To celebrate zero-nine’s passing, I’ve put together a Best of Business Pundit 2009 list. These posts represent some of the most popular and interesting posts we’ve put up this year. You may find some old favorites in here, as well as posts you haven’t yet seen.

Wishing everyone a happy, productive, and wise 2010!

Products: New, Old, and Origins

The Unique Origins of 25 Popular Products
You’ll never guess where saccharin, Teflon, and the bra came from.

25 Most Promising Products for 2010
I want a flying car! And a jetski-ATV combo! Not so sure about the cardboard computer, though.

20 Brands and Products That Died in 2009
2009 will go down in history as a brand-killer.

Company Capers

20 Most Hilarious (Yet Unfortunate) Company Names on Earth
Menlove Dental Practice and Boring Business Systems are just the beginning.

The 25 Worst Business Failures in History
Heard of the Edsel or Flooz.com? No? There’s a reason for that.

The Ever-Exciting Economy

12 Economic Bubbles That May Burst
Even gold, food, and guns aren’t bubbleproof.

People & Money: They Don’t Always Mix

10 Biggest White-Collar Crimes in History (and How They Were Unravelled)
When businesspeople go bad.

25 Rich Athletes Who Went Broke
Once you’re on top, watch out for vultures.

Controversies

Reebok Easytone shoes promise to tone your butt. Fad alert!
Are these $100 shoes fad-tastic? Or are they a godsend for those too busy to exercise much?

The Baby Einstein recall
Was the recall hysteria-based, or does Baby Einstein really harm your kids?

Google Cell Phone Tracker
Something for parents to love? Or privacy-minded people to fear?

The Visa Black Card: Smooth or silly?
Is making people feel elite through a special credit card a good idea or a cheap trick?

Humor

Mouse logo FAIL
That mouse looks like a _ _ _ _ _.

Milk carton just got safer
Did that cow really need a bike helmet?

Always check your child’s homework before it gets turned in
Especially if your mom works in the adult industry.

10 craziest ways people are making money in this economy
Yep, people really do buy dog strollers and pay money to smash plates against a wall.

What defined business in 2009? Bankers and bailouts, for one. The proliferation of social media. A radical shift in the ways we find and accept jobs. A redefinition of the real estate, credit, and media markets.

In a word, 2009 was full of fluctuations. And nobody covered, commented on, and analyzed them better than the 75 blogs on our list.

This year’s 75 Best Business Blogs cover a variety of categories, from accounting to SEO. Those we selected have useful and timely content. They’re updated regularly. Their commentary, analysis, and tips are consistently relevant to their target audience.

Most importantly, they’re some of the highest-quality blogs in their respective fields. Every single one of these blogs is worth reading. We categorized them by topic to help you find those most relevant to your field. If you find something missing, or want to show off your own blog, we encourage you to comment.

Bloggers, keep up the good work!

ACCOUNTING

1. re: The Auditors
Covers the business of the Big 4 accounting firms. Essential updates on accounting industry regulation, auditing, strategy, and more. High-quality independent journalism and a wide scope of corporate accounting issues make re: The Auditors an outstanding resource.

2. CPA Success
Written by the Maryland Association of CPAs, the blog helps accountants succeed in their careers. Chock full of useful tips, news, analysis, and even accountant humor.

ADVERTISING

3. AdvertisingAge
Advertising Age’s prolific blog covers ad industry news, campaigns, and commentary. Digest it daily to stay up on the ad world.

4. AdFreak
Another magazine-sponsored blog, this time from AdWeek. The bloggers present ad images and clips on each post, followed by a background and commentary. They have a penchant for finding really interesting content, about ads, companies, and people in the industry.

BUSINESS: GENERAL

5. The Atlantic Business Channel
News and current events coverage related to business, the economy, and government. The bloggers offer good, comprehensible analysis and commentary on daily events.

6. Stanley Bing’s Blog
Stanley Bing is a business writing legend. He says it like it is—and sometimes it’s damn funny. Don’t miss his blog.

