Queue for job, courtesy of le Haricot

The economy is a mess. Our 401(k)’s are toast. And we’re all stressed. Now the WaPo has quantified our job-loss fears:

In September, there were more mass layoffs — instances in which employers slashed 50 or more jobs at one time — than in any month since September 2001, the Labor Department said yesterday. And nearly half a million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits in each of the past four weeks, the highest rate of such claims since just after the terrorist attacks seven years ago. Anecdotal reports suggest that the hemorrhaging in the job market has only begun. 

I know all the banking headlines and Dow drops have me scared to open the morning paper. Yet until recently I felt immune.

This is Washington, where the Federal Government is a steady employer, where the Pentagon still spends billions every day, and where power is shifting with the resurgence of Federal financial oversight. On a personal level, knock on wood, my company is okay. We have most of our funding secured through 2009, though after that…

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