The Swine Flu, Medical Insurance, and My life

A global pandemic?

Really?!?

A level 5 on the pandemic scale?

I didn’t even know we had a scale!

3 years ago I didn’t even know that pandemic was a word.  I thought epidemic was always bad enough, I didn’t realize I needed something bigger. 

Now with Avian Flu and the newest Swine Flu, AND I DON’T HAVE INSURANCE!!!!

This is a miserable and horrible time to be out of work and with no Insurance.  Although I’m not sure that insurance would do much good since this is a flu that infects pigs that humans have no natural defense for it.  Also, it being a virus modern medicine has very little they can do.  AAAAAANNNNDDDDD  it only seems to be killing young and otherwise healthy people.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

So what’s an unemployed, uninsured, otherwise healthy male in his 20’s supposed to do???

I see how it is…

Fine!  You want this life Pig Virus? I’ll give you this life ... when  you come and pry it from my cold dead … body

… channeling Heston sounded so much more badass before I typed it out. 

Does Gary Sheffield count against the Detroit unemployment rate?

The Detroit Tigers this morning released Gary Sheffield and ate 14 million dollars of salary. Being a fan of baseball I understand that there is a lot of money that changes hands, but this seems like a lot to not have someone play for your team.

This news this morning helped to shine a light on the fact that Detroit's unemployment rate is at 22%. Apparently the Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley compared this to hurricane Katrina. This took me aback for a moment since I quite vividly remember watching Katrina unfold, be it on television, but had trouble comparing the two in my mind. Until I started looking up the statistics of Katrina and was floored. Louisiana's unemployment after Katrina was only 11- 12%. I could not find a specific unemployment rate for New Orleans, but this puts Detroit's unemployment rate at twice the unemployment after Katrina. I'm not sure if you remember, but Louisiana got hit pretty hard by Katrina and New Orleans was partially underwater. Detroit is twice as unemployed as that.

I know this is sort of mixing apples and oranges, but I felt it brought a bit of perspective. Detroit is in some seriously big trouble.

New York city has been hit very hard by the current recession. Many of the layoffs that have come in the financial sector have been in or around New York City. Some of them have been in Connecticut and some also in New Jersey, but the entire metro area has been affected. The city itself boasts an 8.4% unemployment rate. Which is slightly higher than the national average of 8.1, but still approximately 13 points LOWER than Detroit's rate. Strike that, flip it, and reverse it:

etar s'tiorteD naht REWOL stniop 31 yletamixorppa llits tub

That's almost 3 time HIGHER than the national average.

I was shocked to learn this today. I probably shouldn't have been, especially given the winner of this year's Dole Awards, but I was. There are days that I have a pity party and complain about my problems. (those who follow my twitter know what I mean)

Then I wake up, literally and figuratively, and learn something that makes me wonder not when we are going to get out of this entire mess but if. This country's economy is tied together like the world's economy is tied together. I've been over it before and I've we all watched how the world's economy reacted to our economy tanking.
There is going to come a time when the bailouts have worked or they didn't. The more I read every day, the more I wonder which side we're going to land on. . .

. . . and the latter is terrifying to me.

The Joys of Unemployment and Freelancing

I worked!

It was awesome.  It wasn’t much but it was good to at least have a gig.  I did a little camera work for a few days a couple weeks ago. Really great opportunity to meet some new people in the business and hopefully this will all lead to more work.  So springtime is coming and thing are looking up.

As a good little boy on the dole, while I was clarifying my benefits for this week I told them that I had worked the week prior.

For those of you not familiar with the unemployment benefits you need to clarify your benefits each week.  If you work one week and make more money than you would on unemployment, they suspend your benefits for a week. 

This is totally reasonable to me.  Some people may say that they wouldn’t try to find work as long as the free money is coming in, but I make a lot more when I’m working than I do when I’m not working.  So if I can find a gig for a week I set myself up in a good spot and then the weeks I don’t work I get my unemployment to make sure I keep myself afloat. 

That was 2 weeks ago, and then this week happened. 

I got a very nice paycheck from that freelance gig and I promptly put it into my bank account.  This put me in a really good spot monetarily.  So I waited the week of my suspended benefits and I was sitting pretty to start collecting again this week. 