BUSINESS LAW

7. The Conglomerate
Five law professors weigh in on law, business, education, and a variety of other topics. Their expert analysis on business law is not only helpful for understanding events from a legal perspective, but also very readable.

8. Corporate Governance
In the Harvard Law School’s corporate governance and financial regulation blog, more than 100 experts talk about regulation, strategy, M&A, governance, and more. Get the latest on such legal topics from the leading minds in the industry.

BUSINESS MEDIA POLICE

9. Beat the Press
Economist Dean Baker debunks economics media claims on a daily basis. His posts are short and easy for non-economists to understand. The fact that he has so much to debunk makes this an essential media supplement.

10. Brad DeLong
This Berkeley economics professor provides deep-level understanding on what’s behind modern debates, media claims, and claims politicians make. It’s a good place to find insight and understanding on today’s debates.

CAREER

11. The Career Doctor Blog
A useful Q&A/advice column covering a variety of career-related topics. Chances are, a few of them affect you. The Career Doctor offers cogent, useful advice for people facing the gamut of career concerns.

12. Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk’s unique, brilliant, and direct commentary on both her career and personal life make this blog a classic. You’ll react to something in her blog, guaranteed.

CONSUMER ISSUES

13. Consumerist
The definitive source on customer service, how-tos, shopping, investigations, any other consumer-rights issues.

ECONOMICS

14. Econlog
Economists Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan, and David Henderson comment on a wide range of subjects, from finance to history. They get readers to think about how economics affects each topic.

15. Marginal Revolution
Economists Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen talk economics, markets, trends, and about other economists. A good place to read about current news from an economics perspective.

16. The Becker-Posner Blog
Nobel laureate and University of Chicago economist Gary Becker and US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner analyze the current economic situations and national policies. These two heavyweights offer an unparalleled perspective on current policies and economic events.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

17. Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Full of tips, discussion, videos, and other resources for new entrepreneurs. TPE sets the standard for informing and supporting its venture-hungry readers.

18. The Entrepreneurial Mind
Professor, entrepreneur, and consultant Jeff Cornwall has a birds-eye approach to entrepreneurship. Catch up on issues, statistics, findings, and policy relevant to entrepreneurs here.

GREEN BUSINESS

19. Triple Pundit
Triple Pundit covers news, commentary, and analysis about the triple bottom line, which has to do with sustainable business and the environment. Covers a range of relevant issues, from what companies are greenest to new products to foreign affairs. Consistently insightful and interesting.

20. EcoGeek
EcoGeek covers the space where technology meets nature. And tech innovations help make a more environmentally-friendly economy. This blog is a useful resource for keeping abreast with green developments that might affect your industry and business.

FINANCE: GENERAL

21. The Big Picture
Author, financial commentator, speaker, and businessman Barry Ritholz and others share brief, informative daily commentary on finance and the economy. Written clearly enough for anyone to understand, but with unique, informed insights.

22. Naked Capitalism
A variety of contributors, some from other prominent finance blogs, make Naked Capitalism a one-stop shop for current events and in-depth analysis relating to events in the financial world, most of them having to do with the government and policy.

23. Zero Hedge
One of the ultimate insider finance blogs. Zero Hedge regularly shares the financial news that the mainstream media is too slow (or involved with outside corporate forces) to catch. Written anonymously and in the spirit of informational freedom, Zero Hedge is a must-read for anyone interested in raw truth. Note that some information isn’t for financial novices.

24. Calculated Risk
An excellent place to get your daily smart finance news commentary fix. Concise posts, good links, smart commentary make this a finance blog classic.

FINANCE: LINK BLOGS

25. Real Clear Markets
Nicely laid out information on finance, economics, and business, largely covering good content from the mainstream media. Easy to get good articles, fast.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

26. Credit Writedowns
This excellent blog evolved into something even better in 2009. Edward Harrison and other bloggers cover finance and economics in informative daily posts. Refreshingly, they don’t neglect the foreign sector. Their credit crisis timeline is a unique and useful resource. This year, their compilation of healthcare links is another excellent place to figure out what’s going on.

