Hot: Beans
Not: Lettuce
People spring for non-perishables when pinching pennies.


Hot: Tall, bony hags
Not: Waifish Lolitas
According to Playboys through the years, older, less curvaceous pinups appeal to men looking for a capable partner to till the fields.


Hot: Slow, Thoughtful Songs
Not: Bubblegum Pop
It should be noted that Britney Spears' "Womanizer" is currently the #1 single.


Hot: Laxatives
Not: Deodorant
People are stressed out in times of economic hardship, which apparently means constipation. But they don't dance as much, rendering deodorant unnecessary!


Hot: Beer
Not: Soda.
Nuff said.


Hot: Short Crops
Not: Flowing Manes
But doesn't short hair need to be trimmed more often? Maybe this is the result of disastrous at-home haircuts, undertaken during misguided fits of frugality, which are then beyond redemption.


Hot: Family Values
Not: Eating out.
The family dinners induced by straitened circs are good for bonding.


Hot: Grad School
Not: Tobacco.


Hot:Suicide
Not: Um...good mental health?
So far just a few isolated deaths have been reported as a direct result of the markets, but overall suicide rates rise (not shockingly) in difficult times.


Hot: Property Crime
Not: Violent Crime
Rumors to the contrary, apparently there's no documented correlation between the economic woes and violent crime. (Guess 1970s New York was an outlier.) However, there is a noticeable increase in petty property crime, idle hands being the devil's playground, etc.

The Hemline Index, Updated [New York Times]

Tiffany reported "same-store sales" growth of 1% nationwide — boosted by a 10% windfall at its New York store, driven entirely, I daresay, by tourists harnessing the pitiful value of the dollar, not that anyone on CNBC is saying so. No, they are all asking one another what it really means. Could the American consumer be more "confident" than recent surveys have suggested? Could it suggest that the masses are paying no mind to all this crazy recession talk and spending their stimulus checks in advance on their mid-tier "aspirational" luxury brands? Will they save the American economy yet again? It doesn't matter, really; talk like this is just a salve to a jittery market, the sort of salve that will keep greater fools — such as, say, the US government — pumping the stock market full of dollars that will keep the whole thing sufficiently afloat that enough will trickle down that blah blah blah "soft landing." The difference between recession and its absence is, after all, just a trickle. It is manipulable, to understate. But we buy into it, in the same stupid irrational way we buy into the Tiffany "brand."

Look, the more our population grows the more GDP grows. Other countries understand this. Japan, for instance, has spent practically the past twenty years with the financial community moaning about its stubborn inability to lift itself out of recession, but in actuality, it turns out, as GDP per capita goes, the country has been faring a lot better than us, because we've pumped our numbers by welcoming new people all the time to tend to our chicken coops and tend to the thankless drudgery of engineering class. We've pumped them in countless other ways, as well, from devising elaborate schemes to sell and trade and resell the same old crap — mortages, sex, sterling silver — in more appealing packaging. In stubbornly clinging to nothing but that aggregate number we have fostered a dynamism that has America great, but it has also made a lot of us miserable and stupid. Miserable and stupid and also, I should point out, confused as to the exact source of our misery.

All of which is a complex and long-winded introduction to a story I wanted you all to read about Bhutan, a country that has appointed a man to oversee something called Gross National Happiness. Bhutan is the type of poor, Third World country no one really holds up as a model of anything, which is why no one who matters would probably care that they take their national happiness so seriously, except for the fact that their GDP is actually growing about 7% annually, which is on par with India.

About one quarter of the country lives below the poverty line, and an expanding population of young people are in search of jobs, says Mr. Tshitseem. "We must keep up with the aspirations of our children," he says. But he says fast growth should also not usher in a consumerist invasion that affects the national mood.
The Center for Bhutan Studies, a local think tank, has been devising a way to quantify that mood. It is developing a GNH index based on extensive public surveys. Researchers have fanned out across the country, interviewing more than 1,000 households, according to Karma Ura, head of the center. The sample size is considered large in a country with only 750,000 people and not a single traffic light.

Outside the government high school in Thimphu, 29-year-old researcher Karma Wangdi recently interviewed Bhanaan Humagai, a 16-year-old high school student.
Question: On a scale of 10, how happy are you?
Answer: 8
Question: How stressed are you?
Answer: Somewhat stressed. I am studying for exams.
Question: Have you ever thought of suicide?
Answer: No! (laughs).

Tiffany Net Falls, But Outlook Brighter [WSJ]
Smile Census: Bhutan Counts Its Blessings [WSJ]
Grossly Distorted Picture [Economist]
What Created This Monster? [NY Times]