When your benefits are suspended, you need to fill out a questionnaire for the DOL about the previous work experience.  It asks questions about whom you worked for and why you aren’t working there anymore.  Very simple and I think relatively easy.

Problem was, my friends at the Dol use snail mail.  (I KNOW!) So I didn’t get the questionnaire last week like I thought I would.  I got it this week, on Wednesday.  Which means I didn’t get it out until Thursday, Again through snail mail. (I KNOW! I even had to buy a stamp!)  The issue with the questionnaire and the snail mail is that you don’t receive benefits until they receive the questionnaire.

Everyone follow so far?

Recapping quickly, my unemployment has been suspended for two weeks because they haven’t received my questionnaire yet.  This is a little annoying, but it is ok because I have some extra cash because of my freelancing. 

Until that check bounced…

It was in my account, and then it just evaporated. 

So now I have no income for the past two weeks.  I have been staring at my bank account on my computer screen for the past 3 days just wondering when the rent check is going to clear and hoping that I have all the other bills that automatically debit accounted for.  If another bill clears the same day my rent clears it will sink me.  It will incur fees that will start to snowball into a debt that I will have trouble paying off once I start getting paid again. 

I will eventually get all of this money, or at least I should.  That will be a good chunk of change, but now I have to wait and try to make sure I don’t drown while it comes.  I’m trying not to be terrified, but I quite literally have $100 to play with until I get the checks that I am owed, and there is no guarantee that this money will show up in time. 

These are the joys of unemployment and freelancing

About as much Sunshine I can muster

I have been told now on two occasions that my blog has made someone want to end it all. I do not want this to happen as the two people who have told me this are a part of my life and important to me. The last thing I want to do is depress everyone to the point of throwing himself or herself off their office building. I’m here simply inform (slightly) and regurgitate financial news through a jaded prism.

Today is a new day though my friends. I have previously hammered CNN for basically telling us all what we already know and calling it breaking news, but not today! Today CNN is giving us hope. Today CNN gives us a date when this will all turn around and when the economy will bounce back …

… maybe

UCLA Anderson School of Management released its (apparently) quarterly economic forecast. I didn’t realize they did this, frankly, didn’t realize UCLA had a school that did that. But we are all learning about the economy in these trying times, some of us more vocal and opinionatedly than others.

Apparently David Shulman is the main man on this project and is important enough to listen to about stuff like this. He is also saying something optimistic, so people are willing to listen to him. So, in the interest of optimism….

The recession should only last 19 to 24 months!

Hooray! We should see economic growth in 2010 –ish., maybe more like Twenty ‘leven, but either way within the next year and a half or two years. We’ve already gone through six months or so of this thing, so even worse case that puts us at 18 months or so. Awesome!

Yeah, I know that there are only 33 weeks of Unemployment Benefits and that this recession is now slated to end approximately 72 weeks. Yes, I realize that leaves 39 extra weeks to deal with. But come on, think about it, what are 39 weeks on the 6 train? Especially if it’s from April through October? That might be nicer than your apartment! **blogger’s note: for the record it’s not nicer than mine, but might be nicer than yours, I don’t know, I don’t know who you are**

I apologize. I’m slipping toward snarky. I promised optimism and damn it, I’m going to bring it!

In the report Shulman said "We still forecast a tepid recovery in 2010 as the contractionary forces become spent…”

Yay?

I mean, that is a positive comment … sort of.

I’m just not sure what to do. We’re trying to get good news from lemons here. We don’t need lemonade; we’ll get that out of the carton. So we need to fight to try and find some sunshine and happiness.

Shulman had another comment at the news last week that the Federal Reserve’s plan to put another Trillion dollars into the economy.

"I feel a lot better about seeing a recovery in 2010 today than I did a week ago"

OH MY GOD! You are the worst at this! I mean seriously man, my teenage sister has a sunnier disposition than you, and she’s Goth!

I guess the best news to take from all this is there will be another trilly from Uncle Sam coming to help. Eventually that could devalue the dollar and cause a rise in inflation, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

As for now, keep printing that paper baby and we’ll "make it rain" our way out of this thing

Let's get some good old fashion depression going this week...

