The Great Disappointment Epidemic of Early 2006

In the continuing "get a clue" series, the one that makes us sound like cackling geezers, we point you today to the Wall Street Journal review of Anya Kamenetz's Generation Debt, "breezily written and entertaining. But not always for the right reasons...The data fly off the page but should be tied down."

Just look at the subtitle: "Why Now Is a Terrible Time to Be Young." Would you like to live in another era? How does Vietnam sound? Or World War II? Or the Great Depression? Anyone for the Great Cholera Epidemic of 1832?

We meet Lagusta, who can't seem to pay off her debts though she works hard at her business. What's her line, you ask? She is a vegan caterer....Then there's Nita, who works in a dollar store and blew "ten grand she didn't have on restaurant meals and new CD's" -- in one summer! The next time that Nita feels like bingeing, she should call Lagusta and support the vegan trade. Brandon got a job "presenting" sex education in schools but then gave up a graduate-school fellowship because Orange County was too conservative. And these are the smart kids.
 
Jerome, who graduated from a New York high school with a "B" average...cannot find a job. Jerome wants to be a rapper, and he admits that it would help if he learned some more words. "I don't know why I'm not getting hired. Positions be taken." ... What are the "C" students doing?
 
A 33-year-old living with his parents says: "I'm perfectly willing to go through my life as a sort of half-assed bohemian, with no steady job. That freaks my parents out."

Yep [taking a sympathetic and grateful moment here to delight in a nearby fluffed couch and frequently-vacant guest room].

Chris wants a high-paying job as a librarian. He'll do anything, as long as he doesn't have to leave Minnesota.
 
I do not believe that the testimony in "Generation Debt" represents the typical twentysomething, who is brimming with ambition and trying to grab a foothold in the labor market, well aware that climbing a career ladder means beginning on the lower rungs. Instead the book sneers at entry-level jobs as "crap" jobs if they do not come with full health and retirement benefits.
 
Sorry, Anya, there are no "crap jobs" when times are truly tough.

In all compassion, the job market, especially for new entrants, is baffling in the furor of disruptive technologies, outsourcing, international threat, and, frankly, rather ad hoc education ladled out to these kids at significant expense to the public and private purse.

But in all things, the game is over unless the players get in motion, pay attention, adapt. The ideas and inspirations waiting to arrive in media res  are likely to take a wide detour around the funky cluttered couch-space where the television mumbles its fiendish worldview to a disgruntled non-employee.

In our experience.

Comments

[Robert (New Victorian)]

This is the wages of prosperity...not a bad thing, in itself. But how many of these young people would have these attitudes and make these choices if their fathers had been laborers with five children in a two-bedroom house?

As for the 33-year-old half-assed bohemian, it seems to me his parents ought to have kicked his semi-behind out on his own approximately 15 years ago.

The funny thing is, I suspect that as time goes on they'll all muddle along, learn and end up getting things done. Necessity as Mother.

To go back to the top: "Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young?" Thanks for pointing that out, as every laugh adds a minute to one's life. :)

[dilys]

Heck, it's not a bad time to be getting old, either.

[mrsdarwin]

Whine, whine, whine from the younger generation! I laughed through the review -- the reviewer had a grand old time giving the book the death of a thousand paper cuts.

But what do I know? I'm 27 and married with three kids, so I've probably sold out to the establishment.