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Our first encounter with economic reality was the severe mid 1970s recession. We Flower Children suited up, cut up hair and applied for MBA programs.  Next came corporate downsizing in the late 1980s. Business magazines posted cover stories "Fired." The subhead was "Middle Management - Middle Aged."  Age again bit us in the pocketbook when at 66 we realized we still needed to work to make ends meet or just hold onto an identity. And work was hard to find "at our age." So we Boomers are always braced for economic reversals of fortune.  We're not reading much into today's Dow rally. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index Index: DJI Compare 46,341.51 USD ▲  +1,125.37 (+2.49%) today March 31, 4:42 PM EDT  ·  Market Closed Earning a Good Living in 2026 Involves Mental Combat. The enemy is usually your own thinking. Complimentary consultation. No Pressure. Solid Guidance. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

  We have been here before: A rally after some serious hits to our equities/bonds nest eggs. And that was supposed to restore our confidence in where the economy is and heading. No global meltdown worse than The Great Depression that our Boomer parents endured - and wound up emotionally hollowed out for the rest of their lives, right. Things will be fine, right. No longer am I and the Boomers I coach/conduct tarot readings for accepting that kind of reassurance. The memory of our scarred parents remains embedded in our collective consciousness.  So, we have relief that things have picked up in the markets this Tuesday. But no euphoria that all's well that ends well. Things may not end well. I hammer to coaching/tarot reading clients: Keep bringing in income from other sources. Build moats around what could be your financial security. Dow Jones Industrial Average INDEXDJX: .DJI 45,621.69 +405.55  (0.90%) today Mar 31, 9:34 AM EDT  •  Disclaimer Earning a Good Liv...

Gabriel Sherman sure did have a fix on Roger Ailes and Fox. Obviously he had direct access to sources. Much that was new to us was in his blockbuster book "The Loudest Voice in the Room."  So fearful was Ailes of that detailed expose that his personal public relations guy Bob Dilenschneider , on a stealth basis, took out a major ad promoting a vanity book about Ailes published a whole year earlier (Zev Chafes' "Roger Ailes: Off Camera.") The lame trick was outed. That increased attention for Sherman's brilliant investigative reporting. How I thought about Ailes after that caper? It was: Run, rabbit, run. Unlike "The Loudest" which was a best-seller, Sherman's recent "Bonfire of the Murdochs"  is a disappointment. There's nothing new. That was expected, since so much about that dynasty and the nepo babies came out in "Succession." Also, Tom Wolfe had already made hay with the concept of "bonfire." Recall his blo...

  On your home printer this summer you may be creating a sign to post on your front door:  On Vacation, Do Not Disturb. Prop up a lawn chair against the building and smell the roses and grass. Your annual time-out in 2026 may be experienced in-place. BusinessInsider presents that emerging trend. The New York Times documents that iconic vacation spot Las Vegas is already in a kind of recession. What's generating this is the perfect storm of uncertainty of safety conditions outside the US and inside the US high transportation costs, fragile job market, roller-coaster stock market, inflation including the rising cost of lodging and surging personal-debt levels.  Of course, you must take a vacation. Whatever way you structure it. The Cleveland Clinic reports that vacations are critical for mental/physical health, preventing burnout, adapting to change and opening up to creativity. In a Bloomberg Law  interview partner at Paul, Weiss Brad Karp noted that the law firm was...

Legacy media is supposedly on its last leg. But certain platforms, such as The New York Times and FT, remain influential. Very recently they might have been leveraging that influence to have law firm Paul, Weiss' association with Jeffrey Epstein remain sticky. Here are the Times long form article and here is the windy recount by FT . In the analysis there seems to be nothing new. The result could be to put a wrench in the usual crisis-management strategy for the institution to lay low and stay out of headlines. Eventually, goes standard reputational rehab wisdom, the scrutiny will lift. The constituencies which count will forget. And attention will move on to other institutions feeling the heat.  At risk, if the intense focus continues, is plenty for Paul, Weiss. That ranges from new business development to the continued presence of former chair Brad Karp as partner to retention/recruitment of stars. Just yesterday it was announced that two Intellectual Property partners exited Pa...

