Huzzah! With consumer spending in a slump, several corporations have finally decided to stop giving away disgusting amounts of free stuff to famous people, who can afford to buy all the shit 10 times over. Sometimes all it takes is the hovering possibility of a complete global meltdown to get people to think straight: "Y'know, some consumers might be kinda turned off to see us giving away free clothes to multimillionaires; let's not do that anymore."

Oh, well, it was disgusting while it lasted. Here, a gallery of the glory days of the gifting lounge.

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Since this year we're all about the "evironment" and "world peace," it's fitting that the award show circuit is all about "not giving away tens of thousands of dollars in free swag to a group of people who don't need it." Also, award shows are becoming increasingly concerned that the IRS might make a phone call to Hollywood's A-list wondering why they didn't include that all-expenses-paid 7-day trip to St. Kitts gift on their tax return — like they were about to do to last summer's Oscar swag bag recipients. So rather than deal with the hassle of bestowing lavish gifts upon celebs and award presenters this year, the Golden Globes instead decided to go with a gift bag worth a mere $600 — of tax-free crap.

And while it's good to hear the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is finally playing within the rules of its tax bracket, rest assured that there will be plenty of sponsored "style lounges" nearby the Beverly Hilton from which Tinsletown's finest can rummage through Dior sunglasses, Lilly Pulitzer handbags, and all-expenses-paid 7-day trips to St. Kitts.

There are a couple ways to be a low-level magazine staffer and land your way in Page Six. You can file sexual harassment charges against a colleague. You can get caught having sex on your editor's desk after hours. Or you can use your position of relative power to demand free swag and then sell it on eBay.

Last week, assistant editor Molly Friedman was fired for selling beauty supplies that had been sent to Allure editors. Friedman had been working there for almost a year and was very recently promoted from her editorial assistant position. "She was asking makeup companies to send her products that hadn't hit stores yet, and she was selling them on eBay instead of putting them in the magazine," said our insider. "She's pretty much banned from Condé Nast for life."

Meanwhile, we'll let you enjoy the irony of Page Six reporting on someone else getting in trouble for accepting free merch.

• Holy shit! Lindsay Lohan's getting engaged to Harry Morton! [Page Six]

• Or, you know, she's not. [Star]

• After attacking the swag lounge in the Bryant Park hotel, Jessica Simpson enters a raffle and wins a car. We hope she's using these difficult times to inspire material for her third album [NYDN]

• There's gotta' be a Ben Widdicombe joke in here somewhere. We're too hungover to think of something subtle yet obvious, so we'll leave it to you. [AP]

• We so don't want to picture these two doin' it. [Us]

While General Motors is pulling out their advertising dollars from CBS and facing plummeting sales, there is one area they're throwing the cash into: swagging young journos.

On UNC's website for business journalists (wow, that's pretty hooked up) "Talking Biz News," a professor runs an e-mail sent to him by General Motors. It's an "urgent" invitation extended to members of the journalism program, welcoming them a most-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas.

The purpose of the trip is "to meet with professional journalists and GM executives who’ll be in attendance." And maybe, just maybe, when these few students are real journalists, they will review General Motors' cars. A review does carry more weight than an ad, after all. The UNC professor responds:

Maybe I’m just a bit jaded, but I have a problem with this solicitation. It seems what young student journalists would be “learning” from this experience is how to take a free trip and meals from one of the company’s largest corporations. I hope that wasn’t GM’s intention, but it’s not how we train future business journalists in the 21st century.

Good for him. We're glad to see that business journalism professors are standing up against the type of product placement that goes on after these types of trips.

Of course that's business journalism. Now, if the students want to go work at Page Six or Vanity Far, one of the skills they will need to hone is how to accept free trips in exchange for coverage.

Is anyone else bothered by this solicitation? [Chris Roush, Talking Biz News via Romenesko]

Lindsay Lohan who reportedly is not coming to New York for the MTV Video Music Awards (she needs to take a break from the party scene before she gets fired) has left some big, swaggy shoes to fill.

Though they will have to pay taxes on all their swag this year (do they even know this?) celebs are still rushing the "gift lounges" (whole lounges!) to snap up all the free crap they can easily afford to buy.

This year's hot items were Dior makeup (Rihanna's pick), YSL sunglasses (Method Man stopped at one pair), and $150 anti-wrinkle cream, grabbed by (who else?) Al Reynolds Jones.

Fall Out Boy snapped of armfuls of, what was by far our favorite celeb swag snag, women's Salt jeans..

The alt-rock band Fall Out Boy, crossed gender lines at Sirius to stock up on women's Salt jeans for themselves - in the alarmingly waiflike sizes of 26 and 27 - while shoveling goodies from Lotus into their mouths. (Lord knows where the food ended up!) Then the band had their eyebrows plucked by folks from Sania's Brow Bar.

Hopefully Pete Wentz can try to keep his junk in these pants. We're sure Salt doesn't want their name running along side photos of Wentz' you-know-what.

Take, take, take… take your booty [Lloyd Grove, Lowdown]

• Maybe if it was possible to make a living as a journalist, columnists wouldn't have to accept bribes. [NYT]

• Atoosa Rubenstein gives pause for faith this holiday season. After all, teens totally need a break from God to consider 15 pages worth of weight loss tips. [WWD]

• The holiday swag continues over at Ad Age, getting less and less interesting by the day. [Ad Age]

• Wow, a people of the year list that includes us? (And by us, we mean our boss). [Pop Candy]

• That's funny. We thought it was just the corporate magazine companies that didn't want to buy Budget Living. [The Consumerist]

While we unwrap our wonderful holiday gifts of un-laced brownies, AdAge is busy complaining about the freakin' awesome ipods that Rainbow Networks sent them. WTF? How do we get on Rainbow Networks' holiday list?

HOLIDAY SWAG WATCH: DAY TWO [Ann Marie Kerwin, Ad Age]
Earlier: SELF is sending cookies?