27. Baseline Scenario
Written by economists, entrepreneurs, consultants, and financial experts—all in three talented people—The Baseline Scenario comments on today’s financial crisis issues, from the national debt to healthcare. They use evidence and sound reasoning to comment on topics of the day.

28. Financial Armageddon
As the blog’s name suggests, this isn’t an optimist’s view on the financial crisis, or how it is being handled. But author and blogger Michael Panzner cuts through spin to cover the American situation in all its hardship, social, economic, and financial.

FRANCHISING

29. The Franchise King
This blog shares news, contests, commentary, and tips for franchisers. His posts are consistently short, interesting, and relevant.

FREELANCING

30. Freelance Switch
Chock full of useful tips for freelancers, this blog speaks to workers who do it themselves. Bonus: Comics, contests, and anecdotes.

GENERATIONAL

31. GEN Y

Young Successful Entrepreneur
This entrepreneurially-focused blog, written by Gen-Yer Jun Loayza, describes one young entrepreneur’s journey from startup to success. Loayza, a talented writer, offers tips, stories, and useful details from his own experiences.

32. GEN X

Generation X Finance
This useful blog covers financial issues that apply to Gen Xers. Focused on topics like establishing a career, building wealth, and getting out of debt. Generation X Finance is full of useful tips, analysis, and commentary.

33. BABY BOOMER

The Boomer Blog
Though it’s focused on a wider variety of topics than just business, the Boomer Blog covers marketing, retirement, finances, small business, and economy-related issues relevant to the age group. Its Daily Digest, which covers news that affects boomers, is also a very useful resource.

HUMAN RESOURCES

34. Gautam Ghosh
HR consultant and social media strategist Gautam Ghosh offers interesting comments on people, organizations, and using social media in an HR content in this diverse, fascinating blog.

35. Evil HR Lady
Quite simply the best, most blunt HR Q&A out there.

INTERNATIONAL

36. International Business—General

Global Edge
Two dozen contributors cover both international and country-specific business/economic issues. Their unique reports cover everything from Tehran’s first hypermarket to the fine art industry as a global economic indicator. An excellent place to catch up on general business happenings across the globe.

37. Africa

Timbuktu Chronicles

Emeka Okafor’s incredible range of business experiences include starting companies, co-running a food/beverage company, managing a PE fund, and directing the 2007 TED global conference in Tanzania. In Timbuktu Chronicles, he covers entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, technology, and more. His inclusion of individual people’s stories and entrepreneurial ventures lets you know the African business world through individual stories. A valuable blog.

38. EU

A Fistful of Euros
Commentary on economic, business, and current news in the EU. 15 authors cover both individual countries and EU-wide news, as well as commentary on more remote countries, like the US.

39. Middle East (specifically the UAE)

Emirates Economist
News, links, and analysis about the UAE economy. The perfect English-language destination to get your Gulf news fix.

40. China

China Briefing
This blog offers China-related business news with professional, magazine-quality reportage. Its sister publications, Vietnam briefing and India briefing, are also worth reading.

41. Latin America
For Latin America, we came up with a tie. The first blog, Latin Americanist, isn’t quite as business/economy-focused as we’d like for the purposes of this list. The second, Double Handshake, focuses only on Latin America-China relations. Both, however, are excellent.

Latin Americanist

Nine contributors cover business, politics, and culture in Latin America. Coverage is consistently good, as are the links to current news. An ideal place to load up on Latin America, in English.

Double Handshake
Covers news and business related to the China-Latin America relationship in a succinct, relevant, and entertaining way.

42. India

WATBlog
Web, advertising, mobile, technology, funding, startups…WATblog covers a substantial portion of India’s business world. How does it do so? With news, reviews, interviews, tools, and features. It’s a satisfying and readable mix.

43. Australia/NZ

The Australian Small Business Blog
Author and small business expert Dr. Greg Chapman’s useful, concise posts help small business owners market, strategize, grow, and manage their small business. An excellent digest to consume a few times a week.