Saw this last week on boston.com. It's a bunch of photographs of this recession. I am assuming we all know those pictures of the Great Depression that just invoke a crushing sadness. These Pictures are much brighter, mostly because they are in color and because of advances in camera technology involving aperture. So open the link below, feel bad for people that aren't you, then continue on trying to not end up in the gutter.

Good luck.

This blog is brought to you by the US government, keeping my power on so I can keep writing and playing video games.

http://tinyurl.com/dkogyg

Ghost Writer: The Joys and Sorrows of Collecting Unemployment

It is obviously no secret that I am a champion of the NY state department of labor. I have been collecting unemployment benefits for almost two months now. Those weekly Dol checks have been an absolute life saver for me, and I know they are certainly helping other people stay afloat in these troubled times.

While celebrating the great Irish holy day I saw an acquaintance whom I hadn't seen for 6 months or so. As it turns out, since I had seen him last, we had both fallen on similar situations. Both misplaced our full time gigs and were forced to turn to the safety blanket the Dol has laid out for us. There were fundamental differences though and I invited him to write his experiences for this blog. I thought it would be a change of pace to find a different tone.

The Joys and Sorrows of Collecting Unemployment

don't think anyone is ever really excited to collect unemployment. I know I wasn't. Not working kinda sucks. But you owe it to yourself to stay at home and watch bad daytime TV and do absolutely nothing for a minimum of two weeks. I am deeming this as Mandatory. After all, you've just been laid off or fired so sit back and relax for awhile.

The first few weeks are good. Around week four I knew things were getting bad. You know its getting bad when you look forward to Octo-Mom being on Dr. Phil (CBS weekdays @ 3:00PM)

When this happened I started to go into holy shit mode and realized it was time to start getting serious and try to find a job. I don't think I would be freaking out as much if The lovely State of NY was giving me the amount of money I should be receiving. The amount of money that is rightfully mine.The amount of money I deserve. But no!

When I received my Benefits Summary it said I didn't work in the last Quarter. 10/1/08 -12/31/08, When in fact I did. This would be the Quarter where I made the most money. After submitting additional paper work along with the Request for Reconsideration form, I received an updated Benefits Summary, which is still about $4,000 short. So I submitted even more paper work including W-2's this time around. Still waiting. Hopefully in the next week or two everything will be fixed. In the mean time I am collecting a whopping $120 a week. So not helpful. When does that extra $25 kick in? Thanks NY. Please give me my money.

If you've ever been unemployed or are currently unemployed check out www.oddtodd.com. Its a great online cartoon and website about being unemployed. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Just when I think I'm out, I get pulled back in.

Just when I think I have a time to take a breather and enjoy my St. Patrick's Day, I get sucked back in. Obviously AIG is following Jackson's tweets and thought they could get one past me today. Well, they were sorely mistaken.

Are you kidding me with this?

Didn't we just bail your sorry asses out for the fourth time?

You are now giving out 73 Million dollars plus in bonuses?

At least 11 Million is going to people who don't work for you anymore?

Are you fucking kidding me with this?!?!?

breath in ... breath out ... breath in ... breath out ...

chill Jackson, chill


My favorite part of this I think is that these bonuses are going to the division that fucked this all up in the first place. By favorite part, I mean the part that drives me to complete insanity over this entire concept. Million dollar bonuses! For what?

"This is for a great job bringing down the entire financial structure of the United Stats, and
in turn the rest of the world. Now, make sure you put this under your mattress... don't
want it in any banks right now."

Cue hearty laughter

There is one silver lining in this, but it's tough to find. However, the senate is looking into taxing these bonus. Which is cute, because you have to pay taxes on all earning anyway, but at least congress is looking to get some taxes back on these obscene bonuses. Then I thought, why don't we just take the 73 million plus and not give them that in the bailout. Instead of taxing it, just keep it and use it elsewhere. You know, for important things.

I am driven to the point of insanity over this.

I am going to go out and celebrate St. Patrick's Day now, and I suggest everyone from AIG stay home today. My anger is like an umbrella covering this entire company. I swear if I see any one of you out tonight I will not hesitate to slap your face in public.

You have been warned...