Lamar Thames

I frequently get asked how I am enjoying retirement.

I’m usually taken aback by the question because I don’t consider myself retired.  It is true that I don’t have a job, that I am 65, that I receive a Social Security check every month and that I have not gotten a job interview since I was laid off by the Florida Times-Union in November 2008. Still for the life of me, I can’t come to grips with the idea that I am retired. Let’s just say I’m between jobs.

Of course, I really don’t expect anyone to hire me at this stage of my life, especially considering the state of the economy these days. A lot of people who are younger and more educated than I am are in the same situation in that they can’t find jobs either. That makes my chances of returning to the workforce even more unlikely. Still, I persevere.

I currently have applications in for two positions I feel I would like and am qualified to handle. And there are a couple Read the rest of this entry »

WE SHARE THE OUTRAGE

Lamar Thames'J

Just like you, my wife and I are outraged at the bonus payments made to present and former officials at American Insurance Group, more commonly referred to as AIG (or as it will become known: Ain’t It Great?)

The outrage is understandable. Taxpayers (without a vote on the matter) get to fork over some $170 billion (that’s BILLION, with a B, folks) to bailout a company whose conglomerate Ponzi scheme worked little better than little ol’ Bernie Madoff’s one-man backroom operation. 

Here’s the rub for me, the $170 billion — or to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, “A billion here a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money.” — is money the U.S government said it had to give to AIG to “bail them out” because they were so deep in hock and and so big we couldn’t afford to allow them to fail. Read the rest of this entry »