Reply #125: Nine months so far

[Juche]

I am considering leaving the country and doing something overseas like teaching english for the next 5 years. My impression is that unemployment really isn't that important to the corporate and political bureaucracy that runs this country. In the great depression there were tons of projects. Now there really aren't. The stimulus was decent and may save/create 4 million or so jobs over its lifetime, but it wasn't nearly enough.

The problem for younger workers is twofold

1. No new jobs have been created (in 2000 we had 280 million people and 132 million jobs. We now have 315 million people and 129 million jobs).
2. The baby boomers can't retire because they can't afford it. So they will not be able to open positions for younger workers.

So no new jobs are created, and no old jobs open up due to retirement. Normally about 3 million people a year retire and leave the workforce, opening their old jobs up. And I don't think that is going to happen over the next 5-10 years because the collapse of the housing industry, pension system and stock market has wiped out a lot of boomers in their 50s and 60s. In a good/average year you might see 5 million jobs a year that are either new or due to retirements. Now it is probably closer to 1-2 million.

We are in a perfect storm of shit, and it honestly seems like nobody with any real power (the people in charge of corporate and political influence) really cares. Corporate profits are up $280 billion, and they are sitting on tons of cash. But nobody wants to hire.