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[Admiral Bone to Pick]

Thanks, will do.


Are you going to respond to them or merely be affronted?

I think I've explained my views on this in 2 or 3 different threads and I'm not too keen on knocking down every point in this thread. Just that there are positives and negatives of every generation, that our current problems are a culmination of decades of policy, and that placing the blame on one generation or painting them as somehow inferior is horribly, horribly misguided and false.

 

[Parch]

A lot of countries have manditory military service.

There doesn't need to be heavy combat training or an overseas war to employ thousands. A large workforce capable of physical labor would be able to perform several projects. Young people want the world to be greener? Get 'em out there picking up garbage on the highways and scrubbing graffiti. Construction assistance, large landscape projects, the possibilities are endless.

Don't give 'em a gun, give 'em a shovel.

 

[ToxicAdam]

I really hope the baby boomer posts are just highly sarcastic and not actually that horribly misguided.

You don't visit the OWS thread very much, eh?

 

[Slappers Only]

Young people are too busy diddling their phones in traffic to get jobs.

 

[Charoncaori]

Think about it this way. We're the pop culture generation! The internet became a big thing when we were growing up, and we have been able to connect with each other and talk about commonalities, so much so that we're already heavily nostalgic for our happy formulative years. Just look at that Nick block that airs all of the old shows and cartoons you loved.

And the best part? None of us have jobs, so we can entirely devote ourselves to the study of pop culture that happened only just over 10 years ago!

 

[ClosingADoor]

Get 'em out there picking up garbage on the highways and scrubbing graffiti. Construction assistance, large landscape projects, the possibilities are endless.

But but but... can't other people do the dirty work? I don't want my iPhone to get filthy!

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

Maybe the situation is a bit better over here with the job market and in the US those jobs aren't available either. But when we need like 300.000 Polish to do work in the fields here and have 500.000 people ourselve without a job, something is wrong.

 

[RDreamer]

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

And here, in my circle, the amount of people that take lower, dirty jobs just to get by while hoping that some day they might make just a tiny bit more so that they can pay off just a little bit of their 30 year student loan is annoying.

Personally, I worked at a deli for 5 years, 3 of which were after graduation, hoping to someday find something. Anything. I'd likely scrub toilets if it meant a chance to get my foot in the door of a place that would take advancement in your career seriously. I practically gave up on my career and turned to the old adage of working hard and moving up with the company you're at, and then I was told that that wasn't how it worked anymore.

 

[Charoncaori]

But but but... can't other people do the dirty work? I don't want my iPhone to get filthy!

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

Maybe the situation is a bit better over here with the job market and in the US those jobs aren't available either. But when we need like 300.000 Polish to do work in the fields here and have 500.000 people ourselve without a job, something is wrong.

Oh ffs that is not the issue here. The issue is I know people who are smart, have graduated college with math or science degrees and cannot get hired in anything better than retail. They have student debt. What about them? They should throw 4 years of college down the toilet?

 

[ClosingADoor]

Oh ffs that is not the issue here. The issue is I know people who are smart, have graduated college with math or science degrees and cannot get hired in anything better than retail. They have student debt. What about them? They should throw 4 years of college down the toilet?

I was responding to someone talking about manditory military service. Young people can do the jobs he named now as well (since we are pulling people from other countries to do them anyway now), but don't want them (at least, in my experience, it isn't the same everywhere of course).

 

[kswiston]

But but but... can't other people do the dirty work? I don't want my iPhone to get filthy!

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

Full time, minimum wage used to be enough to support yourself and a small family on a single income. Not comfortably, but you had enough to cover the basics. Now you can barely support yourself on minimum wage in most places.

Low skill jobs typically pay minimum wage. Living on minimum wage is fine if you never want to own a house/car, or be able to put your children through school, but I doubt that is the ideal of many people. Especially if they spent money on an education. When you are working 40 hours a week, it can become very difficult to look for other employment and book interviews (especially if you are working days). Sometimes people would rather take 6-12 months to find a job in their field, than get stuck in some low income job that becomes increasingly more difficult to quit.

 

[SolKane]

But but but... can't other people do the dirty work? I don't want my iPhone to get filthy!

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

Maybe the situation is a bit better over here with the job market and in the US those jobs aren't available either. But when we need like 300.000 Polish to do work in the fields here and have 500.000 people ourselve without a job, something is wrong.

