Great Recession yields a lost generation of workers

[katty]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44623502/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/great-recession-yields-lost-generation-workers/

Call it the recession's lost generation.

In record-setting numbers, young adults struggling to find work are shunning long-distance moves to live with Mom and Dad, delaying marriage and buying fewer homes, often raising kids out of wedlock. They suffer from the highest unemployment since World War II and risk living in poverty more than others — nearly 1 in 5.

New 2010 census data released Thursday show the wrenching impact of a recession that officially ended in mid-2009. It highlights the missed opportunities and dim prospects for a generation of mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings coming of age in a prolonged slump with high unemployment.

[Kennah]

1. If we're a Lost generation, does that mean we get to go live on some tropical island?

[msongs]

2. yeah but they have their cellphones and ipads/pods to comfort them lol nt

[izquierdista]

3. Work is overrated

Anthropologists studying primitive tribes in the jungles of New Guinea have determined that they put in about a 15 hour work week. For many tribes, that's with stone tools and no engines or motors to assist them. The only way modern industrial nations can keep everybody employed 40 hours a week is to engage in a wholesale murder contest like they did from 1941-45.

If you look at the inputs required to build a family dwelling, the materials and labor (exclusive of the land) are about equal to two years of that laborer's wages. So how is it that a goodly percentage of homeowners are upside down on 30-year mortgages? :crazy:

Mechanized agriculture and clothing factories have reduced the human cost of both food and clothing to a small fraction of what it was two centuries ago.

So what has civilization done now that they don't have to work so hard for food, clothing, and shelter? Video games, baseball, the NFL, television, NASCAR, credit default swaps, rock concerts, poker tournaments, Six Flags, cruise lines, and internet porn. None of that stuff was around before 1950. Well, there was baseball, but the players made a few times a factory worker's wages, not a thousand times. And steamship lines were for traveling across the ocean, not pigging out at the buffet.

Capitalism wants to see growth, growth, growth in all of these new businesses, but the people at the top of the pyramid also hoard as much as they can without choking the growth off completely. Sometimes they miscalculate and their wonderful growth engine sputters to a stop.

Capitalism can only keep people employed through the consumption of stuff. Going to watch the kids play Little League doesn't generate much in the way of capitalist business, just the buying of uniforms and equipment. Playing chess with the old men in the park is even worse, some of those chess sets are decades old! Teaching torments the capitalist model even worse -- it requires the matching of a knowledgeable teacher with a motivated student; how can you turn that into a commodity with economies of scale?

Work, when it means one-on-one human interaction, is poorly served by the capitalist business model. All the young people out of work shouldn't wait for the capitalist model to rescue them. It's already ditched them for cheaper workers in China. If they need food, they should learn how to grow it. If they want a house, they are going to have to learn how to build it. The capitalists at the top are not going to allow them entry to the game unless they can hit major league home runs, write hit songs, drive in a circle really fast, or just look stunning.

[DCBob]

4. maybe this is the beginning of a new enlightened society..

where work and careers do not define a person. Maybe the arts and literature and philosophical thinking will make a comeback.