8 months ago
O Canada.
Just finished a lovely week long visit to British Columbia. It’s always nice to visit this beautiful country, but unusually painful just now. Canadian attitudes toward Americans have always been this uneasy mixture of envy and condescension. Now that the US is struggling, the envy is gone. Now we’re simply their goober southern neighbors with a bad attitude and way too much debt.
Frankly, it’s hard to blame them, though a healthy fraction of their current prosperity comes from our insatiable appetite for their oil. And when oil prices go in the tank, they’ll be joining us. And you’ll be able to see the carnage from tar sands exploitation in northern Alberta from space…
2 years ago
Millennial Massacre!
“Well, duh! It’s time somebody noticed! ” is probably what a lot of young people said when National Journal, a cousin of the Atlantic, revealed its recent polling data and analysis of the impact of the recession on the Millennial Generation. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100505_2490.php
But the numbers are still stunning. Millennials, born between 1981 and 2002 (what happened in 2002?), outnumber the reviled Baby Boom generation by at least 16 million. According to National Journal, one third of them are now living with parents or relatives (a European level 39% of those 18-24). 28% of those aged 20-24 with less than a high school degree are unemployed, as are 20% who are only high school grads. Only 16% of the generation say they are making enough to live comfortably and save an adequate amount. Twice as many are “barely getting by” every month.
A major theme of the polling: this generation has a broad and deep commitment to public service. Perhaps not surprisingly given the grim labor market, Millennials have swamped federal public service programs. Teach for America, which recruits college grads to teach for two years in poverty areas, has seen its applications double, to 46,000 since 2008, and Peace Corps applications have reached the highest level since the program was created in the Kennedy Administration.
The brutal recession has also not extinguished Millennial optimism: twice as many Millennials believe that their own efforts, rather than outside events, will determine their economic future. One fifth say that starting their own businesses holds the greatest potential for career success. Many have responded to unemployment by creating micro-businesses, what some have called “necessity entrepreneurship”. I’ll bet more than a few of these businesses end up taking off in the recovery and become permanent additions to the economy. What National Journal called the labor market’s “escalator” has been broken for going on three years. When it is finally repaired, expect the Millennial generation to power an American economic boom which will dwarf that of the 1980’s and 1990’s.
2 years ago
U.S. Added 290,000 Jobs in April - Rate Rose to 9.9% - NYTimes.com «
Time is running out for the Dems. It’s great to have job gains, but they are nowhere close to the Vice President’s incautious bluster about 500 thousand jobs a month. Plus, job gains mean more people are in the labor market looking for work, pushing the unemployment rate back up to, virtually, 10%.
It may be that rising expectations (e.g. where’s MY job?) are more dangerous politically than the abject belief that the recession will go on forever. Government cannot do a lot about this (other than not raising business costs thru taxes or mandates …). Two or three more months of nearly 10% unemployment and we’re going to be where Britain is headed, e.g. divided government.
