Job Searching is a Full Time Job

A dear friend advised me recently in an email to take a "news fast," as recommended by Dr. Andrew Weill, for at least a week. I think she is right for it would definitely help to reduce my stress levels and will definitely be good for my health. Unfortunately, I don't think there can be any rest for the weary until one of us finds a job. After that, you might not hear from me again. As I come upon my 6 month anniversary of unemployment and with my husband wrapping up his first month, I can't help but scour the news everywhere looking for some sign or some hope that there is a turn for the better in the job market. For us, job searching is a full-time job.

My husband, technical genius that he is, has been on multiple interviews and call backs, yet no offers. After consulting with fellow co-workers who were also laid off, he is finding the same trend. Though some people are getting interviews and have plenty of irons in the fire, it appears that few companies are actually pulling the trigger on that final decision. In our own anecdotal research, few of our former colleagues have been gainfully re-employed.

The key to finding a job now is through "networking." You must be on professional networking sites like LinkedIn and also attend networking events with like-minded individuals. Some companies as part of their severance package offer access to outplacement services and as I've mentioned before, the Department of Labor offers access to professional training. All of these resources have been better than they have been in the past and we are churning, churning, churning yet no gainful employment appears in our sights.

While there are news reports of glimmers in the employment statistics, I think they are just counting the same jobs over and over. I have seen the same jobs re-posted and re-listed again and again, like houses that have been lingering on the market, you realize that these are recruiters phishing for resumes to pad their database. It is getting harder to tell whether a job listing is real; many companies no longer recruit in house and there are so many recruiters competing with the same listings, it is hard to tell who has the true relationship with a prospective employer.

And so, we search on, hoping that we will be the lucky ones, landing a job before our resources run out.

Cash is King, Again

What do you do when you don't want to spend any money? I found the easiest way is not to leave the house. When you leave the house, you have to pay for gas, which has gone up over 60 cents a gallon over the last couple of months, fast approaching $3.00 a gallon, again. When you leave the house, you always end up buying something. Temptation looms large everywhere you look. Everything is on sale, ridiculously on sale; the new reality of America.

Mortgage interest rates are down under 5%, oh envy. First time home buyers get a $8,000 tax credit to buy that first house and home prices are still rapidly dropping. On Long Island, the average deal is closing for over $150,000 less than asking price. Even car companies are imploring us to go ahead and purchase a new vehicle and if you lose your job, you can give it back without harming your credit. Isn't it wonderful? All of those bargains, a shopper's dream and yet we are not buying because we simply do not have any cash.

Cash is king again folks because credit is getting too expensive by the day. No one, regardless of credit risk, is privy to a good interest rate anymore and the fees just keep skyrocketing. On June 1st, Bank of America is increasing its balance transfer fee to 4% with no limit, from 3% with a max of $75. The rest of the happy dozen banks who hold all the credit cards in America will follow suit, immediately, I'm sure and some, like American Express, are no longer offering balance transfers on many of their cards. So, if your interest rate doubles as most cardholders' have, you have very little recourse to reduce your exposure except to have the cash to pay off those balances. And that cheap house or that cheap car? You need a 20% down payment in cash to purchase that new house and a significant down payment to purchase that cheap car. I read that the average age of cars in America is now 9 years old. Ouch. At the very least, before we can even think about spending any of our cash, we have to consider that we need to have at least 6 months worth of emergency cash.

Cash has been on the outs for so long, I barely have any in my wallet because of those ubiquitous debit cards. Those of us good enough to shop using debit cards are effectively using them same as cash but the credit card companies charge whopping transaction fees to merchants for accepting those cards. So, we really should put those back in our wallets and stop feeding the credit card companies any more fees and you'd be helping your small businesses as well by giving them a break on those fees. It is time to cozy up to that old fashioned greenback again, cash that is.

Cheers!