INVESTIGATIVE

44. Deep Capture
The people behind Deep Capture want to expose how regulators, politicians, the media, and intellectuals have been influenced by other powerful people and institutions. That translates to posts with topics like SEC complicity in naked short selling, what hedge funds are manipulating markets and how, and the false media story around the death of Bear Stearns. Get behind the lies—or just find a different version of the stories you read.

INVESTING

45. Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha isn’t so much a blog as a financial website containing a bunch of blogs, but it’s so good that we had to include it. It’s a one-stop shop for stock market analysis, opinion, and commentary. They publish around 250 fresh articles per day, so whether you’re interested in commodities or day trading, you’ll be sated.

46. Abnormal Returns
Excellent daily investing and finance links, many to quality blogs and new media sites. You’re bound to find something interesting and perhaps lesser-known through a daily peek at the links here. Also includes commentary on current investment trends and events.

MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

47. Management Craft
Consultant and management expert Lisa Haneberg shares perspective and advice on issues that managers face. Her posts, which appear several times a month, should be read slowly and savored.

48. Leadership Now
Leadership Now uses book reviews, articles, links, research summaries, multimedia, and more to give you a complete leadership resource. Its material helps you establish and solidify the mentality that you need to lead effectively.

49. The Harvard Business Review Blogs
Maybe this one is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be on this list. Then again, it’s so good that it should be on any list. The folks at the Harvard Business Review provide timely, crucial information and analysis on issues facing all managers and leaders.

MARKETING

50. Duct Tape Marketing
Geared at the small business crowd, this essential marketing resource offers news, tools, tips, and commentary relevant to SMB. The site also has an excellent podcast, books, and other resources.

51. Seth’s Blog
Seth Godin is a guru of sorts. His frequent, to-the-point insights make you both ponder your own outlook, then improve. Utterly essential.

52. eConsultancy Blog
The eConsultancy blog offers useful tips, information on trends, and news related to the digital marketing space. Especially useful for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals.

53. Copyblogger
The go-to resource for copywriting, content marketing, and successfully building an online presence. Follow Copyblogger regularly to increase your skillset in these areas.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

54. DealBook
The New York Times’ DealBook consistently has superior details, background, and reports on the M&A space. Not that this should be your only resource, but it’s definitely one of the best.

PERSONAL FINANCE

55. Get Rich Slowly
GRS helps you save money, time, and headaches by compiling tips, how-tos, lists, and anecdotes. The blog is not only a quality daily digest, but an excellent resource on topics ranging from savings accounts to insurance.

56. The Simple Dollar
As its name suggests, the Simple Dollar offers simple ways to manage your personal finances. Blogger Trent Hamm, after having his own financial meltdown, created this useful resource to explain and explore how to simplify your personal finances. Book reviews, an advice column, and link posts round out the content.

PHARMA/HEALTH

57. Pharmalot
Written by longtime pharma journalist Ed Silverman, Pharmalot covers pharma news, trends, and issues. It’s really well-written, and could be considered a niche newspaper. A quality resource.

58. Café Pharma
Daily links to news relevant to those in the pharmaceutical business, especially salespeople. You’ll find a large selection of news headlines, most from the mainstream media, that will keep you up to date with the pharma biz.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

59. PR 2.0
PR agency principal Brian Solis writes about PR and social media news, trends, and events. His posts are short, and he updates frequently, making this a good blog to read in tasty bites.

60. Naked PR
Blogger Jennifer Mattern calls Naked PR a “spin-free zone…dedicated to cutting through the crap in online public relations…issues.” That’s just what she does, and she does it well. Her bluntness refreshes and informs.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

61. The Cranky Product Manager
Entertaining and well-written, The Cranky Product Mananger documents the experiences of a fictional product management professional at a software company named DysfunctoSoft. For a fictional story, CPM’s posts sound mighty real, but put that aside for now. Her frank, honest, snarky posts make for a fun read, whether you’re a product manager or not.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

62. Fear No Project
Bruce McGraw combines observations, experiences, and analysis to address issues that project managers face. It’s the kind of blog with in-depth posts that appear several times a month. Savor and absorb his posts—they’re good.