The point isn't that young people are too proud to take low-skill/service jobs (they're not, I have one and the rest of the people I work with have at least one), it's that these a) are the only jobs available in large numbers for unskilled workers and that b) they create a self-fulfilling economic reality for the people who take these jobs. They lead to no specialized experience, which is what employers want and many college graduates are lacking in. But the other reality is that in order to pay for that education, you need to take whatever comes your way, yet what comes your way just keeps you trapped in the same situation, languidly chipping away at your debt like using a toothpick to sculpt marble.

 

[RDreamer]

Anyone concerned about this issue needs to read this: http://exiledonline.com/thirty-more-years-of-hell/

Awesome article.

 

[Puddles]

Yep. I'm one of the people who got completely fucked by this. I actually had a pretty decent job for a recent grad in 2007. All I needed was that next-step job in 2008, and I have no doubt that I'd be able to buy a house by now. Instead, 3 1/2 years of my prime years were basically wasted. And there are millions in the same boat.

It's odd when you talk to your friends who started working in 2007 and managed to stick with those companies through the recession. Now they're all lower or even middle management, and the only difference between me and them is luck.

It's a shame more people didn't go to jail for fucking this country over so badly.

 

[Zzoram]

My cohort graduated in 2008/2009, almost nobody I know got jobs after a year of searching, so we all ended up back in school except for 1 guy who finally got a job after spending a year as a demoralized janitor. Job prospects this year aren't looking any better, and there are limits to how much more school we can do. It's fucked up too, my friends are all pleasant people to talk to, work hard, and Dean's List graduates. I guess we just picked the wrong sciences.

 

[Tarazet]

The internet completely changed the job search/hiring mechanism in the US too. Back in the day you could just walk up to a business with resume in hand and have tremendously better odds. Today, the new resume spamming method is an awfully depressing way to look for jobs and does not inspire confidence in anyone. What we really need is a revolution in the antiquated Human Resources business.

Here's the way my career path has gone.

Started at a temp job doing spreadsheets, reports and data entry for a warehousing/logistics company. $15 an hour, tedious work, no prospects for advancement, and it's a low margin business. There were massive layoffs all around me during my time there, and people commuted in from over 100 miles away because their wages couldn't support them in this high-cost area. But I stuck it out, kept positive, and also kept literally moving as offices closed. That ultimately lasted 5 years before the frustration and paralysis finally got to me and we went our separate ways.

Our biggest customer there had been a semiconductor equipment company, second biggest had been a telecom company. Since I had developed relationships with people fairly high up in the chain at those companies, I started going to semiconductor equipment firms and telecoms. Found a job as a logistics manager paying twice what I was getting before, got the number for the recruiter on Dice.com and the interview process was between two of us that had experience in the field. My experience was less lengthy and arguably less relevant, but I hit it off with the three who interviewed me and I got the job. I'm by far the youngest employee in our subsidiary, but have one of the most important tasks and they place a lot of trust in me.

The other thing that has gone in my favor is keeping side gigs going. Companies love to see that you're busy and active. If you have work it's stupid easy to get more work, and it gets even easier if you've had it for a long time. It doesn't even matter if it's paid. If you studied clarinet in high school, polish up your horn and try out for a volunteer orchestra. Spend some time building a house at Habitat for Humanity. Do administrative work for a nonprofit. This is all great stuff to put on a resume and it's not hard at all.

 

[Atenhaus]

I sincerely hope I'll be able to find a job with my comp sci degree. Two more years... :/

 

[mbmonk]

Get off your damned high horse. Yes we all know it's possible to still work hard and get somewhere. No one's denying it's a possibility, but just because you did it doesn't mean every single other person can. I don't personally blame the baby boomers. I point this stuff out as problems that need to be addressed asap or else we'll have further problems. Just because you made it or some other people made it isn't an excuse to look at these problems and dismiss them.

The thing is that you can't cling to anecdotal evidence that people are people lazy and claim they just have to deal with it when faced with statistics like these. When a problem becomes so big that it's a large statistic like what's being posted, then it's no longer a problem on the person to person basis only. It's a systematic and societal problem that we all have to figure out.

I realize you're not out of hand dismissing these things, but the "evidence" you show tends to make others lean that way. That evidence doesn't help things at all. You need to go further than that. FIRST, you need to figure out if the accusations you put out there are even statistically significant in the grand scheme of things and how much they actually contribute to the statistics laid out in the OP and elsewhere. THEN, you need to go further than that even.