Amid all of the dismal economic data, the impending bankruptcy of GM and housing prices falling another 20%, the stock market rallied nearly 200 points today; investors were enthusiastic about the Consumer Confidence Index rising 14 points, from 40.8 to 54.9, a whopping 35% increase since last month. I don't know where they found these positive consumers but I want to be one of them! Show me the money!

On a much cheerier note, I am happy to see President Obama select Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina female and 16 yr veteran of the federal court system, as his first nominee for the Supreme Court. Though, as far as I am concerned, she could just as well have been black, Asian or any other underrepresented minority. Other than that I don't know anything about her. Hopefully, she will not ruin anything for the majority of us. So far this decade, I can't think of any Supreme Court decision that has truly affected my life one way or the other. So, for now, I'll let those who belong to certain groups where a Supreme Court decision will make or break the freedoms of their existence duke it out. Perhaps this is an unfortunate position for me to be in and my ignorance may very well cost me, one day. Please feel free to fill me in.

Stone Cold Dick

I am as sick as a dog which is really too bad because there has been some really meaty news today. I'm not talking about President Obama's speech on the repercussions of closing Guantanamo and what to do with the "terrorists"; I am talking about the suddenly newsworthy Dick Cheney who has taken to the tubes with a sudden voraciousness that defies himself. Unfortunately, he is the same person we've always known, still defending every national security policy of the Bush Administration, frozen like a doll with a pull-cord, repeating the same lines ad nauseum, except now he sounds plum crazy outside of the context of his protectorate administration.

I wish I could go on but I'll just wish you all a happy Memorial Day weekend for we really could use some time off. Anyhow, as we celebrate our military and the individual sacrifice of our servicemen and women, we must also ponder the case if the tables were turned and some of our soldiers were in fact prisoners of war. We might want to uphold the Geneva Convention and think carefully about how we want to treat those Guantanamo prisoners going forward lest the next enemy we fight becomes, in fact, ourselves.

Collateral Damage: Credit Cards and Loaded Guns

Finally, Congress has passed a credit card reform bill that has some teeth. Most of the heinous credit card company practices have been curtailed in the bill. Some may argue that some of the reforms do not go far enough but as far as I can tell the overall bill is satisfactory. All of the usual suspects have been addressed, the hiking of fees on existing balances, payment cutoff times that are set at odd hours and don't take into account holidays or weekends, ample notification for interest rate or other fee changes to your card account, and many others that you can think of. Unfortunately, none of these reforms kick in until July 2010. So, those of us who already have been dinged have another year of suffering.

Though the credit card companies have threatened that the most stellar card users will bear the brunt of making up the revenue shortfalls that will be incurred through compliance to the bill, they are already charging these users more to make up for the losses of those who are already defaulting left and right. As a responsible credit card user who always pays on time, my response is to pay off the balances and not use the cards again. If others respond in this way then the credit card companies will have to capitulate if they wish to keep us as customers. They want us to keep using their cards so they can keep making money, don't they?

Anyhow, pardon the wordy way of getting here but, the truly heinous piece of this legislation has nothing to do with the credit card reform portion at all. Egregiously slipped into this bill is a provision allowing registered gun owners to carry loaded guns into national parks and wildlife refuges. What? What the heck is wrong with our Congresspeople? Why is it necessary to slip in this type of lightening rod, not to mention dangerous, provision into this type of reform bill? In this age? In this time? Sadly, the machinations of government hasnot changed and the back-washing continues.

So, some time in the future when you pay off your credit card debt and you decide to celebrate by taking that long delayed car trip to experience our national parks and you get there and you are surveying the natural beauty of the country and as you go to take that perfect picture at sunset you drop the camera and the flash goes off as it falls over the ledge shocking some poor sod who grabs his gun in fright and just then the camera hits his hand causing him to pull the trigger and the bullet ricochets in the canyon and maims you or someone you love and then and only then will the populace realize that the right to bear arms should not blatantly undermine public safety. Collateral damage at its finest. Anyhow, since guns scare the shit out of me, I guess I won't be going to Yellowstone anytime soon.

Too Much Information?