  After the press release about the change in leadership at Paul, Weiss it's been quiet on the external news front. That's a classic of crisis management: Get out the necessary information, then lay low. The odds are that, in time, another institution will be in the soup, the heat will be off you and the repositioning and repackaging strategy will unfold nicely. In Bloomberg Law, Roy Strom detailed the pieces of Paul, Weiss that have to be realigned.  And, in charge of that is the new chair, appointed by the firm's Deciders, Scott Barshay.  Well, despite the smartest approaches, stuff happens. One of those pieces broke loose and made news. Law.com reports that two Intellectual Property Paul, Weiss litigation partners have lateraled to Dechert. They are Anish Desai and Priyata Patel. That probably Barshay finds so unwelcome, especially the news element.   In the past 12 months 260 lawyers, both partners and associates, left. That's a 70% increase from the year befor...

  "So how often did you change jobs?" That's what a journalist asked me. They are doing an article on how we Boomers were probably the last lucky generation in America. Not only were plum jobs in abundance. By job hopping we could achieve significant leaps in compensation. I engaged in that ritual about every two years.  The not-so-lucky current generations which still need to work full-time to pay their bills likely are only changing jobs because they had lost the previous one. Unlike us, as BusinessInsider reports, they are hitting up a two-part compensation disaster called "wage scarring." One part entails accepting a job which pays less. According to Revelio Labs 40% of job changers swallowed more than a 10% cut in what they had been earning before. To that I would add an older number floating around out there from Pro Publica. That's if you were over-50, lost your job and landed another one in your field the odds were that only 10% of you would be earn...

 Like the Roman Catholic Church, the institution of higher education has leveraged ritual. Very effectively. A powerhorse part of that is the cap-and-gown graduates wear during the ritual celebrating receiving an academic degree. Starting back when the GI bill opened higher education to the masses that cap-and-gown symbol had signaled progress. Of a nation which now had the knowledge workers it needed. Of families who were movin' on up. Of individuals who could position and package the reality of having to earn a living as a "purpose-driven career."  That symbolism was sticky, up to recently. Kelly Services  reports: "According to the  Bureau of Labor Statistics , 9.7% of bachelor's degree holders ages 20 to 24 were unemployed in September—up from 6.8% a year prior. Meanwhile, underemployment , that is laboring at a job not requiring a degree, ranges from 42% to 52%. Today The New York Times  features that shift of higher education from a platform for advanceme...

  In the long-going fallout from association with Jeffrey Epstein, some in the loop have been receiving more scrutiny than others.  For example, why are Apollo co-founder Leon Black and Goldman Sachs top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler going to testify about the relationship in April before the House Oversight Committee? Where are the many others who orbited in Epstein's world of wealth, influence and power?  Today, again the spotlight has been put on Black and more in legacy media. The New York Times published a very long detailed article in which the primary subject was this: an allegation, based on financial documents and emails, that Epstein served as the middleman for Black's payments to women. Here is a snippet: "Mr. Black paid about $20 million to a dozen women, at least some of whom he’d had sexual relationships with ... Mr. Epstein was involved in figuring out ways to dispense a significant portion of that money." Black's current lawyers Courtney Forrest and Susa...

  Members of Gen Z are orbiting in two worlds.  One is the nostalgia for the simpler analogue 1990s. That's when  John and Carolyn had their "Love Story."  Buy a Carolyn headband and an old-fashioned alarm clock. Feel safe.  For those I currently coach I explain that, yes, back then was a time of job abundance. It was even possible to make a good living in creative fields. That is, as long as you developed specialized expertise. For me that was executive speechwriting/ghostwriting. Most of us creatives knew to be practical. Even in better times, we recognized that we had to. Few of us had any illusions about being the next F. Scott Fitzgerald and conjuring up a Gatsby. The other world for Zers is the radical uncertainty about employability. Cost-efficiency, off-shoring and AI are sucking off entry-level jobs. Especially vulnerable are creative fields - writing, film production, graphic arts, music, acting and more.  On BusinessInsider a mom shares her an...

It was predictable - to use that current wealth-creation term - that some youth on Wall Street would be featured in Interview Magazine without their employers' permission. Essentially the four were positioned and packaged as lads about town. They were from Goldman Sachs, Barclays and PwC. Not at all the right image for buttoned-down institutions handling global funds.  What they might have sensed is that they no longer had to accept the hazing culture of Wall Street. That ranges from impossible hours to top-down authority. Now, you bet, there are options to making it big. One lad - Demarre Johnson - is already gone from PwC. Details not disclosed. But I have a hunch Johnson isn't skipping a beat in his journey to become wealthy. Things have changed a lot since David Solomon started out. Wall Street could be forced into oblivion. See, among the seductive emerging career options is the prediction markets or what's known as the "collective intelligence." Back when ...