The general point I think I can agree with.

If so many people made poor choices in their degree, why?
If so many people put partying before anything else, why?
If so many have either not had a job at all or an extreme part time job that doesn't require skill, why? (Ok the answer to this one is the recession)

But anyway, once you answer why, then you need to go further and figure out how you can fix that statistic.

People divorcing themselves from reality ( either due lack of knowledge or intentionally ignoring it ) is probably a big part of the above.

 

[Slappers Only]

I sincerely hope I'll be able to find a job with my comp sci degree. Two more years... :/

It's your brain that will get you a job, not a degree. If you're actually a good programmer, you will always have a job.

 

[bill0527]

I actually went back to school at age 30 in 2004 to start finishing my degree. I graduated in 2007 with a BS in Finance and the summer I graduated was absolutely brutal. That was the summer when everything started to crash - housing market, and the stock market. I attended job fairs, networked, let everyone I know who was within breathing distance of me that I was looking for a job. I dropped around 100 resumes in a 12-month period. Out of all that, I only got 4 actual sit-down job interviews and I was a finalist for 2 of those jobs, but ended up not getting them.

I got so discouraged that I decided to give up and be a stay-at-home dad. After a year of looking for a job. I went into a depression and my wife encouraged me to give up the job search because of the stress, depression, and disappointment, it was putting on me and my family because I kept coming up empty.

So I've been a stay-at-home dad now for 5 years and I guess this is what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't even know where to begin now to even get back into the job market.

 

[Zzoram]

I actually went back to school at age 30 in 2004 to start finishing my degree. I graduated in 2007 with a BS in Finance and the summer I graduated was absolutely brutal. That was the summer when everything started to crash - housing market, and the stock market. I attended job fairs, networked, let everyone I know who was within breathing distance of me that I was looking for a job. I dropped around 100 resumes in a 12-month period. Out of all that, I only got 4 actual sit-down job interviews and I was a finalist for 2 of those jobs, but ended up not getting them.

I got so discouraged that I decided to give up and be a stay-at-home dad. After a year of looking for a job. I went into a depression and my wife encouraged me to give up the job search because of the stress, depression, and disappointment, it was putting on me and my family because I kept coming up empty.

So I've been a stay-at-home dad now for 5 years and I guess this is what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't even know where to begin now to even get back into the job market.

Stay at home dad is the biggest growing career for men, because traditionally male dominated jobs are the ones that have been hurt the most in this recession.

 

[Atenhaus]

It's your brain that will get you a job, not a degree. If you're actually a good programmer, you will always have a job.

I'm a decent programmer, but the constant doom saying regarding our generation has begun to wear on me. The irrational fear of not finding employment after I graduate is ever present.

 

[hellclerk]

I'm a decent programmer, but the constant doom saying regarding our generation has begun to wear on me. The irrational fear of not finding employment after I graduate is ever present.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the computer technology sector is one of the few sectors that has a surplus of jobs, so you have a better chance than a guy graduating with a business or humanities degree.

 

[Charoncaori]

I was responding to someone talking about manditory military service. Young people can do the jobs he named now as well (since we are pulling people from other countries to do them anyway now), but don't want them (at least, in my experience, it isn't the same everywhere of course).

Ah, sorry for that. Your post struck a nerve out of context.

 

[Neo C.]

I guess we just picked the wrong sciences.

The real handicap is experience. People who think that a their degree are favorably in the job market will get a hard wake up sooner or later. When every one thinks a certain degree is more favorable, the amount of graduates in this degree will increase eventually, thus make the competition fiercer there.

Best example is the engineer job market in Germany: Years ago people said Germany needs more engineers. Now companies are still searching for engineers while lots of engineers are searching for a job. Sorry graduates, you are not enough experienced and specialized!

 

[Wray]

What people dont realize is that this is NOT going to get better. As technology continues to advance, it will continue to displace more jobs and more jobs until we are essentially a laborless society.

Anybody who thinks job growth can keep pace with advancements in AI, population growth, and life extension, is massively, and I mean massively naive. Even if we start slashing the retirement age down and down, and shorten work weeks, it's still not going to keep pace.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I'm a decent programmer, but the constant doom saying regarding our generation has begun to wear on me. The irrational fear of not finding employment after I graduate is ever present.

You said you have two years left after this one?

