending,  I can move anywhere for the right job opportunity.  As I pointed out to an interviewer concerned about the timing of a cross-country move, my possessions are books and clothes — the former you ship, the latter fit in a suitcase, or three,  in the trunk of my car.

I’m healthy, which is much less expensive than being sick, whether you have insurance or not.

A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses.  Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.

Career development opportunities aren’t just for the employed.

• Want to learn a new skill? Find a few non-profits that align with causes you care about and see what they need.  Through my volunteer work, I’ve learned about fundraising and securing donations (sales), as well as new member and donor outreach (marketing and public speaking).

• Build your current skill set. My side job has been teaching fitness classes of some sort for the last 7 years, which comes with all sorts of continuing education requirements.  Unemployment gave me the time to earn a new certification that has not fit into my schedule for years.  Find a community college to take that HTML or PowerPoint workshop.  Head to a industry specific conference to be up-to-date and schmooze with people who might have job leads.   No money for a rainy day you can tap?

• Just do it. I know I want to be doing at least some writing in my next job, so I blog and journal and try to keep the thoughts flowing from brain to screen or pen to paper.   (I’m also a horrible proofreader of my own work, so I’ll take all the practice I can get.) What job responsibilities do you want to have in the future?  How can you work on developing those talents while unemployed?

• Learning doesn’t have to come with a grade. Sign up for the RSS feeds on topics of interest. Visit your local library, BookMooch or DealOz to pick up those books you’ve been meaning to read, whether work-related or for the sheer pleasure.  I read more now than I did during grad school (when a paper wasn’t due) and have developed a to-read list 600 books deep.   Why  not document your readings a la Art Garfunkel? I recently found another blog of “Words Learned Reading David Foster Wallace,” which has sadly, but understandably,  been discontinued because the blogger wants to focus on the PR-centric blog that aligns with her professional life. (If you’re a David Foster Wallace fan, she’s open to someone taking over the blog).

I’m not alone.

It’s easy to get buried under columnists, commentators, bloggers, and politicians who suggest the unemployed should “just get a job”, like they’re hanging from bushes and trees at the local parks, and we can simply go pluck the one we like best or the least bruised one at worst to pay our bills.   They’d have you believe the unemployed are lazy OR just not trying very hard to find a job OR look at certain types of jobs as beneath them.  (Meanwhile, they help Corporate America make the case for industry-wide welfare, which is totally different than lending a helping hand to workers.)

Andrew Sullivan’s series “The View From Your Recession” points out how unemployment is much more complicated right now.   He recently posted a lengthy missive by a third-year law student with no serious post-graduate job prospects anywhere in his or his peers’ futures.

I myself worked at the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General for the past nine months and interviewed for a really exciting fellowship. I received a call from the AGO’s HR Director:  I was third in line for the position, but they were cutting the number they were hosting from three to one.  In four other positions I’ve interviewed for, I’ve received word that the position itself was canceled, or would not be filled at all this year.  There’s also a state-wide hiring freeze in Massachusetts, and a lot of established attorneys suddenly on the market after record layoffs in Boston law firms. . .

Without a job, I will not be able to afford malpractice insurance on my own and would not risk practicing law without it. I’ll have over $130K in debt from my law degree. Thankfully, I live in Massachusetts and can utilize MassHealth – anywhere else in the country, I would have to do without health insurance (I have no pre-existing conditions, but the quotes I’ve received are so high as to be ridiculous).  If I stay in the city, I do not know what I’d do for rent.  I’m 26 years old, and am frightened to death I will have to move back to Ohio and away from my gay community, and live with my parents.  With a law degree.  I feel like a chump sometimes.

It is odd to feel relief when reading the slices of life by other people who find themselves in similar circumstances.  There’s an unexpected camaraderie in recession pain right now.

Every day I read about the plight of people who are less fortunate and unemployed.  Every day I read about the plight of people who have several kids and were just laid off.  Every day I read about the plight of people who have serious illnesses and are unemployed and are probably going to lose their health insurance and their house and then what? Everyday, I’m still more concerned about them, than I am me, because I know I have access to the resources I need and little in the way of roots that could make a solution more difficult, but what about them?

I’ve typically avoided writing about my prolonged job hunt because I opted to leave a job and wasn’t fired, so my unemployment is of my own making.  But it increasingly feels wrong to not reach out to others who find themselves unemployed in this crappy economy.

