Financial field trips

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Ever see millions of dollars get shredded into the trash? When does a dollar bill not, well, fit the bill anymore? Yesterday, EconomyStory took a field trip to the Federal Reserve branch in downtown LA with a group of NPR reporters here for the week from across the country to learn from experts about expanding their coverage of the economy.

The training program (more on that here) is taking reporters from places as remote as Rapid City, South Dakota and as bustling as New York City to hear from professors, researchers, and other journalists about concepts and issues like the mortgage crisis, securities regulation, and financial literacy.

At the Federal Reserve, one of 12 branch offices of the country’s central bank around the country, we learned how cash is transported and stored for banks around the country, what circumstances take a bill out of circulation, and even saw a real-live $10,000 bill. Most of our trip was off the record, so no pictures from the vault…sorry!)

Currency does seem to be the name of the game this week. Fittingly for our location in LA, Nightly Business Report tells us the True Hollywood Story of the dollar.

And NPR’s Planet Money blog shows us how one artist is taking coinage matters into his own hands.

A bitter taste

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The announcement this morning that Conde Nast is shuttering Gourmet Magazine (and three other titles), is just the latest in a string of struggles facing the publishing industry. I recently wrote about the challenges African-American media outlets are confronting, along with other niche publishing areas and the industry as a whole.

Food is one of the easiest ways to understand economizing at home, and Gourmet Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl shared her recession favorites on the Leo Lopate show on WNYC earlier this year.

In an older interview on Charlie Rose, Reichl talks about the importance of food in our lives.

But rather than wallow in the past, maybe the best thing to do is have a (classic 1940s Gourmet-approved) cocktail.

From Detroit to Rochester to Jackson

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What’s “Ruin Porn”? Who’s making a federal case out of apples? And with dismal job numbers released today, what’s it like for a renegade job hunter? The economic portrait being painted around the country is bleaker than it has been in a while, but stories from around the country make things look a little brighter.

Ruin Porn is the name being given to photographs from depressed Detroit of burned out buildings and deserted downtown areas. Stemming from a recent Time Magazine piece on Detroit, WNYC’s On the Media attests that photographers are becoming obsessed with getting these grim photos, making this look worse than they are.

A look at Michigan Public Radio’s Economy Project site gives a more overarching view of the ailing Motor City, including stories on balancing the state’s budget and progress on infrastructure projects from stimulus money.

Apple farmers in New York are facing pressure from the federal government over hiring undocumented workers for migrant work. NPR fellow Rachel Ward reports from WXXI in Rochester on farmers who say there just aren’t enough legal laborers to get the picking job done during apple season.

And at Mississippi Public Broadcasting, a new show called Job Hunter follows a young woman looking for an escape from the 9 to 5.

Buzz kill

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Coffee cup/Credit: Flickr user scene*s

Coffee cup/Credit: Flickr user scene*s

Just the thought of instant coffee reminds me of the jars of crystallized, icky Folgers and Sanka sitting, untouched, in the cupboard of my grandparents’ kitchen. But Starbucks is making an attempt to revolutionize instant coffee with a blend that it claims is indistinguishable (and cheaper) than their regular Starbucks brew. Americans spend billions of dollars per year on coffee. The latte habit that Starbucks helped inflict has taken a serious toll on our wallets. Could this new instant solution help curtail that?

Marketplace’s Scott Jagow compiles the first reviews of Starbucks Via instant coffee …it’s getting mixed results.

And Marketplace host Bill Radke interviewed Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on the program this morning. He says the instant move is not a reaction to the economic downturn.

In addition to supplying the caffeine that keeps us working, the coffeehouse as a place to gather and do work may be seeing a decline over all, with Starbucks closing hundreds of stores and some independent establishments starting to charge for wireless internet access, something that kept customers coming in.

Cyrus Farivar reports for All Things Considered:
“We’ve gotta turn the tables just like a restaurant does in order to be able to survive,” says Hudson Bay Cafe owner Sadri Majlesi.

Back in January, The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC launched Your Uncommon Economic Indicators. When people were asked how they had’ve changed their habits since the downturn, one of the first comments was about coffee:

“Coffee. I take a thermos to work now and save lots of $. Of course that’s bad news for the guys at the local coffee shop,” Johnny S. from Cranford, NJ said.

Have hard economic times changed your coffee habits?

Taking credit

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Credit cards/ Credit: Flickr user Gordon

Credit cards/ Credit: Flickr user Gordon

It’s not even October and already I heard the local news show anchors yammering away this morning about planning for holiday gift-buying. Given that it’s September 29, that has to be some kind of record. That said, it’s always a good time to think about credit cards, credit card debt, and how to create a budget.

Here are a few great resources:

On Tavis Smiley’s Road to Wealth blog, columnist Michelle Singletary answers questions about the drawbacks of paying down debt with other debt.

“When you use debt to pay off debt, you are not paying off the one debt. You are merely transferring it to another loan. You are shifting your debt load, not lifting it. It’s like moving the rock from one hand to the other.”

If you have personal finance questions, submit them to Michelle here.

For those just starting out in the real world, Rochester, NY’s WXXI has a show called BizKids, which teaches kids about business and finance skills. In a recent episode (Episode 205), the show profiles Lauren, a teen who racked up over $1000 in debt. The BizKids look at how credit affects your life – and that starting early with good credit is the best policy.

Youth Radio took a look earlier this spring on how changes to credit card laws could affect young people.

While credit cards may be a challenge for some to manage, are banks doing anything to give for consumers ways to protect against bad spending habits?

The NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown talks to New York Times personal finance reporter Ron Lieber, who says that some banks are allowing debit card users to opt out of overdraft protection.

“And so that way people have the opportunity to say — to weigh all the fees involved and the potential benefits and to raise their hand and take some affirmative action and say, “Yes, I would like to be included in this coverage,” or, “No, I do not want to have it.””

New credit card rules that took affect this summer are also helping to protect customers from unexpected credit card policy changes.