Too Much Bad

I found out from the legal press that my former employer may dissolve (i.e. cease to exist, go bankrupt, etc, etc) unless they can close the deal to merge with another firm (this firm though, would apparently only agree to take about a 100 of the currently still employed 180 or so lawyers). This is sad for the partners who (according to the article, as quoted by Above the Law, kind of the lawyers' Gawker) made on average only $1.02 million in 2007 way down from the previous year. Now that (if true) would be no reason to shed a tear. More poignantly for me, it would also mean that we lose our COBRA health insurance coverage, which is insanely expensive, but still cheaper than if I tried to get the same as an individual in this fucked up health insurance system. Incidentally, Barack Obama introduced his new health care team today but that will obviously not help us in the short-medium- (long?) term. So I am rooting for this merger for selfish purposes and out of sympathy for my two remaining friends at the firm, one of whom had a disagreement with a third former colleague (annoying senior associate) about whether unemployment benefits in New York are $405 a week or a month. She checked with me (the one who has already gone there) and she was vindicated: it is $405 a week. That is the maximum, so funny enough the former partners (if at all) would only be eligible to claim this same amount to supplement their decreased income.

No need to feel too sad for them or me though. With the doom and gloom coming out of the papers, the radio and the internet on a constant basis: the economy (incessantly), not to mention cholera in Zimbabwe, killings in Iraq, ongoing genocide in Darfur and more and more and more. It is trying and tiring to be unemployed and available to take so much of this in. Had this idea that we should move to Thailand, the child-friendly, peaceful paradise, but even there - it's madness.