When you’re bogged down by the drama in your own life, it can be difficult to remember we each have a unique pool of resources (and sometimes a government one) to pull through.   There’s also always opportunity in adversity, it just matters how you choose to view the situation.

And most importantly, you’re not alone.

What’s your window on the recession?  How is it affecting you? How can your online community support you? And what are you doing to look forward?

Peter Schiff now:

Makes your blood run cold. Why was Schiff in the minority seeing the trajectory of our economy and housing market? Time to buy gold?

But you have to wonder, where do people put all their stuff? I know a guy who collects Legos; he dreams of one day building a Lego master piece and is painstakingly collecting all sorts of special Lego pieces for this grand oeuvre. Where does he keep the thousands and thousands of legos he has amassed? In a store locker on the East Coast. . . seriously.

My friend is not alone. Alternet’s Martin John Brown writes:

According to the Self Storage Association, an industry advocacy group, square footage of rentable storage has increased 740 percent in the past two decades; a billion square feet of storage space was created between 1998 and 2005; and there are now 6.8 square feet of storage for every man, woman and child in America. Chris Sonne, a storage expert at Cushman & Wakefield Inc., estimates there are 45,000 storage facilities today compared to zero 50 years ago.

I’m flabbergasted that people buy more stuff than they have space for. If you aren’t going to use it regularly, is there really a purpose in buying it at all? When shopping for clothes I aways consider the price:use ratio. If it’s an item I’m likely to wear weekly, I can justify spending more for it. But to have boxes of household goods and clothing in storage for perpetuity? Why do you have that stuff in the first place?

Average tenancies nationwide are somewhere between one and two years, say Scanlon and Sonne, and some renters simply never leave.

“I have one renter who’s been here since we opened — in 1990,” says Dawn Spencer, a manager at Clackamas River Mini Storage outside of Portland. “He pays automatically, by credit card, never comes in. Lives in another state now.”

“It’s an industry that builds on inertia,” says Paul Adornato, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets. “People would much rather have $150 withdrawn automatically out of their checking account every month than have to wake up on a Saturday morning, rent a truck, move out the stuff, do something with the stuff … see what I mean?”

Our nation’s obsession with “stuff” is rarely discussed, despite its impact, which is why I so thoroughly enjoyed the documentary What Would Jesus Buy? The film documents Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on their holiday crusade to get people to give more and buy less. (The group has officially been banned from Starbucks locations globally after taking their act to a Starbucks venue.) The films looks at the community impact of excessive shopping at discount retailers, as well as the financial and social effects of reckless consumerism. Their tale is easier to swallow cloaked in humor, but it does address the serious realities of our shopping culture.

Though we have 198 days until Christmas rolls around again, I highly recommend the film, perhaps partnered with a money party for your closest friends.

One of the most vexing aspects of college is finding adequate housing. Universities in cities almost never have housing to handle their entire undergraduate study body, and if you’re a graduate student, housing services basically laughs at you and sends you on your way.

But it appears there is now a silver lining to the mortgage crisis sweeping America; Denver parents are taking advantage of bargain home prices to ensure their kids have college housing. Nationally, home prices have fallen 14.4% over the past year, with some cities seeing even steeper declines like a 21.7% dip in Los Angeles. Parents of some affluence have come to realize that paying a 2nd mortgage is a better deal than one mortgage and rent on their kid’s college dorm or off-campus apartment.

All Kevin Meador had to do was crunch the numbers to determine it made more sense for him to buy a house for his daughter Jeni, who just graduated from Colorado State University, and her two roommates than it did to rent.

“The last two years, she’s been living in the house with a couple of roommates paying rent,” Meador said. “I was able to have a break-even cash flow. She lived there for free.”

Even though Jeni has graduated, Meador is keeping the house, anticipating his son Michael will live there when he completes his freshman year. Meanwhile, he’s renting it to other CSU students

Not only is an investment in a market that will eventually rebound, but it serves as a tax write-off for parents and ensure they have a place to stay when they visit (I always discouraged home coming weekends).

Anastasia at Ypulse expressed concern over this housing trend further entangling the financial and emotional relationship Gen Y has with its parents.

Still, I wonder how much the increased emotional closeness this generation seems to have with their parents has enabled this type of arrangement as well. It certainly keeps the financial strings attached for much longer…

A significant portion of college students leave their college towns and states upon graduation, so I have my doubts that established housing would be incentive enough to stay, since location is one of the key factors in job choice for new graduates. But for those that do, maybe those entangling alliances are another shift in family culture.

