It doesn’t always add up – Bad economic times like these call for extreme measures (at least some very important things are on sale). One problem: not everyone realizes that $1 equals 100 cents.

A new study suggests that, in some situations, people may behave as if 100 cents actually has more value because they pay more attention to the number of coins involved than the actual economic value. So people are more impressed by 100 cents than they are with $1, because 100 is larger than one.
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Consumers are often told to “look but don’t touch,” that if they break an item, they buy it. But a new study suggests that if they just touch an item for more than a few seconds, they may also end up buying it, which is something struggling retailers might heed, when trying to attract more customers in a recession. Speaking of touch, another industry is hoping for a government bailout: the porn industry.
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They are genetically programmed to SPEND! – In a recession, we all have less to spend. But are men genetically programmed to keep on spending money anyway?

Bling, foreclosures, rising credit card debt, bank and auto bailouts, upside down mortgages and perhaps a mid-life crisis new Corvette are all symptoms of compulsive overspending, and despite the female “Sex and the City” reputation for drowning their sorrows in shopping, the truth is that men indulge in this more than women do. Researcher Daniel Kruger looks to evolution and mating for an explanation.
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Is there anything good that can be said about the current recession? Well, the last depression was one of the greatest creative periods of our time, so maybe this one will be too.

Researcher Miles Orvell says, “?Adversity and hardship can bring out creativity.” The Great Depression is currently all the rage, with New Yorkers hosting Depression parties, peasant skirts and newsboy caps making a return on the runways, and Netflix rentals of The Grapes of Wrath on the rise. But that 1939 Steinbeck novel is not the only Depression-era work worth taking a second (or a first) look at from our current perspective in what some are calling the New Depression.
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