REAL ESTATE

63. Bigger Pockets
Covers real estate news, investment, marketing, sales, technology, and landlord issues. Useful articles both for seasoned pros and beginners. The blog also has a good networking component, via forums, groups, bulletins, and a resource directory.

64. Altos Research
Want to know the current state of the real estate market? Catch it at Altos Research’s blog, which relays real-time real estate data. Charts and reports give you hard data to back up your next move.

SALES

65. Score More Sales
Sales consultant, author, and coach Lori Richardson shares sales tips and tricks in a readable, engaging blog. She weaves stories into her tips, making them more accessible.

SEO

66. Search Engine Land
This journalist-led SEO news and info site offers professional, compelling industry coverage.

SMALL BUSINESS

67. Small Business Trends
This complete small business resource offers a host of excellent tips for the SMB crowd. In addition to tips, they write book and product reviews, research roundups, host a radio show, and host forums. It’s a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs.

68. Small Business Brief
Small Business Brief “fetches” small business news, which means it provides you with useful SMB links almost every day. Scroll down to find the quality article that suits your needs. They have lists for Sales/Marketing, Finance & Legal, Website development, entrepreneurship, and management. A great place for a regular news fix.

SOCIAL MEDIA

69. Mashable
Perhaps the ultimate social media resource, Mashable covers the gamut of social media news, tips, lists, and how-tos. It’s an extensive social media resource that you should bookmark and check at least weekly.

70. Chris Brogan
Tech and social media expert Chris Brogan blogs about social media, online marketing, new technology, digital trends, ideas, and more. It’s an interesting take on social media by a highly-regarded opinion leader. He hosts good videos, too.

SPORTS BUSINESS

71. Sports Biz
Writer Darren Rovell reports on sports news from a business perspective. He covers the gamut of sports business, from endorsements to promising young players. An excellent daily read.

TECHNOLOGY/IT

72. Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a vast resource for IT pros. Its posts, which appear multiple times per day, cover hardware products, software tools, infrastructure, industry trends, security and more. The business section is an especially good place for IT managers to catch up on the latest.

73. TechCrunch
News from the hardware/software/IT space, including new products, IPOs and funding, companies, campaigns, research, people, industry news, and more. Consistently good and on top of the tech game.

VENTURE CAPITAL

74. Ventureblog
August Capital partner David Hornik updates this blog several times a month with analysis, commentary, and insights for those in the VC world.

75. A VC
Longtime New York City VC Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) covers company moves, public policy, investor behavior, media, tech, and a whole lot more. His brings insight and a human touch to all of his topics.

Here’s a recap of the Madoff case, from the Wall Street Journal:

Bernard L. Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market and a force in Wall Street trading for nearly 50 years, was arrested by federal agents Thursday, a day after his sons turned him in for running what they said their father called “a giant Ponzi scheme.”

In a separate criminal complaint, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Theodore Cacioppi said Mr. Madoff’s investment advisory business had “deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of approximately billions of dollars.”

Clusterstock has a pretty comprehensive list of Madoff’s victims. The case is still unfolding, but it’s big. Huge. More massive than Enron.

Not again. Three prominent things came to mind for me:

1. Wikipedia:

He has been active in the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory organization for the U.S. securities industry. His firm was one of the five most active firms in the development of the NASDAQ, and he served as its chairman of the board of directors, and on its board of governors.

No wonder regulators didn’t catch him earlier in his scheme. He was one of their own.

2. The criminal complaint alleges that investors lost $50 billion because of the scheme. He was charged with a single count of securities fraud. Madoff was released on the same day of his arrest after posting $10 million bail.

I feel sorry for the people whose $10 million he used to get himself out of jail.

3. He provided impossibly steady returns, but people kept investing with him anyway.

This gives insight into the nature of greed. Greed isn’t just limited to “I can get more? Great! Sign me up.” Greed is your friends calling you up and telling you that you have to put your money in a certain fund. Greed is knowing that it’s too good to be true, but thinking that fate will exempt you from consequences. Greed is thinking you have an inroad to privileged returns, without stopping to ponder where those returns are actually coming from. Greed goes hand-in-hand with ignorance and laziness. It’s culturally embedded.

