Archive for February, 2009
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Rice to Riches – The Feed Yourself Challenge
Maybe this has been said before: “Cheapness is the mother of invention.”
It’s been years since my five-dollar budget. I like lingering over a long meal with friends. Sometimes, I get super lazy and pick up something prepared and eat it out of the plastic compartment. And even as finances have grown tight, I’ve been more likely to treat myself to evenings out to lift my low spirits and pick up cheap indulgences as if stuffing myself with a rich dinner would magically fill my bank account.
Redux: Barter is Back
Looking back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
If past crises are any indication, a cash shortage won’t stop the wheels of commerce.
During the1930s, people without money started trading goods and services as a way to keep themselves afloat. Workers exchanged labor for room and board. Students traded farm produce for tuition. Moonshiners, bless them, exchanged goods with just about everybody.
People with skills in high demand did especially well. Someone who could bake delicious bread or sew quality clothing could draw people from miles around to barter for their products. Eventually, people established more formalized barter groups like The Unemployed Citizens League, which had 200,000 members across the country at its peak…
The Just-Laid-Off Checklist
I used to complain that my parents never taught me how to negotiate for a pay raise. Turns out, that wasn’t my only knowledge gap—nobody told me how to navigate a pay elimination. I’m not just talking about what to do with the severance papers and your 401 (k), but how to feel like the world hasn’t been turned inside-out. Here’s my hard-won advice for the first hours, days, and weeks after a layoff.
Call the most sympathetic person in your life. This may or may not be your mother. Save anyone who is prone to freakouts for later in the day—or year. (My grandfather thinks it’s my fault I got laid off, which is one reason I’ve been “too busy” to visit.) Call the person who is going to listen, commiserate, stroke your ego, and think no less of you if you cry. That last part goes double if you’re a dude.
Screwed: 20,000 at Royal Bank of Scotland
A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.
Royal Bank of Scotland plans restructuring and job cuts that may affect up 20,000 workers across 60 countries…Boise-based Micron Technology Inc., maker of memory chips, plans to cut as many as 2,000 jobs…Layoff notices go to another 1,100 Boeing workers…Toronto-area steel distributor Russel Metals Inc. is shedding 500 jobs…
Recession Briefing 2.24
What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.
U.S. Is Pressed to Add Billions to Bailouts (NYT)
The government faced mounting pressure on Monday to put billions more in some of the nation’s biggest banks, two of the biggest automakers and the biggest insurance company, despite the billions it has already committed to rescuing them.
Man Living in Cave Hit by Recession (ABC)
That’s right. For nearly five years, Curt Sleeper and his family have lived in a cave. His mortgage is about to come due and he can’t refinance. So now, the 17,000-square-foot, subterranean home is being auctioned off on eBay.
Lemonade Maker: James Young, Digital Prospector
Profiles of people who are seeing opportunity in a pile of economic lemons.
James Young
East Hampton, N.Y.
Before recession: Commercial real estate broker
Now: Co-founder of Rosehip Partners, a Hamptons real estate business
In the Hamptons, one of the most privileged parts of the country, the real estate boom is firmly at an end. The number of sales was down 40 percent in 2008. Prices are being slashed on multi-million-dollar mansions. Lavish spec houses sit empty.
It would seem like the worst possible time to start a real estate company. But last summer, James Young and Joe Kazickas founded Rosehip Partners, an agency that covers the east end of Long Island, from West Hampton to Montauk. In September, as the recession was gathering speed, they unveiled their website, HamptonsRentals.com.
Layoffs on the Menu
It used to be that if you were out of work, you could always wait tables. Freelancers, actors, and recent college grads have long relied on this economic truism as a hedge against hard times. But a Saturday piece in The Orlando Sentinel that caught our eye suggests that the times are a-changin. Sandra Pedicini’s “Slump takes toll; servers lose jobs as restaurants cut back” chronicles the woes of restaurant staff as tips dwindle and layoffs pile up faster than food orders. Waitstaff at the acclaimed Manuel’s on the 28th at the Bank of America Center’s top floor once held some of the most enviable jobs in town. Last week, these servers joined the ranks of the 91,700 restaurant, bar and food-service workers across the country who have found themselves jobless in the last six months…
Signs of the Recession: A Retail Rant
“I just felt I’d had it and I wanted to say my piece,” says Rita Brookoff, owner of Legacy NYC, a designer clothing boutique in SoHo in New York City. “I’m trying to fight back. I’m sick of the doom and gloom. I know the stock market is down, but we don’t have to be.”
Out on the Street: Gendernomics
Each week, “Joe the Trader” chronicles his experiences with life after Wall Street.
Okay, so I could have picked up the laundry, I could have dealt with the recycling piling up in the kitchen, I could have bought a tarp for the air conditioner so it doesn’t rust sitting outside on the porch. But I didn’t. That’s right: I chose not to do the three things my lady asked me to do. Time slipped away, I claimed, when she asked what the hell I’d done all day. Through repeated questioning, I maintained my innocence, highlighting all of the “important” networking calls I had made. But between us, dear reader, the truth is I was in my giraffe boxer shorts most of the day talking to my “important” contacts about my upcoming ski trip. And what did my lady do all day? You guessed it: She went to work.
Screwed: 700 at JP Morgan Chase
A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.
JP Morgan Chase to close credit card service center, 700 jobs lost…Vodafone said to plan hundreds of job cuts at U.K. division…Lagardere Active to layoff 250 workers..China’s Founder Tech axes 200 jobs…
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