TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

  For Boomers and Gen Y the "it's always something" more and more is about housing. About a third of us are "housing cost burdened," that is, we're paying out more than one-third of our income for shelter.  No one really gets off the hook, at least not for long.  Thought it was smart to hold on to your low-mortgage house? Yeah, now it's time to put on a new roof and cough up the increasing insurance. Figured you were mighty clever to relocate from HCOL (high cost of living) area to a LCOL (low cost of living) one. I did that and the corporate owners kept raising the rent plenty at lease-renewal times. Low cost was no longer low cost. Maybe as a public service The New York Times  has published a very long-form article on home-sharing. Essentially that means renting space, sometimes also adding services such as lawn mowing, in someone else's house. An industry is sprouting up providing a matching service. But even the enthusiastic coverage of this she...

A lot of media fanfare took place just before Leon Black's appearance in front of the House Oversight Committee. In the gym where I was working out, the television cameras panned on Representative James Comer entering the room. Great staging for a politico. That appearance turned out to be short and lot of media fanfare has been unleashed to explain why. For example, The Guardian reports: "Billionaire financier Leon Black’s testimony before a House committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein ended abruptly on Friday morning after members from both parties said Black refused to answer questions about non-disclosure agreements." Black will probably be back to appear before the Committee and the media will be again in a frenzy. Just as happened and been sustained with all that litigation involving women, against him and filed by him. Also, it was well noted that in a BusinessInsider interview in 2022, Paul, Weiss partner Brad Karp indicated Black was no longer a client of the...

The standard argument against unionizing non-equity-partners in large law firms was this: Most don't stay long enough to have the incentive to organize for compensation, terms and conditions of billable hours, job security, termination processes and more. That hesitation has held on even though professionals at a branch of Wells Fargo had formed a union. So much for the idea of knowledge work not being a fit for collective action.   Well, in the past few years enough has changed in large law firms to try out unionizing. The developments include creation of the Nonequity Partnership, the impact of AI on decline in demand for junior lawyers and the increase in demand for experienced ones and the need for most large firms to overhaul their systems and structure. About the latter, they have to come up with  a new model anyway so unions could be part of that. As is well-known, the NEP designation works well for equity partners. The model yields multi-dimensional benefits for...

1) I am not a Nepo Baby. And 2) I know you never know what goes on behind closed doors. So, I am clueless if parents of Nepo Babies merit the harsh punishment or embittered portrayal sometimes heaped on them by offspring.  Nick Reiner is accused of murdering his entertainment sector parents. Brooklyn Beckham claims mum and dad attempted to taint his name. And last year Molly Jong-Fast gave us the details of her mother Erica Jong's lifestyle and dementia that perhaps even her critics found to be disclosed in bad taste. That's in the memoir "How To Lose Your Mother."  Maybe it's all the dirt in the book and/or maybe it's well-written, but it continues to rank high on Amazon - 32,003. Those in the Westport, Connecticut region (where I attended a support group) likely are aware that Erica had a drinking problem. But what purpose was served to find out how, like a baby, she hung out in bed sucking on the bottle? There she lay, disconnected from her fat daughter wh...

Parts of southern Arizona used to be frugal paradise.  For example, a 440-square-foot efficiency at Vista Montana , Tucson went for $400 a month. That was spring 2014. There was no cost for water, sewer and trash. The heat was bearable and the electricity for the air-conditioning in the summer was nothing you would notice. Just the usual. Now, that same studio apartment is listed at $732 to $747. Now, add on water, sewer and trash which could be $55 to $65 per month. I asked ChatGPT what the average electricity bill would be during a summer month as hot as this one. The estimate ranges from $60 to $160. If the air-conditioning unit is old it could be inefficient, driving up cost. Have pets? You might have to keep the air-conditioning on-high. Currently, LCOL remains a reality, though, throughout pockets of the midwest. However, that kind of relocation may for you lack the adventure and glam of going to AZ.  Locations in Texas, not including sophisticated urban areas such as Da...

  Most of the time we worry about a crash. No, not a correction. We can handle 10% to 20% down. A crash could mean down 40%+. But the Dow is going our way today. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index Index: DJI Compare 52,149.06 USD ▲ +482.22 (+0.93%) today June 24, 12:29 PM EDT · Market Open