The legal sector recalls the multiple guerrilla-like poaches of Kirkland & Ellis' UK talent by Paul, Weiss. The "value" of those quickly became evident as the latter gained prominence in that location. Although it had been operating in the UK since 2001, only recently did Paul, Weiss become a power player. The UK now is a major profit center for the US law firm. Well, Paul, Weiss did it again. In the Brit legal tabloid RollOnFriday competition for the law firm providing the best creature comforts for employees Paul, Weiss comes out: Tops. The satisfaction rate is 95%. Ahead of Kirkland & Ellis. This law firm receives a 94% rating. So delighted are staff at Paul, Weiss that wild praise is shared with media. One senior solicitor puts it this way: “It’s like working in the Ritz but without the high class hookers” Also citied was the amazing free cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I wonder if anyone stuffs their attache case or backpack with some of that to fee...

  Two from Astronomer were caught on camera kissing during a Coldplay concert. Both were married to someone else and it was a boss/subordinate situation. They were CEO Andy Byron and HR executive Kristin Cabot. Both stepped down last July.  Since then , Cabot shared on an Oprah podcast,  she has been unable to get another job. And she needs one. However, Byron had had promising activity on his own job search.  When there is a corporate scandal, is there still a double standard? We all know that at one time it was standard when an inappropriate romance was uncovered, the woman was the one to leave the job. The man stayed on, unless there were ethical considerations such as abuse of power or favoritism.  Could that still be the way it goes?  I'm not sure. In the Epstein files scandals both males and females have been punished severely. There will probably be no coming back for Larry Summers and Leon Black. The same could hold for Kathy Ruemmler and former Har...

 This could be the good times rolling before the perfect storm upends law firms, both large and Main Street.  The time frame US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sketched out in his Rice University speech is four to five years. After that, things could be "tough" for young lawyers. AI can do many of the tasks they used to do. He adds that, of course, there will always be a place for the best and brightest. But in addition they will have to learn to be "nimble." Partners and judges will also have to change. AI can be leveraged to predict expected outcomes. That will put pressure on partners and judges perhaps to do what is forecasted to be the winning moves. Partners don't want to lose trials and ground in transactions. Judges don't want to have what they oversee appealed. Law firm players actually in the trenches, ranging from Brad Karp at Paul, Weiss and John Quinn at Quinn Emanuel, have been more specific on how much of the manpower at law firms co...

  There's the old joke about becoming partner at a law firm. It's like a pie-eating contest. That's how you get there. And winners get to eat more and more pie. Well, after taking part in the coup at Paul, Weiss which landed him the job of chair Scott Barshay gets piled on to his practice pressures leading a law firm in crisis.  That crisis has been going on for a year, ever since March 20th when the deal with the Trump administration was announced in order to lift an Executive Order. It was contended that the EO could have put the firm out of business. The terms and conditions involved pro bono assignments.  In Bloomberg Law , Roy Strom provides the details of that very bad year for Paul, Weiss. Those include: Reputational hits. Of the nine firms which cut deals with the administration Paul, Weiss was singled out for the worst of criticism. That's because it was the first in and seen as establishing the template for how the EO could be handled via pro bono assignments....

Puzzling that influential work network LinkedIn retains a slot in your profile for where you got your degree.  This is at a time when not getting a degree carries increasing social status. And social status, as Toby Stuart hammers in "Anointed," is what keeps opening doors to opportunity. Once society "anoints" you as worth chasing after, your prospects are golden. Back to no-degree. Well known is that OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman doesn't have a degree and that billionaire Peter Thiel pays you not to get one ( Thiel Fellowship ). Look at how far Jeffrey Epstein got without a degree and how he duped all those Ivy graduates, ranging from Larry Summers to Leon Botstein. The objective of the LinkedIn alma mater identity is probably so that you can loop in with other alumni for help in getting, holding and moving on to better work. But the reality is that those alumni might themselves have become powerless to aid. They have been unemployed. Knowledge workers are lo...

  Dow Jones Industrial Average INDEXDJX: .DJI 46,553.24 −440.02  (0.94%) today Mar 18, 12:41 PM EDT  •  Disclaimer UPDATE: Dow Jones Industrial Average Index Index: DJI Compare 46,389.44 USD ▼  -603.82 (-1.28%) today March 18, 3:06 PM EDT  ·  Market Open