How to Survive the Recession and the Recovery

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

A lack of clarity of focus is a significant characteristic of this book.
In an effort to give a North America–wide perspective, the text swings
back and forth from American to Canadian content. While this should be a
positive, often it is not clear which country’s rules are being
described.

The structure of the work is weak, with abrupt jumps from topic to
topic. A decade-by-decade history of North American economics
(1930–2000, approximately) launches the theme that a recession is
never far away. This is followed nicely with a lesson in economic
terminology. Then the flow is abandoned with a head-spinning jolt for an
excursion into personal debt management and the rules regarding
bankruptcy, both American and Canadian.

Declaring bankruptcy is not, I suspect, what most readers would
anticipate as a recession-survival strategy. However, if survival is to
be interpreted at this most basic level, then the next change of
topic—to an action plan for the unemployed—points the work in an
understandable direction. But hold on. Just when the reader has decided
that this is a book for those who are struggling to make it from pogey
cheque to payday, a turn of the page finds us wading into the
complexities of stock markets, bond issues, and investments. If I’m
bankrupt and unemployed, am I likely to be deciding between equipment
trust certificates and index funds?

The appendixes provide charts for personal budgeting and debt
management, and contact information for American (but not Canadian)
bankruptcy courts and labour offices. Throughout, the style is
disconnected, with the prose chopped into short blurbs that lack
inspiration or even a clear purpose.

The book does offer some good terminology lessons, and specific
sections may be of interest to readers at different times in their
economic journey.