[jolepp]

... The most worrisome aspect about our current slump is that it combines obvious short-term problems — from the financial crisis — with less obvious long-term problems. Those long-term problems include a decade-long slowdown in new-business formation, the stagnation of educational gains and the rapid growth of industries with mixed blessings, including finance and health care.
...
Perhaps the most important reason, beyond the financial crisis, is the overall skill level of the work force. The United States is the only rich country in the world that has not substantially increased the share of young adults with the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree over the past three decades. ...

In particular, three giant industries — finance, health care and housing — now include large amounts of unproductive capacity. Housing may have shrunk, but it is still a bigger, more subsidized sector in this country than in many others. Health care is far larger, with the United States spending at least 50 percent more per person on medical care than any other country, without getting vastly better results. (Some aspects of our care, like certain cancer treatments, are better, while others, like medical error rates, are worse.) The contrast suggests that a significant portion of medical spending is wasted, be it on approaches that do not make people healthier or on insurance-company bureaucracy.

In finance, trading volumes have boomed in recent decades, yet it is unclear how much all the activity has lifted living standards. Paul A. Volcker, the former Fed chairman, has mischievously said that the only useful recent financial innovation was the automated teller machine. Critics like Mr. Volcker argue that much of modern finance amounts to arbitrage, in which technology and globalization have allowed traders to profit from being the first to notice small price differences.

IN the process, Wall Street has captured a growing share of the world’s economic pie — thereby increasing inequality — without doing much to expand the pie. It may even have shrunk the pie, given that a new International Monetary Fund analysis found that higher inequality leads to slower economic growth.

The common question with these industries is whether they are using resources that could do more economic good elsewhere. “The health care problem is very similar to the finance problem,” says Lawrence F. Katz, a Harvard economist, “in that incredibly talented people are wasting their talent on something that is essentially a zero-sum game.”
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sunday-review/the-depression-if-only-thing...that-good.html

---

Last edited by jolepp; 10-09-2011 at 01:10 PM.

[magkelly]

I rather got that idea myself when I spent the equivalent of a down payment on a real house on a supposedly valuable tech degree and it got me nowhere. My one nephew is of an age where he would be going off to college? He's going for pro bowling instead. Figures his fab bowling skills are likely more valuable than any he could pick up in college, and you know what? I believe he's right. Way too many $$$ down the road and I still ended up in retail and doing office clerk stuff and I still have way too much student loan debt and for what? Nada...

[Parallax]

Kelly, I'm with you completely. A college degree used to mean something. It rarely does any more, except in fields where it is traditionally necessary. An advanced degree is even more of an obstacle. My wife was passed over for more than one job, I'm convinced, because she listed her master's degree.

[magkelly]

I actually had a cheerful and frank discussion the other day with the folks at my student loan company. I tried consolidating and it didn't get me any less of a monthly bill really. $25 less, maybe, big deal. It's just been going to one place instead of two. I was sitting there the other night looking at my bills list and at my bank register and I just got so mad I nearly cried. I had a huge unexpected vet bill this month. It just wiped out my bank account and my CC balance is just grim. I barely made my share of the maintenance fees (rent) for Oct. That monthly loan payment is almost the equivalent of my rent and I have absolutely nothing to show for spending all that money every month. In fact I am poorer at this point than I was while I was in college.

I can't qualify for a deference anymore. They won't reduce the payment either the jerks. So basically I'm forking out far more money each month than I can afford just to keep them from giving it to a debt collector? All I can really say is "Whoopie, fool me!" every time I write that darn check! At the same time I'm getting nowhere in retail or office work. Unemployment is at like 11%. I'm older than most vying for employment here, and even when I get work I can't even anything but p/t hours. I'm about to launch a couple of web stores to actually give me something by way of steady work, I hope. I just opened one tonight in fact, loaded up my first pics, descriptions et all. I'm waiting on approval to launch as I type. It looks like the mostly self taught photography lessons and the mentor thing might just pay off somewhat in the end. I've got a few photo assignments lined up for this Fall anyway. That's not a real job either yet, but I have hopes it will be sooner or later.

I'm blessed in the mentors, I will give credit due, but almost everything I have done in my life that actually ended up making me a dime, that's been me, and not my degree work. My credentials they look fine on paper but in reality they are useless. I got absolutely zip out of design school and college and considering the money I spent, still owe, that's just plain sad. I told the woman at the loan company I was done paying $300 a month foe a debt owed to schools that I felt completely ripped me off. They can either reduce the payment or they can just sick the bill collectors on me and collect my tax return instead. I've literally been paying on said student loan debt since 2002. I have yet to clear away much but the interest on the debt, and I'm getting heartily tired of paying for something that I just don't feel was legit to begin with. They've refused so far, but I'm at the point where I just won't budge on this. They either reduce it or I quit, period.