I have written nothing, absolutely nothing today. There are so many issues in the world I cannot even begin to write. Maybe I should take some time off and ponder it all. Is there anyone who can really follow all of the news? Should we even bother to continue?

My husband told me recently that he attended a business meeting where one of the participants recounted that he did not follow the news; it was all doom and gloom and nothing good came out of tuning into it these days. His business was doing fine and that was really all that was important. We were shocked that someone would be so willing to bury his head in the sand especially a businessman on Long Island. Why would someone be so willing to let themselves be ignorant of the current data with respect to understanding the current business climate and planning for the future? We wondered how long he could successfully continue to live in a vacuum.

My husband and I are consumers of news, we do our research because we believe that the more we know, the better the decisions we will make. Judging by the results, this is debatable. Nevertheless, as the stream of negative news continues, it does make you wonder whether sand-guy has a point. Still, I would rather know too much than too little, even if knowing too much sometimes makes me wish I knew very little.

Mediocrity Rules the Markets

Now that the market is rallying on the news that major retailers are reporting profit declines that are less than expected or losses that are less than expected, we need not fear mediocrity for it is now being fully rewarded. It doesn't matter how well or how not so well a company is doing as long it beats expectations one way or the other.

The current formula of cutting people by any means necessary provides the reduction in costs a company needs to supply the market with "unexpected" numbers. Meanwhile we struggle to get service in any retail store now because they have the bare minimum of staff. Now it is just a constant stream of layoffs every month to bring the numbers in line. Obviously this is not a strategy for growth, but, for now, it is good enough for Wall Street.

A World of Hurt

Hundreds of auto dealerships are set to close in the next few months. They have been laid off by their parent auto corporation, Chrysler. GM is set to follow suit soon with a couple thousand dealership layoffs of its own. The auto industry is dying under the weight of its own importance; they made American cars which for most of the 20th century were all the rage. They guaranteed all of their workers, past and present, a lifetime entitlement to the spoils of American domination, everybody's piece was golden.

Well, times as we know them have changed drastically as to be almost unrecognizable. Stalwart industries are dropping like flies and the rest are hanging by a thread as the ranks of the unemployed just keep swelling. When will this all end? Nobody knows. For every person who is laid off starts a domino effect; its own ripple that continues to pluck people off the rolls as it travels down the line. Any person laid off is a person who stops or reduces consumption, is a person who has to layoff a caregiver, a gardener or a domestic helper, is a person who requires discounts, tax breaks, or some form of financial aid in order to survive, is a person who forces industry to not make that one car, that TV or any other consumer goods to sell to him/her, is a person who may foreclose on their house, and is most definitely a person who throws a wrench into the economic machinery.

Over 500,000 people a month are still being laid off. The resulting halt in economic activity due to each of those layoffs is staggering and that is before we even take into account all of the collateral damage. I wish President Obama could save us all but he can't; it seems the government has run out of steam when it comes to bailouts. Whatever we want to call it, the government blew its wad by saving the monetary system by propping up all of the banks. Institutional investors had to be made whole so that they would continue to purchase government debt; treasury bonds and the like.

All it is doing in the northeast lately is raining. Perhaps the heavens are crying for us all, this economic crisis is truly like no other. We are resorting to every man for himself tactics instead of putting our heads together. We can and must find better solutions.

Anniversary Thrift

My anniversary is coming up next week and I'm looking forward to the celebration. However, I can't think of anything that I want to do since I don't want to spend any money. As I scour the money magazines and financial advice columns for thrifty ideas, everything they suggest in the way of cutting expenses still requires way more spending than we would even allow in good times. We are forgoing anniversary gifts this year anyhow because we are fortunate not to really need anything.

We have been upbeat lately about our prospects for the future but the two of us being laid off in a span of 6 months and now having to celebrate our anniversary completely unemployed requires a heck of a lot of denial. Nevertheless our sense of humor will lessen the calamitous bruise of our reality and we already have a bottle of cheap champagne left over from New Years.