Advice: Get an internship. Either this summer (after you finish your sophomore year), or next summer (after your junior year, before your senior year), or both. Go to your university's job fairs, look for recruitment events on campus by individual companies, and follow up with the recruiters you meet by sending them a message or calling them up after the meeting.

That's how I got my job with Lockheed Martin. They sent some recruiters to the University of Minnesota, I showedu p at the meeting along with 20 or so other people. I got the recruiters contact information. I followed up with them. I submitted my resume. I got an interview for an internship, and got the internship (Only 4 internships out of 280 applicants... yikes).

This was during summer vacation after my junior year.

They told me they'd be sending me a job offer at the end of the year when I finished my internship in august.

In November 2009, I got my job offer. I've been working here since I graduated in April 2010.


Get your foot in the door with an internship while you're still a student. It'll transition into a career once you've graduated if you perform well enough.

 

[ToxicAdam]

What people dont realize is that this is NOT going to get better. As technology continues to advance, it will continue to displace more jobs and more jobs until we are essentially a laborless society.

Anybody who thinks job growth can keep pace with advancements in AI, population growth, and life extension, is massively, and I mean massively naive. Even if we start slashing the retirement age down and down, and shorten work weeks, it's still not going to keep pace.

Although I agree with your larger point, I do think it can get better in the short-term. There will still be (brief) bubbles of prosperity and expansion in the future as paradigms shift.

Growth is not a steady, reliable trajectory and neither is decline.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Seriously, the amount of people I know who are just refusing to pick up a job they see as 'low' is annoying. Can't get a job, lower your standards for a bit while you search for something better.

You'll have to forgive the source material but I found an excerpt from this article to be surprisingly spot on:

Flash forward a couple of decades, and most of us are now parents. We've since found out that there's not much market for making a really good honey bear bong or winning a contest for having the dirtiest flannel shirt (first place four years running, thank you very much). We've cut our hair, bought some decent work clothes and moved on -- lesson learned. But that fast food job stuck with us. It became a scare tactic to use on our own kids. We want them to have something better.

But here's the thing: Those Baby Boomers who started this "you don't want to flip burgers" bullshit did flip burgers. Or roof houses, or mine coal, or wax porn stars' assholes. And that wasn't something to be ashamed of back then -- that was the era before you needed a bachelor's degree to get a job waiting tables (but more on that in a moment). But at some point between my grandfather's time and now, getting your hands dirty became something to be ashamed of. My generation perpetuated that. We made it socially unacceptable to:

A) Do any job that requires sweat and/or a uniform.

B) Work 70-hour weeks to get ahead.

So if you don't do either of those things, what's left? Getting an education and waiting for a good job in your field. But now, when we catch you doing that, we mock you and tell you to go flip burgers. And that's bullshit. We told you your whole lives that those jobs were for idiots and failures. You think you're too good for those jobs because that's what we've been fucking telling you since birth.

I know that's what my parents always said. Go to college and don't flip burgers.

Spoiler

disclaimer: I am gainfully employed

 

[RDreamer]

I know that's what my parents always said. Go to college and don't flip burgers.

Spoiler

disclaimer: I am gainfully employed

My dad always told me to get an education so I wouldn't be stuck in a factory like him. Now I have an education and student debt and by far the easiest and best paying job I've ever been employed at was at a factory.

 

[mbmonk]

My dad always told me to get an education so I wouldn't be stuck in a factory like him. Now I have an education and student debt and by far the easiest and best paying job I've ever been employed at was at a factory.

The holy grail of employment. Easy and high paying....

 

[Puddles]

That cracked article is complete shit.

 

[kame-sennin]

It doesn't matter what you demand or even what our entire generation demands. If Occupy and SOPA have taught anything it's that money and influence make a difference, not your damned opinion

Occupy has only been around for a couple of months. What we've learned so far is that people will take to the streets and demand fairness and equality. The violent police overreaction to these peaceful demands has also taught us that those in power are absolutely terrified of any popular movement that demands economic justice. So I would argue that the clear lesson of Occupy is, it's working, keep doing it.

Anyone concerned about this issue needs to read this: http://exiledonline.com/thirty-more-years-of-hell/

Read this yesterday. Great article.

 

[ThisWreckage]

Instead of blaming the baby boomers, our students should work harder to acquire more skills and abilities. I worked (hard) all throughout the end of HS and college, and now I earn a comfortable living, bought a new car and paid it, put 20% down on a house, no personal debt.

