This has to be a fabrication…

I find it nearly impossible to believe these statistics to be true…perhaps people have switched from beer to hard alcohol?  Perhaps people have finally learned to buy alcohol like my family (stock piling it on the deck by the case so if the apocalypse happens tomorrow, we’ll be able to drink our way through…for 10 years)?  I for one have been doing my part, as an unemployed American and patriot, to drink us out of this recession.  I guess this is a sign from God that I NEED to start hosting happy hours again…I should have seen the writing on the wall when my favorite law school bar closed shortly after I made the big move to Manhattan…they couldn’t survive without me.  Le sigh.  

Recession: Alcohol Sales Plummet

ATL: Notes From the Breadline

Not sure how many people outside of the legal field are aware of the extreme effect this recession-economic meltdown-or whatever the President is going to call it tonight-has had on lawyers.  I talked to two lawyer friends today…one had 30 layoffs at her firm last week…and it’s not a big firm.  The other friend found out that two friends were laid off yesterday and she already has a pretty healthy list of laid off lawyer friends.  As someone who had a brief fling with a legal career (and over $100K in loans that I’ll spend the next 30 years paying off), I think it speaks tomes that I have more confidence that I’ll find a job before some of these lawyers will.  Is it my lower standards?  Lack of direction?  Willingness to do about anything for a buck at this point?  Perhaps…But it’s also that the market is flooded with attorneys looking for work right now.  While the economic death spiral has effected all practice areas, in some cases, law firm layoffs have wiped out entire practice groups in one afternoon.  

When I was in law school, everyone told us to become Real Estate attorneys.  Everyone assured us that if we concentrated on getting as many real estate classes in and did all the real estate clinics, we’d be set for life and would have no trouble paying back our loans.  Real Estate was always going to be busy-no matter what the economy was doing!  Now Real Estate attorneys are one of the hardest hit practice groups.  It’s important to remember that not everyone who graduates from law school goes on to make six figures…and that almost everyone who goes to law school graduates with a  pretty signficant-mortgage sized amount of debt.  

This article does a great job capturing-with humor and intelligence-what’s happening to so many attorneys right now…  It’s an excellent post and I recommend it for anyone who is an attorney or knows any…so that should cover just about everyone!

ATL: Notes from the Breadline

But What does George Soros REALLY know?

What does George Soros know?  It’s not like he’s some sort of financial genuis who rose from nothing to become a billionaire…oh wait…I guess that is exactly what he did…with a side of possible insider trading…but I digress.  George Soros sees the writing on the wall and is calling our current economic crisis worse than the Great Depression.  ACES!

Also, thanks Captain Obvious-even I could have told you that it’s a bad idea for Barack and the American people to buy back all that bad debt…even though we kind of created it…unless we’re going to sue the mortgage brokers and banks that helped created it by lending to people who were credit risks.  Although no one has really explained to me why it’s a good idea to give all of these banks-the same banks who MADE these bad loans-MORE money…do I get MORE money now that I’m unemployed?  NO…  Do lawyers get more money when they lose a case?  NO-actually some lawyers don’t get ANY money if they don’t win.  It’s bullshit until someone can convince me otherwise.

Also…I can’t even imagine a 25% unemployment rate…that’s amazing.  And I hope to never see one.  Perhaps I should have paid a little more attention to that American Girl movie about the boarding house…

Cafferty File: Tell Jack how you really feel Blog Archive – Worse than the Great Depression? « – Blogs from CNN.com.

It eat pretty good, don’t it?

Unemployed? Broke? Not above using coupons?  Get your free sub on!  At Quiznos!  Personally, I’ve never had a Quiznos sub…and I’m pretty sure a meatball sub-not matter how free-is the last thing my fat ass needs right now.  But the rest of you should hit it up!

Learn How to Get a Free Sub | Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway.

Also, the “eat pretty good, don’t it?” is a reference to the now infamous rant of the esteemed Representative Alvin Holmes of Alabama’s 78th district:

COBRA-YES WE CAN!

DSC03097, originally uploaded by ecallanet.

