Well, The Sequester Happened ... So When Is the Apocalypse Scheduled?

President Barack Obama talks with Congressional leaders prior to the Rosa Parks statue unveiling ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Feb. 27, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)The DNC has flooded my (and possibly your) inbox with sequestration facts since Friday afternoon. And if you're like most people you're either looking up from your meal of Top Ramen inside your cardboard box going "huh" or you've been dreading this day ever since you learned you would be directly affected by the $85 billion harsh cuts coming from this bullshit poison pill, crafted by Congress years ago, only to finally come to roost last Friday.

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Clutch Magazine: Surviving Mom and Dad's Basement

As a two-time veteran of getting stuck at your parents' house even though you're an adult who's lived on their own for years, I decided to give some tips to the readers at Clutch Magazine Online. Namely, set some boundaries if you don't want to have the weird, slightly co-dependent relationship I have with my own mother.

Here's a snippet:

Speaking of 2007, that was when I made my first return to the homestead after I left a job as a newspaper reporter to get my head, life, and career back together while not having to worry about rent. I can’t say I handled my first trip back to the basement all that well, considering I was severely ill at the time, battling Bipolar Disorder and was extremely depressed. I was largely unpleasant to be around and mostly wanted to disappear into the concrete beneath my basement, bedroom floor. But since my slightly older-than-most-Boomer parents are really more like Depression Era survivors, with their fiscal nature and love of saving, I received less grief about my finances and more grief about being an adult my mother still saw as her child.

Nothing like being suddenly informed you have a curfew at 30 years old.

Read the full post at Clutch Magazine Online.

NYT Graphic Depressingly Displays How We Work Harder For Less

Click to enlarge.After looking at this graphic I had a strong urge to just completely give it up and pack in it. Nothing like seeing hourly wages and compensation stagnate (and even go down) while American productivity continues to rise. In a world where you're constantly told that somehow everything done from 1947 through 1979 was all some fluke and that our country prospered in spite of the creation of entitlement programs, government spending, regulations and worker's rights, the chart hurts. It hurts so bad.

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Nobody Got A New Job Last Month

Click to enlarge.Hey you. How's that jar of old peanut butter, cheap beer and Top Ramen diet doing for you? I hear it's really popular right now since nobody has a job. Sure, you've probably heard these rumors of people who spend their unemployment between vigorously pursuing a new job and working out furiously so they'll have the world's greatest revenge bikini body to make their old job feel so bad for ever letting them go, but let's be real. Some of you have been unemployed for a crazy long amount of time and if you have to fill out yet one more application to launch into the abyss you're going to scream. Sure is great we elected that Republican majority to the House of Congress!

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Congress Unlikely to Extend Unemployment Benefits

And that's not just for folks who have been unemployed since 2009 or longer, but folks who became unemployed this year and have now used up their 26 months of state-funded unemployment. In my latest post for The Loop 21, it doesn't matter if you've only been working for a year or 30 years, paying into the system. Your pain will be met with the indifference that only comes when perserving Bush Era tax cuts is more important than making sure people don't spend their Christmas holiday in a dark house (if they have house) with an empty fridge (if they still own a fridge).

More after the jump.

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News You Already Know: Everyone In the U.S. Is Broke

She may be broke but at least she's not flat busted. Ha.And by everyone, I mean you and me. Reuters announced that the U.S. poverty rate has reached a 15-year-high with 14.3 percent of Americans labeled as brokity-broke-broke-broke. Of course, none of this is news to black people who've been brokity-broke-broke-broke since forever, where we live in a forever recession/depression with an unemployment rate of 17 percent OR MORE in several states. And in 2009, more than 25 percent of all African-Americans, that's one-out-of-four, were considered poor.

More after the jump.

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Question of the Day: Obama Versus the CBC

The Congressional Black Caucus started doing a little shoving on their end in regards to President Obama this month. To kick of December they started in on demanding to know what the President was going to do about economy and how it has decimated a sizable chunk of the black middle class (and further impoverished blacks who were already struggling).

More after the jump.

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Sign of the Times: Unemployed College Grad Sues College for Tuition

Um ... I didn't know colleges guaranteed you jobs. I thought they just promised to educate you, but, hey, if you can get a lawyer to file the papers you can sue. What’s next? An online school graduate suing because they didn’t get hired by a Fortune 500 company?

Tis the American way!

Story after the jump.

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Unemployment to Hit 9.6 Percent, But Economists Swear Things Are Totally Gettin' Betta. Totally.

Found this intersting tidbit on the ol' HuffPo this morning -- Unemployment is gonna hit a 26-year-high! Break out the balloons, Top Ramen and Boones Farm! The Great Brokacalypse of 2009 staggers on!

From Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Out-of-work with no place to land, the legions of America's unemployed are growing. The Labor Department is scheduled to release a report Thursday expected to show the nation's unemployment rate edging closer to double digits. Wall Street economists predict the jobless rate will rise to 9.6 percent in June from 9.4 percent in May. That would mark a 26-year high.

The rising rate comes as recession-weary companies continue to cut workers. Economists expect a loss of 363,000 jobs in June, up from 345,000 job cuts in May. Economists believe a chunk of those cuts will be tied to shutdowns at General Motors Corp. and fallout from the troubled auto industry.

More after the jump.

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