“According to America’s Research Group, a market-research firm, 72% of American consumers have haggled in the past four months, compared with 56% a year earlier. Britt Beemer, the firm’s chief executive, estimates that they are successful 80% of the time.”

The trend is likely to grow as the recession continues. For retailers, a discounted sale is better than no sale. For consumers, saving money might be worth more than keeping up appearances.

Want to increase your success rate in haggling?

According to Esquire’s Tom Chiarella there is no substitute for practice, practice, practice. Tom made an effort to haggle for anything and everything in his day-to-day life and came up with, “Haggling for Hot Dogs” - a sort of how-to guide for everyday haggling in America. It’s also interesting to note that he wrote this account back in January 2005 - almost four years before our current recession kicked off - so if the retailers of 2005 were willing to cut a deal then surely today’s hard up retailers will be happy to hammer something out.

“This is terrifying,” an Army official said. “We do not know what is going on.”

Army officials have said that they are taking action with new training and mental health programs designed to help soldiers cope with the hardships of war. Read the full story here.

“The students would quickly mount an ambitious defense, not just of Joel Tenenbaum, but of the claim that the RIAA legal campaign was unconstitutionally excessive and improper.”

Pretty awesome stuff if you ask me. Check out the full article here. Also be sure to check out Joel Fights Back, a site launched by the students involved to help spread the word of Joel’s case.

“Some Chinese are so eager to turn their yuan into other assets that when an online real estate brokerage organized a tour of foreclosure auctions in the United States, it received so many applications that it had to turn away nearly 400 people.

In Shanghai, cash-rich Chinese companies are buying high-yield bonds issued by distressed American companies at a time when many Western investors are steering clear of bonds even from solid companies.”

This trend is likely to have a noticeable affect not just on the Chinese economy but also the US economy.

“Though there are myriad reasons to move capital around, there is also cause for concern: Chinese authorities announced Monday that 20 million migrant workers had lost their jobs. If they do not find new work, these workers could form a volatile class of unemployed.

Even more crucial, Chinese individuals and companies placing more of their money outside China could affect one of the constants of international finance over the last five years: China’s central role in bankrolling American trade and budget deficits.”

This shift adds its own element to the flattening of the world, which, whether good or bad, certainly seems like an inevitability. It will be interesting to see how this trend continues to unfold.

Read the original New York Times article.