Maybe we'll bring it down to the beach - we'll look out over the bay and look up at the stars and marvel at the beauty of the earth and how we are lucky to be happily married despite all the trials and tribulations. We have each other, we have two beautiful children, and we live out here in beautiful Suffolk County, Long Island, and we don't need more stuff to complete that now, do we?

Newsday's Hard Sell

I am a 3 day weekend subscriber to Newsday, Long Island's tabloid confection of daily news, alas we have no choice. I subscribe for the bare minimum - the 3 day weekend - so I can get local news and the advertising flyers; I like my coupons. Newsday has been calling me for weeks without leaving a message. Today I finally picked up the phone because I was getting tired of them calling. What could they possibly want? My annual subscription is paid in full. In a nutshell, they want to give me an additional 2 days of the paper, Wednesday and Thursday for free. That's right. Free! Through the end of my current paid subscription, I would receive 2 extra days of the paper for free. 5 whole days of Newsday.

So I asked, "how much will it cost when it is time to renew?"
"There is no cost," he said. "Newsday is simply encouraging all of its current weekend subscribers to take the additional 2 days."
"I have nothing to lose," said my handler. "it was free."
I said that was fine, well, and good but how much will it cost? I got the same answer. So, I gave up that angle and proceeded to explain that the 3 days I already get are practically more than I can bare and I couldn't possibly take on another 2 days.
"But, its free," he said, "we just want you to try it, that's all."
"But I don't want to try it," I said. "I barely read what I pay for, nevermind you giving me more."

Certainly, Newsday has the most to gain by this arrangement - by improving circulation on Wednesdays and Thursdays, they could increase advertising costs for those days. More exposure, better value. How easy it is to give current subscribers more newspaper as an instant boost to circulation figures? Well they met their match. I flatly refused to accept my 2 extra free copies of Newsday; the solicitor was stunned, I could hear it in his voice. I had to be honest with myself, I just couldn't stand the thought of having any more newspaper to read, sort and recycle. As stated in a previous post, I am still deeply considering giving up my beloved New York Times weekend subscription, so Newsday called on the wrong customer.

Who is Afraid of the National Debt?

The big stink today is that the projected budget deficits for fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010 were revised upward by the White House. To put this figure in perspective, the budget for fiscal 2009 is $3,100,000,000,000 with a projected deficit of $1,840,000,000,000 revised upward from $1,750,000,000,000. The 2010 proposed budget is $3,600,000,000,000 with a projected deficit of $1,250,000,000,000 revised upward from $1,190,000,000,000. We are looking at adding over $3,000,000,000,000 to the national debt over the next 2 years all in the name of saving the country from economic collapse.

Of course these numbers are way too incomprehensible for most Americans for many of them have lost track of how many zeros are in a billion or a trillion dollars. We barely speak in millions anymore and the value of a billion dollars, of being 1000 million, does not seem to rankle many minds. In the last decade the shift from speaking in millions to speaking in billions happened almost without alarm as if the move from millions of dollars to billions of dollars was a small incremental, a mere matter of changing from an "m" to a "b".

Now, in the short span of a couple of years, we have graduated to speaking in trillions, too overwhelmed to comprehend the new valuations, afraid but mired in our own mathematical and financial ignorance. Imagine an individual or a family making $50,000 a year and spending $125,000 - overspending by $75,000 in just one year. That is how our government is spending right now and that is how it has been spending over the last decade and that is how it will continue to spend over the next. Every year, we are promised a reduction in government spending and every year it overspends. Until it can get to the point of spending less than what it brings in, the national debt will just continue to skyrocket. Bill Clinton famously balanced the budget at the end of the 90s and delivered a surplus to the incoming President Bush nevertheless, he still increased the national debt.

Of course, the only way to solve this problem is to cut spending or raise taxes. But, no one wants to see their taxes raised and no one can agree on what to cut from the budget. At the end of the day, every group has a vested interest in keeping the status quo; government employees do not want to see their jobs cut, the citizenry does not want to see any of its programs or services cut and most of all, elected officials won't dare offend either group in order to get re-elected.

