The plight of the MBA generation

If you ignore the over-arching message about the Federal Reserve, the article is very poignant. This quote sums it all up: " there are 50-years-olds who may never work again."

It's sad to imagine working your entire career to build a resume for a job that disappears. While half of me feels sorry for them, the other half thinks about the blue-collar workers who have existed this way for a long while. It's not uncommon to work in a factory for a long while and then lose your job - having such specialized skills that you can't find work. That's why they have unions.

Maybe the age of the white collar worker is changing. Maybe they need unions too.

Europeans have gotten used to much higher "natural" unemployment rates between 8 and 10%. In the US there has been a succession of bubbles that have hidden a lot of the inefficiencies and we are only now coming to the realization that a lot of us are just not needed at all. It will be harder here since the idea of long term government support is not popular, especially in the current climate.