I know a crapton of people around me who either:
- Made a poor choice in their degree
- Put partying before anything else
- Have either not had a job at all, or an extreme part time job that doesn't require "skill"

Then they blame it all on the man. Am I going to deny that things are worse than before? Not at all. However, if I'm a hiring manager (which I am) and there's a bunch of guys in their 30s or 40s who have more skill, and motivation in the form of a family that will enable him to work harder. Who would you choose?

Hopefully, we can make the necessary evolution to account for all the new technology and processes. Either way, there's way too many college kids that have no worth to the workforce. There are other options, such as taking up a trade., which no one seems to do anymore.

The baby boomers were taught work ethic. We are taught to bitch and moan about it on twitter and facebook. Real productive society...

You seriously lack perspective. I would type a rebuttal but it would be a waste of time.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

That cracked article is complete shit.

I'm not vouching for the entire piece but what's wrong with the excerpt? Myself and many of my former classmates have had this drilled into our heads by parents and teachers alike growing up.

 

[Puddles]

I'm not vouching for the entire piece but what's wrong with the excerpt? Myself and many of my former classmates have had this drilled into our heads by parents and teachers alike growing up.

It accepts the premise that we are an entitlement generation, which is complete shit.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

It accepts the premise that we are an entitlement generation, which is complete shit.

I don't think you have to accept the premise of an entitlement generation by accepting that many of us have been conditioned to shun "menial" jobs. I mean I know it's all anecdotal but surely you've heard the mantra at least a few times in your life. We weren't taught that great jobs would just fall into our lap, we were taught that great jobs came with a post-secondary education. It's no wonder so many people jump back into school (piling up more debt in the process) in hopes of "waiting out" the recession.

It seems like a ton of jobs that are offered to young people now are for the most part contracted temporary positions. They don't last long, companies get to skimp on providing benefits to people and can let them go easily whenever the fuck they want.

Yep. I work in an industry where the coworker sitting next to you doing the very same job you are can be a contract worker. How they get away with that I have no idea.

 

[Dahellisdat]

It seems like a ton of jobs that are offered to young people now are for the most part contracted temporary positions. They don't last long, companies get to skimp on wages and providing benefits to people and can let them go without unemployment burdens whenever the fuck they want.

 

[Zzoram]

It seems like a ton of jobs that are offered to young people now are for the most part contracted temporary positions. They don't last long, companies get to skimp on wages and providing benefits to people and can let them go without unemployment burdens whenever the fuck they want.

Yep, even government jobs these days are all 9-month or 1-year contract positions without benefits.

 

[Surface of Me]

The thing that frustrates me isn't having to work those burger flipping jobs, its that for a ton of them the companies have the audacity to demand previous expedience to even be considered. What happened to entry level work?

 

[Baraka in the White House]

The thing that frustrates me isn't having to work those burger flipping jobs, its that for a ton of them the companies have the audacity to demand previous expedience to even be considered. What happened to entry level work?

A glut of overqualified, recently laid-off workers happened. Competition is so rabid that companies can afford to be as picky as they want to be.

 

[state-of-the-art]

I'm honestly starting to miss my cushy socialist job with annual pay raises, subsidized tuition, healthcare, 30 days paid vacation, and retirement eligibility after 20 years.

When I left the Air Force I had saved nearly $20,000, paid of my car loan, and increased my credit from 0 into the 700s. The first few months as a civilian I could not land a job anywhere. I spent 4 years as a jet engine mechanic and yet I was told I didn't have a enough experience to wait tables. Since starting school I've managed to get an unpaid internship though!

 

[Dahellisdat]

The thing that frustrates me isn't having to work those burger flipping jobs, its that for a ton of them the companies have the audacity to demand previous expedience to even be considered. What happened to entry level work?

It turned into this:

It seems like a ton of jobs that are offered to young people now are for the most part contracted temporary positions. They don't last long, companies get to skimp on wages and providing benefits to people and can let them go without unemployment burdens whenever the fuck they want.

Except that's really all there is now so people have to go skipping through all these temp jobs over and over again (a few get lucky, but still). Just the latest way corporations have figured out how to squeeze the life out of their employees while still bringing in shit tons of profits.

 

[Zhengi]

My dad always told me to get an education so I wouldn't be stuck in a factory like him. Now I have an education and student debt and by far the easiest and best paying job I've ever been employed at was at a factory.