I have already posted about this but it’s SUCH an important part of the Stimulus plan that people need to be paying attention to NOW. If you’ve been laid off since September 1, 2008, you should read this article on the COBRA section of the new Stimulus plan. Until now, COBRA has been so expensive it’s almost not an option for the recently unemployed. Thanks to the new President’s Stimulus Plan, COBRA is finally affordable. Under the new plan, your employer has to cover 65% of your COBRA costs (the employer is then reimbursed by the US Treasury-but that’s not your concern!). As I’ve said before, I think this is a HUGE step in the right direction. To see Suze Orman’s take on it, skip down to my first posting.

COBRA Stimulus Plan – How the COBRA Premium Subsidy will Help More Get COBRA Benefits

How To: Talk To A Friend Who’s Been Laid Off

Very important article for everyone to read!  Who doesn’t know someone who’s been laid off?  And if you’re one of the five people in America who DOESN’T know someone YET, trust me…you WILL.  So read up, take notes, and please…pretty, pretty, pretty please don’t ask “How’s the job hunt going?”  It is the one question we all dread and, as the last two weeks have shown me, it’s the single most asked question.  I can only assume people ask because it’s so typical in American culture to ask how your job is going…which I’ve also always kind of hated…so I can only assume people feel free to ask because they think that you’re job hunt is your new job…and it is…but the MAJOR difference is that most people engaged in job hunting aren’t in this position by choice so the question is a painful jab followed by some salt and lemon juice in the festering wound.  Also, in case you haven’t noticed…job hunting REALLY sucks…more so than any crappy 9-5…even ones that involve copious verbal abuse and drama.  Trust me, I speak from experience.  If the jobless person brings it up, then it’s fair game…but otherwise, just don’t mention it-just stick to the list and buy us some drinks…as many as you can afford to.

How To: Talk To A Friend Who’s Been Laid Off.

Tip of the day: Create your own mini-gym for under $100: Consumer Reports Health Blog

As someone with herniated disc as a result of too many hours hunched over a desk, I can speak from experience-it’s so important to take care of yourself-even more so when logging crazy long hours.  If you can’t get out to a gym, create a mini gym in your office or at home.  Or if you’re unemployed and can’t afford the gym, here’s your answer!  A half hour work out can go a long way to reduce stress, boost your immune system, and remind you of what it is to be alive-not matter how dead your office is making you feel!

Tip of the day: Create your own mini-gym for under $100: Consumer Reports Health Blog.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized on Vimeo

Beautifully executed and so simple a 6th grader could follow it.  I finally know what all the acronyms they’ve been using on CNBC are!  I have been trying to follow and figure out how the credit crisis came to be and who was doing exactly what to which institutions, etc.  This really sums it up nicely and is incredibly easy to follow.  Of course I have no idea how accurate it is since, as previously stated, I don’t really get how all the pieces fit together.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized on Vimeo on Vimeo

via The Crisis of Credit Visualized on Vimeo.

Cue the Locusts!

Holy shit-it really is the Great Depression!  First the economic collapse and now the Dust Bowl is coming back!  Not sure how many people know what the Dust Bowl really entailed and I’m certainly no expert but I know that it irrevocably changed the ecology of many of the western states.  My cousins had a farm in Oregon where they used to grow sugar cane BEFORE the Dust Bowl…now…it’s impossible to imagine anything growing without irrigation other than desert sage.  The land is completely arid and parched but perfect for farming flowers for seed.  A few years back, they were digging a foundation and discovered a gatepost from the first farm 12 feet down.  When the family had moved back after the dust bowl, they presumed their houses and farm had been destroyed by the storms and had no idea that it was actually buried under 12 feet of unusable, nutrient-depleted dirt and soil.  I can’t imagine the area ever having been a sugar cane farm…but I really can’t imagine how devastating it must have been for that family to return to their homestead… which was once a tropical paradise…and find a completely stripped and barren landscape with no shelter or signs of sustenance.

Drought Adds to Hardships in California

Silver lining-if you’re looking to write the next great American novel, “Go West”-to quote the Village People!  Steinbeck certainly turned the Dust Bowl into pay dirt.  So if you can stomach being on the front lines of this unfolding human tragedy and ecological disaster, you’ll be sitting on Oprah’s couch before you know it!

Wiki Dust Bowl