In the 1950s, 80 percent of all Americans lived in a home where the head of household was married. Now, that number stands at 52 percent. The number of young people growing up in single-parent households has jumped from 10 percent in the boomer generation to the current figure of 26 percent.

Perhaps buying homes for their children could become a new standard in how Boomers will maintain relationships with their extended family beyond the first 18 years of life.

Additionally, the share of grads that do stay would likely bolster the spirits of government officials who have spent years trying to figure out how to slow the brain drain and $$$ drain to cities and states with better salaries, opportunities, and lifestyles.

Maine, for instance, has taken to paying graduates to stay via tax credits.

The tax credits would amount to a maximum of $2,100 per year, or $8,400 total, for a graduate who spent four years at a Maine college. . .

Maine needs the program because more than 50 percent of the nearly 7,000 students who earn associate’s or bachelor’s degrees there every year leave the state for an extended period, according to Opportunity Maine , the group that launched the initiative.

Many students who earn bachelor’s degrees leave the state because they graduate with an average $22,301 in loans, said Andrew Bossie , president of Opportunity Maine.

While Philadelphia keeps most of its locals, out-of-state students leave the city in droves after graduation.

only 29% of Philadelphia college graduates who aren’t originally from the area end up staying, compared with 86% of those who are.

It remains to be seen if this local Denver trend becomes more common place nationally. And it’s too soon to tell what the long term consequences of parents choosing to support their children in this way. But for the time being, at least some parents think the benefits outweigh the costs.

Social security is expected to go broke in 2041. The government isn’t prepared to deal with the reality of a very retired population propped up by a much smaller population (Gen X and Gen Y). For all the complaints that Gen Y is the “Entitled” Generation; the Boomers may have to take a look at themselves when it comes to Social Security.

There’s a really thorough article on Social Security over at wikipedia.

The earliest age at which (reduced) benefits are payable is 62. Full retirement benefits depend on a retiree’s year of birth.^[27] Those born before 1938 have a normal retirement age of 65. Normal retirement age increases by two months for each ensuing year of birth until the 1943 year of birth, when it stays at age 66 years until the year of birth 1955. Thereafter the normal retirement age increases again by two months for each year ending in the 1960 year of birth, when normal retirement age stops at age 67 for all born thereafter.

Don’t get bored yet.

In 1938, American-citizens had a life expectancy of about 62 years; social security kicked in 3 years after you were likely to be dead. Blacks were particularly shafted by this government policy since they were averaging 53 years.

Fast forward to 2004. Full Social Security benefits kick in at age 67. American citizens average just under 78 years (~75 years for men, ~80 for women). This disparity between blacks and whites is closing a bit, with an average of ~78 years for whites and ~73 years for blacks; women continue to outlive men regardless of race.

So in the beginning the government offered to take care of its citizenry starting 3 years after more than half of them would likely be dead, but today Social Security kicks in 11 years before the average citizen abandons his mortal coil.

I’m not suggesting that the new retirement age should be 81, just pointing out that it’s no surprise Social Security is hurting, since Americans have grown increasingly dependent upon a check that was originally meant to help out those with impressive longevity, not be an expected source of income.

A friend shared the latest on the life of her accountant friend. Typically, accountants are super busy starting in March, as people finally drag themselves in to do their taxes. This year, he got busy in the middle of January. As soon as his clients had all their paperwork collected, they were filing their tax returns, because they needed the money.

While that story serves only as anecdotal evidence that people aren’t going to splurge on luxury items come the arrival of rebate checks, polls aren’t looking so upbeat either.

Only 18 percent of respondents said they will spend their rebate on purchases, while slightly more than three in 10 said they prefer to use the money to pay off debt, and a third said they’ll pocket it.

Personally, I’m torn between the savings camp and the bill-paying camp. While I’d rather not be accruing credit card interest, I also wouldn’t mind a bigger pillow for unexpected expenses. What do you plan to do with yours?

As an FYI: Rebates will be processed based on the last 2 digits of your social security number, as well as whether you filed a paper or electronic return. Online returns will be processed during the first half of May; paper returns will follow through mid-July. The IRS has posted their intended rebate cutting schedule, so you’ll know when to expect your mad money.