Archive for January, 2009
Friday, January 23rd, 2009
Deflation Hits Grocery Store
I went shopping today and thought it was time enough to update my “Basket of Goods” category since it’s been a while since I measured inflation. I like to measure my own inflation because I don’t trust any BLS report that comes from the government. All sorts of hedonic adjustments and other crap are factored [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in Basket of Goods by RichSlick
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Government Jobs Not So Secure After All
President Obama’s first economic decisions was to freeze salaries of some government employees. It won’t be long before layoffs come and people who think that government jobs are as secure as US Treasuries might find themselves in a world of hurt. The pay freeze, first reported by The Associated Press, would hold salaries at their [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Observations by RichSlick
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
Id, Ego, and Super-Ego in Personal Finance
As I kid, I fell in love with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series of books and it was one of the first set of books I checked out of the library as a young adult when my parents took me to the college library to check out some books. I was fascinated with a fictional science [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Observations,Philosophy by RichSlick
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
Top Ten Signs Your Company May Be In Trouble
I’ve been discussing a variety of topics with friends and family now that I have some spare time so we started compiling a list of things that we can look at to understand a company’s health. I’m not talking about balance sheets, or financial statements or anything that is generally “privileged” information but stuff that [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Observations by RichSlick
Monday, January 19th, 2009
Will Anyone Have A Job In 10 Months?
I spoke to family and friends this weekend regarding my recent termination. I found out my sister in law was laid off last week. I also learned that almost everyone in my family and various friends are nervous about layoffs at their place of employment. The remarkable thing here is that everyone in my family [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Watch Out by RichSlick
Monday, January 19th, 2009
The Vacation Gambit
With layoffs and job losses continuing to mount, and my own recent termination, it occurred to me that it may be in your best interest to take vacation time early in the year before you are laid off if you think you might be laid off. Of course the answer might depend on what your [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Observations by RichSlick
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
Costco and Benihanas
Last week I stopped off at Costco and was totally shocked to see store totally empty at 6:00 p.m. There were about 8 shoppers in the entire store while the bright lights, heater, freezers and workers worked in the background. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to know that this math doesn’t add up to [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by RichSlick
Saturday, January 17th, 2009
Bloody Hell, I’ve Been Sacked!
I had such an interesting week that climaxed with my termination on Friday. There goes 200k+ in compensation out the window but I’m actually glad it happened. This was the second or third round of lay offs at the company and the way things are deteriorating, I won’t be surprised if there isn’t bankruptcy in [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in Careers,Watch Out by RichSlick
Friday, January 16th, 2009
“This Time It’s Different”
It’s a cliche. “This time it’s different.” Whenever you hear that cliche from people that come out of the woodwork, it’s generally a sign that things are about to go back to normal. I was first conscious of the “this time it’s different” phenomenon during the dot com boom. It was all about the new [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Observations by RichSlick
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Build A Career Out of A Job, Not a Job Out of a Career
It never ceases to amaze me the predicaments people get themselves into in the corporate world but during an economic crisis, it is vitally important that people understand the distinction between a career and a job. A job is: a small miscellaneous piece of work undertaken on order at a stated rate b: the object [...]