The Lost Generation

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_42/b4151032038302.htm

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can't grab onto the first rung of the career ladder.

Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, to newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds has climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago.

For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep and long-lasting, potentially creating a kind of "lost generation." Studies suggest that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income as people get stuck in jobs that are beneath their capabilities, or come to be seen by employers as damaged goods.

Seriously, I do feel bad for the kids graduating now. This is not a good spot to be in, and if anything, they're experiencing the reality check of leaving protected homes for the real world - only this real world is especially challenging. They're priced out of home ownership, seriously indebted from college loans, and in many cases having to live at home as late as 25 years-old.

If anything will make them the next "greatest generation" it will be this - not the coddled environments in which many of them grew.

find some way to employ themselves.

but I had other opportunities to fall back on, which made it somewhat safer for me to take my chances. It's not so easy to risk your time and money when failure could mean a permanently lower income or a missed rare opportunity.

nt

They will be learning other things, spending time thinking on things. Some will even pick up a worthy cause and strive forward for important things not only governed by money.

It is a mixed blessing, it is creating an army of people with the time to think on societal and personal issues.

I hope you're right, but I wonder how many get absorbed into mindless distractions instead. And whether the mix is any different from previous generations.

...you don't get to complain when it's inevitably dismantled violently.

We need more than "recovery."

As millions upon millions of Baby Boomers have lost their 401k's, pensions, and other retirement options they are edging ever closer to a lower standard of living in retirement. Those who were already not-so-well off or didn't have much of a back-up when their retirement plans imploded, will now be more reliant on the government to support them in their later years.

...and who is going to pay for all of that? The 18-30 year olds right now. There are fewer of that demographic than the one heading toward retirement, meaning they're going to have to shoulder more of that burden per-individual.

It's a demographic and economic disaster looming that is perhaps unavoidable.

The fate of the current 18-30 year olds: Paid less, taxed more, and forced to compete in the job market against an older population that has years of accumulated experience.

Of course, the group that is most screwed over at the moment are those too young to retire, but to old to start a new career. These individuals worked in jobs that simply aren't coming back, and had all their experience invested in that job which they hoped to work their entire lives until retirement. All of it is, of course, gone now. The downside is that the 18-30 year olds will eventually be expected to shoulder that burden as well.

I cannot begin to express the amount of anger / resentment felt by the 18-30 year old college educated demographic. They see a huge national debt that those who came before wracked up that they know they're going to have to pay, and then they look at their own personal debt incurred via student loans. They can't find a job, because equally educated but more experienced workers have lost their jobs, and now are accepting lesser paying jobs for work. They are worried about starting a family, for fear of not being able to support it. They're worried about massive tax increases in the future to pay off the debt, and pay for various social programs as Baby Boomers retire. They worry about the ever increasing life expectancy of new medical technology, which would force them to shoulder the burden even longer. (I.E. When genetically based medicine really becomes feasible and other "miracle" medical technological breakthroughs happen, life expectancy jumps from about 79 to 90 or even longer.)

Toss in the implications of climate change also falling on the shoulders of that demographic and their children, and in the end... well... there is just a huge problem that the media or the government doesn't seem to see or is choosing to ignore.

I'm calling this the "boomerang effect" because it seems that there are a lot of people willing to kick the can of responsibility down the road onto this up-and-coming generation, yet seem to be ignorant of the fact that they are completely reliant on that same generation to support them in their later years... and it just doesn't seem possible.

We are still considering our escape plans. The way we see it:

The generation that came before us wanted to buy 3 cars, a vacation home, etc, instead of properly funding education, social security, healthcare, climate change, etc. There are plenty of countries out there who behaved more responsibly and actually gave a shit about their children and their neighbor's children.

We would like to go to one of those countries. We are both on a 2 year new degree plan, and when we finish we'll have enough points to move to a lot of different countries... probably just get the hell out at that point. I'd rather live in a society where people aren't so fucking selfish.