This sucks.

I busted my ass, did well in school, made smart choices. Now, I am graduating after four years of college that I paid for all myself – not through selling my “virginity” – but through loans. Now what? There are no jobs in the major markets that are even marginally appealing to anyone. I am not lucky enough to have parents who can float me for a year. My dad is a construction worker, but no offense, I am not graduating cum laude to do construction – sorry. I am just not sure I have a choice. But here are the few choices for graduating seniors I could scrounge together:

1. Everyone and their little cheerleader sister are heading to grad school. They don’t even know what for, but they took their GRE, MCAT, GMAT and every other test acronym I can think of. The upside is a delay for entering reality and you can push loan repayment for another 3 years or so, but F&*$ THAT! I need a break from school. I would love to actually get out of the academic world for at least a brief stint. Not writing off grad school totally, but I need about 2 years to figure out what I want to do. That degree in Finance, with a concentration in structured finance, that I am about to get isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. Thanks to my academic adviser! Way to steer me into a stable high growth industry.

2. A couple of my friends are determined to enter the military. Right now, there are serious incentives for entering the military. $10,000 in cash, money for grad school, and they will repay a portion of your school loans. Not too shabby, but we are talking about the military. Let us be straight, the US Military is not the beloved treasure it once was. My brother was in the Army and said he would help repay my loans for me before I join the military. Though tempting, I can’t take him up on it. Even though it will TOTALLY suck, it buys me 3 – 5 years, travel (to a desert somewhere in the Middle East), and serious help with school loans. The other upside is that as college graduates, we jump 5 pay-grades to an E-6 (Staff Sergeant) after training. Obviously I am trying to talk myself into this one – but it just seems drastic.

3. My girlfriend wants to join the Peace Corp, but with the way people LOVE Americans right now, I feel like that is joining the military without being given a gun. I hear stories about people who serve in the Peace Corp and attacked in foreign countries…not cool. Albeit, two of the people I know attacked in Africa were girls – I am just leery of that whole system. There are good stories too. People who get to travel the world, gain different perspectives, and learn different languages. Also, loan deferment is good – but they pay next to nothing, and my family doesn’t have money to spot me. I almost feel like the PC is more for rich kids who don’t want to go into the family business just yet. Either way, language experience in Swahili or something like that is not exactly going to a huge resume builder.

4. So many people are now running to get certified with education credits so they can teach. I am not one of those. I can’t teach. I would want to bang hot high school schools and 6-year-olds annoy the piss out of me. Noble profession, just not for me.

5. The Priesthood or some other religious vocation? I will pick up the Rosetta Stone – Swahili edition before I do that. Again, don’t like 6-year-olds.

6. There is always the option to just suck it up. Suck it up, and try my luck out in the job market. The problem is that there are tons of people in there late 20s through their 50s competing for the same jobs. People with ridiculous experience right now. I read in FORTUNE that GE right now has 50-year-old former executives with MBAs and law degrees, applying for the same jobs as college graduates. One thing is for sure – I wouldn’t pick me.

Seriously though – if I missed an option, please let me know. Yes, the idea of porn star and circus performer did cross my mind, but again – trying to not waste the $70,000 I just spent on school.

As we all know, modern business is defined by rewarding failure. From the economic bailout plan to golden parachutes, nothing says “Congratulations on the gross misuse of the public’s trust” like extravagant rewards. In all of my research, I have found that only this industry rewards creative abuses with equally creative excess.

Taking full advantage of my creativity and propensity for excess, I have decided to start my job a little early. Keeping AIG’s corporate culture and leadership goals in mind, the following list contains the next 5 destination retreat sites for 2009 that are sure to piss of Congress even more than the others.

Please be sure, that when the American government is footing the bill, it is important to spare no expense!

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I have an economics professor that is such a hippie-liberal-douche, it pains me to hear him speak. Every now and then, though, he says something completely uncharacteristic that I agree with. Being that it is my 8am class on Tu/Th, it leaves me with the rest of the day to ponder.

We give the Detroit Big 3 a ton of crap for being slow in transitioning to fuel efficient and alternative fuel automobiles. They still make trucks and SUVs like they did in the prime of the 90’s waste, F-THAT! Good luck with your losses…right? After some poking around after class, I ran across a fun stat – the same Big 3 spends $25B a quarter or over $8B a MONTH in pension benefits.

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It is great to know that the economy’s complete and total collapse hasn’t taken its toll on AIG executive’s ability to kick back and get some well-deserves R&R. Really, nothing says, “Hey, we just helped destroy the American way of life for at least 2 generations of citizens,” like spending $440,000 on a short getaway in Cali. Great job a$$holes! And now the dumb-sh!t senators that gave them the money, are all surprised?!

Uh…I’m not. And every other marginally educated person in this country knew damn well this was going to happen. Somehow Congress thought different??? Are you jackasses beginning to believe your own bullsh!t? These are the people, AIG in particular, who turned corporate waste into an art form. Not since David Blaine’s Dive of Death, have I seen such a blatant abuse of money and the public’s confidence (which we are just about all out of).

The AIG execs got manicures, facials and even spent $25,000 on 1 meal. For $25K, the meal better have ended with a facial! Either way, this is going to be a recurring theme over the next couple of years. The Fed has turned the American dollar into an international joke and it is a contest to see which will be used as toilet paper first: the Euro, the Dollar or this bullsh!t bailout/rescue/WTF plan…my money is on all of the above.

So this is not exactly what they said would happen, and I am confused.

Where the hell did the $850B package go? That’s right, it’s not really $700B – add another $150B in EARMARKS…after all of this debating over reducing earmarks, we witnessed the largest earmark in US history. But let’s put that aside for a moment, and ponder why – if $100B is being injected into the market today – the credit crunch is worse than ever? Hmmm…great job guys…top notch planning. (more…)

While we were all watching our parents cry over their lost retirement accounts and House Republicans decided not the bail out the rich – I was expecting stigmata or the seas to turn to blood. Instead, I found a little blurb on CNN that noted a $25B loan to the auto industry that was quietly approved with some MAJOR implications.

First, the background: the American automakers have been struggling with pensions and pay increases for union workers who have dedicated their lives to American cars. Unfortunately, the automakers themselves have the reflexes of a 90 year old Parkinson’s patient.

While the world is moving forward with hyper-efficient cars, American automakers have what’s called a ‘backlog.’ In essence, they can’t start building efficient cars until they finish all the gas-guzzling SUVs that they currently have cued for production. Over $4.5B in SUV parts are not even in production yet, but “have to be used” before the companies will move onto the basic planning stages of new vehicles. (more…)

In this, our global economy, everything is a matter of perspective.

At this moment, there are two distinct groups of people looking at each other wonder how the F*%K they got themselves into this situation, and moreover – how are they going to get out. Their situations are grave, and the future of their lives and livelihoods hang in the balance.

As if fate had deemed it necessary to pull these polar opposites together, the world now finds US Investment Bankers and Somali Pirates in the same “boat” – so to speak.

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So it looks like the Congress is going to pass the $700 billion bailout, and that means every single American is going to get saddled with a $2,300 bill. Since that money’s coming out of your pocket, whether you like it or not, you can only think of what you would have otherwise spent that money on, if you were spending it.

What would you have rather spent $2,300 on than bailing out Wall Street?

(Image: i-magin-ation.com)

Well it looks like McCain’s going to make it to the University of Mississippi for the first of three Presidential debates against Democratic candidate Barack Obama. And that means the Debate Drinking Game is on! The rules are simple: When either of the candidates or the moderators say any of the words or phrases below, drink!

Check out the Presidential Debate Drinking Game after the jump! (more…)