While we are patently afraid of saddling the next generation with potentially insurmountable debt, we are unwilling to take any real action to prevent it. Instead we resort to the same pipe dream solution that has been in place for decades; that with the right economic and fiscal policy, we can grow ourselves out of our financial mess. We fail to accept the reality that the only thing that has grown is our collective debt; that of government and individual alike.

Educational Assistance for the Unemployed

I am very pleased to announce that I am eligible for professional training certification courses at a local university courtesy of the Suffolk County Department of Labor. It turns out that many Counties in New York are offering educational training initiatives where they partner with local colleges and universities to provide free or reduced cost professional training to unemployed New Yorkers. I am thrilled to be a recipient of these funds allowing me to gain additional training in my field which will significantly improve my job prospects.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see the shear mass of available services for those who are unemployed in New York. The amount of job search resources is incredible. You don't need to guess and you certainly don't have to worry if you have no clue about what to do to find a job. It is all there, everything you need to know and then some. In addition there is a wide range of online training courses available in many disciplines including courses in every computer software imaginable.

Of course the availability of all this assistance does not diminish the fact that you are you unemployed and bringing in a fraction of what you used to earn. It also does not diminish the fact that I now fall into the category of being on the receiving end of government funds. We are all jaded when it comes to government handouts and the taxes required to fund them, until we actually need them for ourselves. We mercilessly pass judgment on those we believe are undeserving.

Should I be happy now that I will finally reap some of those benefits after so many years of being a productive member of society who has paid her fair share of taxes? Calamity does allow me to take advantage of programs where I would not normally be eligible for financial aid. Nevertheless I think it is fantastic because I need to improve my chances of being hired. It is unfortunate that these services are only available to those who are receiving unemployment assistance so those who are underemployed or those who do not qualify for benefits are left out.

Who am I when I accept services that I should have been able to pay for months ago? We all measure our self worth by the amount we are able to contribute to society; we scoff at those who become a burden on society. Nevertheless as more of us find ourselves joining the lines of the needy, we have no visual since much of the paperwork is done online or by telephone or other remote correspondence. During the Great Depression, people had to physically show up and stand on line, it made the situation appear even more dire but lest you be mistaken, things are even more dire now.

Housing Market on Long Island Still Depressed

Today I heard some disturbing news about the state of the housing market on Long Island. There is now a 31 month supply of homes on the market; over 35,000 homes for sale. In the last 6 months a little over 1000 homes were sold. Now that prices are declining, there are more interested buyers, but declining values will put more of those new home buyers of the last 2 or 3 years underwater where the amount owed on their mortgage is greater than the market price of the home. It may also put many of those who tapped their home equity based on peak market values underwater as well.

While there may be glimmers of hope in some pockets of this turbulent economy, the reality is that homeowners in Long Island and downstate New York are in trouble. Sadly, due to the high cost of living in this region, those homeowners who are laid off, underemployed, or whose wages have been reduced for any reason barely stand a chance of survival for very long unless they have ample savings. Many of those home buyers of the last 2 or 3 years were financially stretched when they purchased the home in the first place. But, they feared missing out on the opportunity to own a home when prices started to skyrocket putting any chance of home ownership out of reach for much of the middle class. Now, that home is a financial burden in itself.

Unfortunately, the financial safety nets that cheap money provided such as the ability to tap home equity if one needed extra funds or the ability to pick up another credit card on the fly, if times got a little tight, are gone. What will the homeowner turn to when he or she needs to make ends meet? We are facing a lot more foreclosures on the Island and a lot more desperate homeowners in New York.

Meanwhile, Albany is behaving as usual, jacking up the budget by $10,000,000,000 over last year, making underhanded funding deals with the MTA, granting all unions basically a stay of financial execution and a myriad of other deplorable financial conduct in a state that ranks in the top 3 for the highest taxes and cost of living nationwide and where taxes associated with Wall Street account for 20% of the state budget and we know how well they are doing. Long Island suffers from the same pigheadedness that New Yorkers do, too big, too important, too powerful to fail.

