“Well, honey, back in the old days, people used to leave their houses and go someplace to do what we called ‘work’…”
Which is by way of saying that I just got off a phone interview for a job. Well, sort of a job, they haven’t completely defined it yet. But it’s online work for a progressive organization I already like, and I think I’d like to work with them.
So I should hear in the next week or so where they want to go with it (which will determine whether I want the position) — and whether they want me to work for them.
P.S. In this particular instance, this really is a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But due to the silliness of having to juggle different funding streams, this kind of duplication is inevitable — as Christie will learn.
Digby finds another hard-working, wealth-creating salt of the earth type complaining about the possibility of higher taxes: Ben Stein. I think I need a drink.
But being the nerd I am, this is what caught my eye in the Stein rant:
I worked for almost every dollar I have, except for a small percentage my parents left me by virtue of hard work and Spartan living, and most of that was taken by the federal estate tax.
OK, the late, great — and I mean that — Herbert Stein died in 1999. At that time the first $650,000 of an estate was tax-free — $1.3 million for a couple, provided it did what CBO calls “minimally competent estate planning” — with a 55% tax on the amount above that.
So either Ben Stein inherited several million dollars — which, although this may be news to him, is not the experience of most Americans — or he’s just making stuff up.
Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.
After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.
For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting — without a single job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills.
Still, when she is pressed, her can-do spirit falters.
“There are these fears in the background, and they are suppressed,” said Ms. Reid, who is now selling some of her jewelry and clothes online and is late on some credit card payments. “I have had nightmares about becoming a bag lady,” she said. “It could happen to anyone. So many people are so close to it, and they don’t even realize it.”
Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect their résumés often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills — as well as some technical skills sought by employers — are rusty after years of working for the same company. Continue Reading »
Via Raw Story, this unprecedented news that, if true, just may break the Middle East gridlock:
Former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert said on Sunday the United States had agreed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees within the framework of an eventual Middle East peace deal, media reported.
Washington had agreed to absorb and give citizenship to 100,000 refugees, while Israel would accept less than 20 000, Israeli media quoted Olmert as telling a conference.
“The numbers discussed were below 20 000, but this would require an end to the conflict and a Palestinian announcement that they would not make any more demands,” the Ynet website quoted him as saying.
Olmert was speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv organised by the Geneva Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian group that aims to show a peace accord is possible.
Unless Congress passes a special law, this agreement taps out the annual quota of immigrants allowed from other countries. Plus, the federal government contracts with social service agencies to provide resettlement services, and the organizations have to be large enough to handle additional volume.
You’ve seen the horrible new Democratic party logo, the one that looks like it belongs on a subway map? This is more like it! Via Democratic Underground:
