Who in the Western world would want to admit that he or she is out of work, or worse off, underemployed (MBA grass-cutting day laborer? mind you, I don’t look down on manual chores, it’s just that I am allergic to fresh-cut grass).
But 23 million in the US have said the prayer of serenity for a while (“Grant us the courage to change that which can be changed”).
This wave of job shredding involved non-farm workers i.e. construction jobs, middle management jobs, and jobs that get outsourced or off shored.
(they have tried to hide this last one. You have to look hard with your undies inside out to read the label and find out where they were made. Quite a secret brought to you by Victoria).
But the crux of the problem does not lie in competing for Malthusian scarcity of jobs versus immigrants or overseas labor.
It’s against robots, bots, highly efficient supply chain, prosumerism (grind your own coffee beans), automation, pay scale unfairness and extreme high productivity “volunteered” by incumbent job holders (45% or more say they will change job if possible, but not now).
On my trip back from Vietnam, I didn’t realize how time-consuming it is just to be functional here in the US: walk forever in Super Wal-Mart to find canned juice (that is if you can find a parking spot), getting in line at an express lane (20 items?), opening those cans to feed the kid, washing, cleaning, laundering, ironing and blogging (prosuming). (Just now, I tried to support education. I helped sell those cookies for school. They looked nice on the brochure, but upon delivery they actually are frozen dough. So I have to apologize to neighbors, and turn around to bake them myself – prosumer at last, unavoidably).
Many of the UA’s men haven’t been to Brooks Brothers in a long time: IBM not only changed from Main Frame to Second life, their sales force also no longer dress in red, white and blue (navy suit). At least I saw a commercial about outfitting women reentering the work force. But for men,
it’s been a free fall ever since telecommuting took shape (broadband, cell phone and teleconferencing). How do you mix and match work casual when you have put on some weight in between jobs?
So, back to our UA meeting (Nothing to do with United Airlines merger with Continental, which inevitably send fresh meat to our weekly meeting. Those pilots have worked for minimum wages anyway). It’s like admitting you are a complete loser (I admire X-President Clinton for his parody at Correspondent Dinner. In the clip, he was shown running after Hillary with a bagged lunch. Ultimate modern man!).
Honey, I shrunk the kids.
The Baby Boomers finally retire. Either that or they will be joining us at the ever-widening circle of UA meeting to recite in unison Niebuhr’s line “Grant us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed”. How about send the 20+ million of us to clean up the oil leak in La? I care for dead birds,
and more for living people who turned
bread bakers at home instead of bread-earners at work.
Thang Nguyen 555 
I know exactly how you feel. I have more family members than not who have lost a job in the last two years and some of them have worked for 30 plus without loss of employment at any point. They have no idea what to do with themselves. Not to mention that I feel helpless to try and assist them. Good post. I look forward to more.