How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

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New article in the Atlantic. Pretty sobering outlook:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

How should we characterize the economic period we have now entered? After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. Yet a return to normalcy seems far off. By some measures, each recession since the 1980s has retreated more slowly than the one before it. In one sense, we never fully recovered from the last one, in 2001: the share of the civilian population with a job never returned to its previous peak before this downturn began, and incomes were stagnant throughout the decade. Still, the weakness that lingered through much of the 2000s shouldn’t be confused with the trauma of the past two years, a trauma that will remain heavy for quite some time...

[Guest Speed Racer]

You know, I get pretty tired of writers placing the burden of laziness (best name I can come up with) on the children, and not enough on the parents. I only skimmed this article, but they blame children for not working very well in unstructured environments. I don't care if their parents messed up and made them this way over the course of 18 or 22 years, but if they're the ones that don't say, "Suck it up and take the damned job," then they're also contributing to this mess.

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You know, I get pretty tired of writers placing the burden of laziness (best name I can come up with) on the children, and not enough on the parents. I only skimmed this article, but they blame children for not working very well in unstructured environments. I don't care if their parents messed up and made them this way over the course of 18 or 22 years, but if they're the ones that don't say, "Suck it up and take the damned job," then they're also contributing to this mess.

 

Yea, its a cliche argument at this point, although I dont think that was necessarily the focus of the article. Its more an examination of the effects of being unlucky enough to wind up in a horrible job market. The earning gaps, health issues, change in personality, declining neighborhoods, etc...its not their fault, its just bad fucking timing. And besides, even those who do have the ambition to become entrepreneurial most likely cant get funding in this kind of climate anyway.