Day 3 of the protest Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A little over a month ago in a post entitled “Understanding the Occupiers”, I posed ten questions that I felt would be a reasonable measure of personal responsibility and life experience. I was hoping to reach people who had attended a protest, but didn’t really fit the media profile of an Occupier. The response was, well let’s just say it was not overwhelming. I got a couple of comments from LiberalTalkingPoints. Housewifedownunder answered the questions,and turned out to be just the kind of response I was hoping for. My two commenters were from two different ideologies, yet both expressed genuine frustration at the lack of opportunities for today’s young adults. It is my hope that the leaders of business and industry will listen to the desperation of these young people and will create jobs for those who are really willing to work. I hope the government will ease its regulatory burden so that they will be able to do so. And I hope that our universities become a place where young people are taught how to be competitive in a world economy rather that a place of political indoctrination. As for the Occupiers themselves, I hope that as they continue onto adulthood, they will realize that there are better ways than civil disobedience to be heard and taken seriously.
Observations and Opinions of a Middle Aged Housewife 
Although I can appreciate a sympathetic tone towards these occupiers who graduate from college and can’t find work, I think the best thing to do is to tell them the truth…
If you don’t have skills that are in demand, you’re probably not going to find a job that fits your skill set.
There is a disparity between the degrees that people get, and the degrees that are in demand right now.
The market right now is STARVING for people with certain skill sets… not degrees in art history, liberal arts, poly sci, English… history… Not that society doesn’t need people with these skills… they just don’t need so many!
I don’t despise these people… I’m just sorry this lesson cost them 4 years and 25 grand.
With regards to your comment:
“It is my hope that the leaders of business and industry will listen to the desperation of these young people and will create jobs for those who are really willing to work”. Businesses don’t create jobs for the sake of creating jobs. They create jobs that is going to make their business more successful.
Anyway, that’s the market… that’s capitalism… warts and all.
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Daveb1040, I agree with you, there is a growing need for skilled labor in this country. Those “blue collar” jobs that are the back bone of society. I understand that the business of business is to make a profit. I think the key is for the government to get out of the way so businesses can grow, and thereby create jobs in the process. However, I do think there is something fundamentally wrong with the mindset of many business leaders when a company pays out a big bonus to a CEO who runs a company so poorly that it has to lay off low level workers to reduce the loss of profit. I think that that is what fomented much of the anger of the Occupy Movement. Still it was very disappointing to see so many people taking to the streets acting like a bunch of wild animals, instead of taking their grievances to their elected officials or the captains of industry. Had they chosen the later path, they may have been take more seriously.
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Middle aged house wife… We’re touching on something that I could probably rant for hours and hours on, but I’ll do my best to not rant, and get to the point… 🙂
Those good good paying blue collar jobs that our parents and grandparents remember so well are a thing of the past… Technology and automation have decimated these. With the right setup, a well run manufacturing company doesn’t need to invest heavily in resources with a pulse if they have the right technology.
My first job out of college, I worked for a company that developed newspaper layout software. I remember going on site and walking into a big room full of these big empty drafting boards. When I asked where all the people were, he said they got rid of them all because of our software. (that was awkward)
So, what does this mean for those good paying blue collar jobs we’ve heard so much about growing up? Pretty much gone because you don’t need to invest in people the way that you used to… People make careers out of making business owners rely less and less on their employees. So, what does that mean for the employees? The wages go down… why pay someone 30 bucks an hour to do something, when you can pay someone else 13 to do the same job?
I sometimes imagine what it’s going to be like 10 years from now… We’ve already got self checkout, easy pass, email, online banking, red box, and netflix… what other industries are going to go away that used to require “people”?
Take a good hard look at this X-Box kinex thing out there, imagine taking it to the next few levels, and think of the possibilities…
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Daveb1040, Most of the manufacturing jobs are indeed gone, due to the advances of technology, and so are the little towns that sprang up around the factories. But I was talking about skilled labor. The plumbers, electricians, mechanics, truck drivers etc. Jobs that still require a human being and still pay well. Many of the small business owners who run such businesses are willing to hire, but they have a hard time finding help with those skills. Probably because the young people they are wanting to hire all wanted to go to Berkley and major in Humanities. I think you are right that we should tell young people the truth. Regardless of what you chose to do, the main reason for having a career is to support yourself and your children. Not to “find yourself”. If the career you choose doesn’t pay enough, choose a different one instead of expecting the taxpayers (your gainfully employed friends and family) to make up the difference. With societies’ increasing dependence on computer technology, I wonder about the effects it will have on how we relate to each other. Already we see whole families sitting around the dinner table texting to someone in another state while ignoring those three feet from them. We would rather have complete strangers as FaceBook friends than get to know our next door neighbor .
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I agree… there are some jobs/fields that definitely won’t feel the same level of sting as others. It’s just that there are less of those jobs for the less ambitious…
And there seems to be a lot more “less ambitious” out there… It’s a typical generational argument, but I think there’s something to it…
As far as the dependency on technology… I mean, a mountain of pros, and a mountain of cons…
I remember in college, sitting at the library, going through card catalogs, and whatever that reference was to magazine articles, then going downstairs, checking out the microfilm, piles of books on my table at the library doing a research paper trying to find a tiny piece of information… I mean, 20 years ago, I wonder how long it would have taken you to find Hitler’s grandmother’s name… I have no doubt that would be at least an hour going up and down stairs, going through the aisle’s, hunting indexes… etc etc… now, plus “Hitler’s mother’s name” in google, and you’ve got it faster than it took you to type it. The information generation as I’d like to refer to us…
But, like all things, we probably take it too far… I love my smartphone, and fortunately, the novelty of always “being connected” has worn off, but wow… imagine being brought up on the Facebook/twitter era? I think, that when you “think” you really have 1000 friends, it diminishes the “real” relationships you do have. Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook is a great way to stay connected with people… but like everything, we have a tendency to take it too far. Got a spare 15 seconds on the elevator? Instead of chit chat about the weather or something, most of the time, you’ll see someone pull out their smartphone, and check Facebook…
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