No wonder so many people were misled.

“This downturn promises to be the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at forecasting firm MFR Inc. “We’ve only just started. I can’t see bottoming out until sometime in 2010.”

Why’d it take them so long to declare a recession? Because tax rebates artificially raised GDP:

Sung Won Sohn, a professor at Cal State Channel Islands, said the economy would probably have shown two straight quarters of shrinking GDP this year if the government hadn’t handed out tax rebates as part of an economic stimulus program.

If the current recession lasts more than 16 months–which it is projected to–it will be the longest slump since the Great Depression. But everyone knows that, too.

I went to the US Department of Labor’s Nov. 7 employment situation summary to find information that wasn’t outdated by about 11 months. Their statistics are shocking:

–Unemployment rate: 6.5%, or 10.1 million people
–By ethnic/population segment, teenagers have the highest unemployment rate, at 20.6%. African-Americans have the second highest unemployment rate, 11.1%; Hispanics have the third highest, 8.8%. Asians have the lowest, at 3.8%.
–4.4 million have lost their jobs and do not expect to return to work.
–2.3 million people have been jobless 27 weeks or more.
–Manufacturing and services sectors posted the biggest losses last month.
–Healthcare, education, mining, and government employment is growing.

The good news: It’s a good era to be a bureaucrat, nurse, teacher, or miner. The bad news: Everything else.

NPR shares news indicating that GM is actually willing to cut costs to preserve itself:

For years, General Motors has been the biggest sponsor of professional football, indeed of professional sports. But this year, the automaker is pulling back. No Super Bowl ad is planned, and GM is cutting back on spending on the NFL for the rest of the season.

“It happens that we don’t have vehicles to launch during that time, so it makes sense not to launch any ads during the Super Bowl,” says Peter Ternes, director of communications for GM in the United States.

The news is both scary and welcome. Scary in that, as the article points out, the NFL is a juicy destination for advertisers. Missing out on the Superbowl treasure trove means that times really have a’changed for GM.

On the upside, GM is willing to forsake an expensive opportunity to cut costs. Management recognizes that there’s no point in spending millions on Superbowl ads when that money is the difference between life and death. This kind of discernment–atypical in light of the Citibank bailout–almost makes me want to support a bailout.

The Financial Times reports an ironic twist for an industry that was in a tailspin just a few months ago:

The biggest US airlines stand to return to profitability next year, a stunning turnround for an industry that appeared to be heading toward the biggest crisis in its history a few months ago.

“We’ve got ourselves well-positioned to navigate through this,” Doug Parker, chief executive of US Airways, told the Financial Times. “The run-up in oil forced the industry to restructure around a much different world.”

Translation: They’re lucky oil prices went down again. And charging for baggage seems to work. This was a narrow escape for the airlines, which struck a balance at a crucial point. One more creative cost-cutting measure (listing aisle and window seats as “Economy Silver” and marking them up $50, for example) and they might have alienated a large customer segment for good.

Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to hear that restructuring still does work, and that at least one major industry is looking alright.

From NPR:

Credit card companies are trying to cut the credit lines of many customers. And they’re looking well beyond payment history — to who holds their mortgage, even where they shop. Customers are outraged, but card issuers say they are simply managing risk in tough economic times.

The rest of the radio show goes something like this: Customers get unwanted letters in the mail, saying their credit limits have been cut. American Express is one prominent example of companies who have been doing this.

NPR highlighted a possible Countrywide Home Mortgage link. They interviewed two people with Countrywide loans who had also received unwanted credit cuts. One of those men also lived in a neighborhood with a high foreclosure rate.

Both men were angry.

Companies say they’re within their rights reducing peoples’ credit limits. They probably are.

However, they’re not within good service standards. If they reduce a credit limit, they should give a customer a warning on their account, along with a chance to appeal. It’s more effort on the company’s part, but is more palatable than simply slashing limits without any other kind of notice.

