In this merciless economy, it’s good to have a Plan B. But Plans B through Z? The San Francisco Chronicle is running a profile today of 27-year-old Daniel Seddiqui, proprietor-blogger of Living the Map – 50 Jobs in 50 States. Seddiqui’s intro:
I’m Daniel Seddiqui and I’ve traveled all 50 states. I’ve worked 49 different careers in 49 weeks. One week to go. Sound crazy? My mission is to explore the diverse careers, environments, and cultures offered in America. Take a look – you may find the perfect job.

Let’s pluck the link ”30 Signs You’re About to Lose Your Job” out from the chorus line of the last post and give it a starring role here. Or at least a co-starring one. Because apparently, there’s a cottage industry on the Web in letting people know the signs that they’re about to be fired. A quick [...]

Have you been laid off? Fired? Canned? Pink-slipped? Axed? Downsized? Dismissed? Sacked? Shown the door? Made redundant? Given an exit interview? Escorted from the building by security? Assigned to a “special project” working out of your home, with no title and no pay?

It ain’t no picnic. And now even the sandwich-board guy has landed a job offer. Why didn’t you think of that?

But cheer up, friend. It’s not like there are no pleasures to be gotten from the jobless “experience.” How do we know that? Stuff Unemployed People Like, that’s how. What is “Stuff Unemployed People Like”?

Owning a car can be quite a cash-draining proposition. Repeat expenditures include gas, insurance, and repairs, and over decades of driving you could probably put your kid through college in what it costs in fuzzy dice alone. From the New York Times “Wheels” blog earlier this year: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American [...]

Okay, it’s Friday, and it’s been a long, hard week of slogging through heinous health care industry practices and the reform positions of everyone in the world except for maybe Heidi Klum and Carrot Top.

Let’s just say, for the time it takes to read one meager post, that we’re still living in 1999, not 2009. Unemployment’s below 4%, the Nasdaq’s nearing 5,000, and you’re about to buy a house that’s going to double in value over the next eight years. You’re thinking about spending some stock option money on a trip to New York, because you’ve always wanted to take in the triumphant beating heart of capitalism from the eagle-eye view you’ve earned. Your only fear: Will Y2K put the VCR on the fritz just as you’ve sat down to watch “Ally McBeal”?

Related to the previous post, on Wilmington, Ohio and DHL—a thread in response to a Columbus Dispatch story about Wilmington called Hope, Gardens nourish town DHL left, posted on a local Ohio bulletin board: JOSEPH: People have to reconsider how they live and regions have to reconsider how to make themselves economically viable in a [...]

Reuters is running a story on Wilmington, Ohio, where the recession has hit especially hard. Unemployment in this small U.S. town has quadrupled in the past 16 months, but worse is to come as thousands of unemployed workers run out of severance money and benefits. “Things are going to get tighter around here toward the [...]

The Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, written by a former health industry executive, acknowledges that the bill will be very good for the health care industry: It is becoming more and more clear to me that the White House health care strategy this fall is based upon a belief they have been very successful [...]

Lots of reaction, to say the least, to the long-awaited Baucus bill.  Some reactions from the newspaper-reading class: NY Times reader comments What was the point of this bill? Few, if any Republicans will support any reform package. Democrats should just stay mostly with a House version and a public option. They won’t lose any [...]

Today President Obama called health care reform the “defining struggle of this generation.” Why? Amid all the complexity and red herrings of the seemingly never-ending debate over the legislation currently wending its way through Congress, it may help to delve into the belly of the beast via first-hand accounts of those unlucky enough to meet [...]