My dad said the same thing and I got an education and now I'm working at by far the easiest and best paying job right now behind a desk. (I've worked at restaurants, warehouses, pizza delivery, part time tutoring, at a private university).

Personal anecdotal stories ftw!

But seriously, things are getting better right now. There are things we still need to fix in the system to help provide more jobs to the younger kids coming out of school, which there is no denying.

However, some of it is on them as well, no matter how much some of you on Gaf try to refuse acknowledging. Young people need to be taught to make the right decisions about school, especially regarding loans. They also need to be taught about how to manage their own finances. For example, do you really need that new iPhone even though you might not be able to afford it? Remember, even if it's subsidized, that mandatory data plan can cost you a lot more than the phone is worth.

So I do think things will get better, if only because the Baby Boomers will either eventually start retiring or die off. Those jobs will start to become available, but we need to do more than that. The government needs to create a better environment for businesses to create more jobs through a combination of cutting taxes, increasing import taxes, loosening up some regulations while tightening up others, increasing spending in some areas and decreasing some in others, and just doing things to create more jobs.

 

[makingmusic476]

I'm 23, just graduated, and have no job. Woo.

I had a nice student worker position before graduating. My boss wants me to go back to school so he can rehire me. =/

 

[ElectricThunder]

Yep, born in '84 and very much getting thrashed with the shit end of the stick here. No car, semi-disabled, family currently imploding with strife, tremendously depressed, been unemployed for a long time, no "connections", college ended very badly for me despite what was a promising start due to decisions made by elder higher-ups, semi-rural area----places SHUT DOWN in my area as opposed to break out the Help Wanted signs, and even then they are either after the very experienced or the teen'ish women to attract the elder generation clientele wherever.

Part time, of course. Perhaps if quality places that actually give a damn would move into the various abandoned buildings...aggh. Georgia is definitely a place many people are faring pretty poorly these days.

I'll never understand the attitude seen in this thread and especially moreso elsewhere in my area that tells you to gleefully step over somebody that has stumbled, or more likely has not yet even had a chance to truly stand from the trampling, proclaiming like the greatest of damned Monday Morning Quarterbackers of all time, as opposed to reckoning empathy, sympathy, and taking a long/hard view at just how tenuous the environ beyond their bubble is becoming.

Damned if it is a quaint nothing'ism, but chains tend to break by their weakest links and right now just about the last thing on the priority list both federally and state to state is shoring up weaknesses to bolster the overall strength.

 

[empty vessel]

However, some of it is on them as well, no matter how much some of you on Gaf try to refuse acknowledging. Young people need to be taught to make the right decisions about school, especially regarding loans. They also need to be taught about how to manage their own finances. For example, do you really need that new iPhone even though you might not be able to afford it? Remember, even if it's subsidized, that mandatory data plan can cost you a lot more than the phone is worth.

All of that is well and good. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the unemployment rate, however, which is not the result of aggregated bad decisions made by individuals but the result of much grander and more powerful forces affecting the whole of society. I don't know why people feel the need to point out that people ought to have personal responsibility when there plainly are not enough good jobs for qualified people who want them.

 

[Host Samurai]

I am fortunate for my situation in life as I was delt the right cards, but we are a lost generation as a whole. If things don't improve, I can predict a revolution within the next 20 years. Information travels faster than ever before and our generation is a one to be heard with social media which plays a huge part in our generation.

 

[alphaNoid]

...

 

[FLEABttn]

While I too fall for the "bad degree" line, I know people with masters in mechanical engineering from Berkeley who are unemployed. It's a shitty time for 20 something's.

 

[Zhengi]

All of that is well and good. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the unemployment rate, however, which is not the result of aggregated bad decisions made by individuals but the result of much grander and more powerful forces affecting the whole of society. I don't know why people feel the need to point out that people ought to have personal responsibility when there plainly are not enough good jobs for qualified people who want them.

Because there is always something a person can do even with those so called powerful forces out there affecting the whole of society. I believe that a person can make something for themselves, even though it might be tough.

Instead, all I'm seeing is people crying that their parents lied to them about school and that their parents didn't want them working too hard flipping burgers. What did you guys expect? Your parents to predict the future and map out your entire life? Booo hooo, my parents were wrong about how my life turned out and now I'm just going to blame them for everything while crying my eyes out. Such an attitude is defeatist. Go do something about your life cause its your life.