Not only that–credit profiling is giving companies like AmEx a bad reputation. People will start canceling their cards, which can’t be good business. Angering customers is not a good policy. Especially when you have the power to mitigate the damage before it’s done.

I couldn’t resist the Soup Nazi reference in the title. Here’s the article, from the New York Times:

As people around the country respond to financial and economic hard times by juggling the cost of necessities like groceries and housing, drugs are sometimes having to wait.

Although other forces are also in play, like safety concerns over some previously popular drugs and the transition of some prescription medications to over-the-counter sales, many doctors and other experts say consumer belt-tightening is a big factor in the prescription downturn.

Does this mean Americans will finally start living a healthier, less drug-dependent lifestyle? Not to trivialize the issue, which will undoubtedly be serious for some. But this problem is occurring in a specific setting. Namely:

-A culture of overprescription and half-assed doctor visits.

-A marketing-born medicalization tendency. For example, let’s say a woman experiences intense anxiety for a couple of days, with no discernable source. She sees an ad on TV for a medication targeting this issue. She visits her doctor and asks for the medication. I’m not saying this happens often, but it must happen enough for pharma advertisers to justify their marketing expenses.

-A culture that encourages sedentary behavior. TV can be really good. Or at least really captivating. Why go outside?

-A culture that doesn’t take care of its weakest and sickest citizens. Many of the people cutting back on meds seem to be old and/or have chronic diseases, like diabetes.

This adjustment is tragic in some ways, especially for those mentioned in the last point above. But it surfaces a positive aspect, too, that a number of diseases can be prevented and managed through a healthy lifestyle. I’m pretty sure that people with moderate cholesterol problems can get off Lipitor with enough lifestyle alterations.

I also hope that a solid workaround emerges for people who face real health risks from cutting back on prescription drugs.

In the spirit of scrambling to keep tabs on federal attempts to grease our economic machine, here’s a roundup of the government’s latest news-making moves:

Move #1

Forbes reports that the Fed unveiled the Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF), which will buy up as much as $6 billion in money market instruments, such as CDs, commercial paper close to maturity, and bank notes. The MMIFF will use private SPVs (special purchase vehicles)–five of them are run by JP Morgan Chase–to buy debt from ten issuers.

Money market funds are chock-full of bad assets. The Fed’s move aligns well with the goals of the bailout bill, which appears to be unveiling the severity of what we know only as the “credit crunch” every time it takes a step forward.

Thoughts:
-Trickle-down economics is far from dead. The Feds just employed JP Morgan Chase to snatch up bad debt. Money, in other words, trickled from the government to private business. Wonder where it will go next? And how much is involved?

-Poor Bernanke.

Move #2

From the Chicago Tribune:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday conceded that the sagging U.S. economy may need another jolt of billions of federal dollars to ward off a deep and lengthy downturn.

“Such actions might be particularly effective at promoting economic growth and job creation,” he said.

If EconBrowser’s James Hamilton is right in his post, Bernanke can’t be happy about pushing another stimulus package. Another huge stimulus puts the country at risk for excessive inflation, something Bernanke has so far managed to mitigate pretty well.

But that’s the future, a land of increased taxes to pay for the bailout, and potentially a land of great inflation. Right now, the media is fond of reporting that the credit crunch shows “signs of thawing,” as evidenced by an increase in the number of bank-to-bank loans permeating the market.

The most important question remains: Where should the stimulus go? The brunt of our previous checks went to savings accounts, paying off debt, and gas, according to Irwin Keller at MarketWatch. The government knows that, so I question whether we’ll be seeing stimulus checks in our mailboxes anytime soon.

Thoughts:
-Congress has discussed increasing unemployment benefits, increasing Medicaid benefits, and putting money into infrastructure projects that are ready to launch. This kind of stimulus would float people through bad times, leading me to believe that the word “stimulus” is a misnomer for “survival kit.”

-The government is spending exorbitant amounts of money it doesn’t have. The actions taking place now will affect the nation’s next president more than they are affecting anyone today. The next president may well be our generation’s Herbert Hoover, elected in a wave of optimism, but crippled by the economy. I hope this is not the case.