What to do? Though Long Island is an aging suburb, it has the benefit of a desirable location and has plenty of options that it refuses to accept. Long Island could minimize its downward spiral simply by implementing a few of the recommendations proffered by the Island's best economic minds, Chief Economist Pearl Kamer, Martin Cantor, Director, Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College and Irwin Kellner, Distinguished Scholar of Economics, and the Rauch Foundation's excellent economic overview, Long Island Index. Taken together they have researched, reviewed and recommended viable solutions that will help Long Island regain its financial footing.

Bold action is always recommended, even desired, but rarely ever implemented. So it may very well be that we will watch, defiantly, as Long Island and even New York State continue their downward spirals while everyone else is finding their way out.

Unemployment

Tomorrow, I have a meeting with the department of labor (NYDOL). It seems that I will qualify for some unemployment benefits after all. Whoohoo! When you have a big fat zero coming in, anything is better than nothing and of course I am extremely grateful for it. Except...

Well, I was listening to the radio the other day. Actually, I listen to the radio every day in my car. I only listen to public radio stations in the car, nothing else, so it is either classical music or NPR programming, my trusted news source. Ask my kids. Sometimes they are not amused but I do see them tuning in against their will so there is hope that they will actually respond to music and information that challenges their minds. Anyhow, since I am old enough to know practically every song on most popular radio stations, I own the records - yeah vinyl - I do not need radio stations to over-play and kill the music that I love. Also, I find the children want to listen to dreadful pop radio notorious for playing the same 5 songs all day that I wake up in the morning with these songs in my head (umbrella ella ella ella...). Not to mention that I have heard many of these "new" songs before because most are re-dos of old songs I grew up with. The children are always shocked that I know the tune and/or the words. Sadly, I have to tell them that there is very little music that they listen to that is original.

Anyway, since I live in Suffolk County, Connecticut is geographically closer than New York City so I pick up their public radio station as well. During one of their news stories they discussed unemployment benefits in CT and it turns out that the maximum unemployment benefit in CT is $519 versus $405 in NY. In addition, they get $15 per dependent child. Well you know what I was thinking. What the heck, if I knew that, we should have moved to Connecticut. Well? It is something to ponder isn't it? You know I worked out the numbers quickly, that is a whopping $576 per month more than in NY providing you get the maximum benefit and have two children. That is quite a bit of extra moulah. Perhaps this info should be added to the relocation checklist alongside the other quality of life markers such as school district stats, property tax rates and community amenities. Of course, we ruled out moving to CT for the same reason we ruled out NJ, we are New Yorkers, good, bad and indifferent.

All kidding aside, I am looking forward to my meeting in NY. I am happy to jump through any hoop right about now for a few extra bucks, every little bit counts.

Gingerly Hoping for the Best

This weekend brought warm comfort from dear friends as we commiserated together and reset our outlook. I have never been surrounded by so many professionals simultaneously out of work or underemployed in my whole working existence. We are all hoping for the best. It is hard to fathom the breadth of this economic collapse. It is even harder to establish a comfort zone when all you have to look forward to is a quagmire of dwindling finances.

Before last week's devastating news, I had a plan for our income tax refunds. Our Federal refund was, without question, immediately directed to savings to help bolster our emergency funds. Most of the State refund was actually earmarked for closing out two smaller credit card balances with the remaining used to purchase some much needed supplies for the house but, of course, all of those purchases go back to the hold pile; that money has been re-directed to the survival pile. I try not to count my chickens and in fact my list which was remarkably mundane - things like a shower door, no problem we'll stick with the curtain and a door between the kitchen and un-heated sunroom where thermal curtains will remain, indefinitely - had the caveat "if chickens hatch." They, unfortunately did not.

I feel like I can't even dare to dream lest those "green shoots" be mowed down before they even have a chance to thrive. But, I do not want to be trapped in a downward spiral of negativity either. So, I gingerly hope for the best.