I did not get the skills I truly needed to make it in that field, and more importantly I didn't get the help they promised needed to find work in my field either. 90% of what they taught me was crap, and I actually ended up teaching myself more out of books later than they taught me in class. So why am I paying them $300 a month again? Going broke because they scammed me? I thought about it and I just decided I wasn't too happy with that situation and that I had to quit, at least until I could get to the point where I can make enough money to live on. If I've got money to burn, whatever, but I never do and this $$$ every month, it's just been adding insult to injury and I really cannot afford it anymore.

The woman I talked to was like "Oh but you don't want to end up being a financial deadbeat do you?" Well, of course not. I don't think my credit needs that hit. But that's $300 which is often nearly 1/3 to 1/4 of my total monthly budget for the month depending upon what I make. I just lost my food stamps, hit my limit there, so what am I supposed to do to keep the fridge filled and my bills paid but quit paying on the interest on the stupid thing? It's not like I am hitting very much of the loan's primary debt anyway.

If some young person came to me right now and asked me if going to college was a good idea I'd have to tell them "No" with a couple of exceptions maybe things like medical and law school. Many of the professions that were once sure bets are anything but these days and I honestly think that getting a degree may not help at all. I'm a prime example of someone who got duped into thinking more school would make for a better life and I certainly did live to regret it. If I could go back, I wouldn't touch college or design school. Me, I thought I was hedging my bets even by doing both, but in the end it was a fool's choice and a huge waste of money. If I actually do make it, make a decent living like you're supposed to be doing by my age? It won't be because I went back to school that much I know.

Would I feel guilty about not paying back Uncle Sam? Yeah, but then again I'd be able to go to the movies once in a while or buy a few rolls of film without having to skip lunch for a week to do it too. It all comes down to quality of life and how much time you think you might have in the end. I'm not a kid anymore. I can't afford to just keep on handing the federal government this much of what little I make. I'm saving nothing for when I get old and that's not good. I've got no kids. I have to have enough to take care of myself when I get older than God. There's no one there waiting in the wings to do that and the way things are going our government surely won't have the money to keep a roof over my head at that point now will it? I'll be lucky if I get $50 a month from SS the way I am working now and I can't hardly live on that now can I? Something has to be left over to make it into an IRA soon here or my golden years will be pretty scary!

[shooz]

Some say that only happens with a degree in fine arts.
I hope your photography takes off......................................

My daughter is currently in university taking Chinese and Japanese.
Hopefully, that's a good choice. She's doing well and on the deans list...................
She financing through scholarships, grants, loans and what my wife and I can afford to give.

[GeneV]

Interesting that the article picked the Television as an example. It would appear to be a pretty good example of how difficult it can be to invent a financially successful innovation with challenges from mammoth corporations. Television History - Invention of Television IMO, if we want to encourage entrepreneurship, we first need to divorce ourselves from the idea that what is good for Wall St. or WalMart is good for main street.

Here are some steps IMO,

Enact programs that take health care and retirement benefits out of the hands of business (and unions). Level the playing field for new graduates to start their own businesses.
Expand free or low cost education, so that graduates are not required immediately to pay huge debts.
Expand small business lending
Re-examine trade rules
Unify the the tax and reporting systems for small businesses. I shouldn't have to file a dozen tax forms each quarter.
Unify the regulatory environment. The irony is that as the call comes for less federal taxation and regulation, this responsibility devolves to states

[jolepp]

A grim-looking graph:


(from Declining Household Income - Graphic - NYTimes.com, story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html)

[Nesster]

I work for one of the TARP banks, got here through a chain of acquisitions (started out with the once King of Wall St)... this chart for me and my peers would look uglier even, most of us have given up a ton of pay & are at mid to late 90's levels now. Of course benefits have become more expensive with less coverage in the meanwhile, and the chunk of our pay that was in the form of equity is either worthless or down 95% from where it traded pre-crisis.

I can venture that the same is the case across financials and the law firms etc that service them.

[GeneV]

I work for one of the TARP banks, got here through a chain of acquisitions (started out with the once King of Wall St)... this chart for me and my peers would look uglier even, most of us have given up a ton of pay & are at mid to late 90's levels now. Of course benefits have become more expensive with less coverage in the meanwhile, and the chunk of our pay that was in the form of equity is either worthless or down 95% from where it traded pre-crisis.

I can venture that the same is the case across financials and the law firms etc that service them.

How are the CEOs doing?

[Nesster]

Let's put it this way: the amount they lost in underwater options and stock plans is significant. Any $1 salary they lived on has been replaced... by large bonuses with significant equity components.

In general, what seems to have happened is the Masters of the Universe - below CEO definitely - got theirs, though perhaps a bit less... but with bases salaries way way up... and the haircuts progressed down the chain to where bonuses become alltogether abolished. fair share and relative to contribution, eh, just like Republican tax policy...

[grhazelton]

A further sad trend is for the "best and the brightest" to go into finance and Wall Street, where the real money was, and to a large extent, still is, instead of the sciences or engineering or something which builds real products instead of chimera. But of course when presidential candidates express doubt in settled science, evolution, and in climate change for which there is broad qualified acceptance I can understand why many wouldn't want to have their professional knowledge yahooed, as Jonathan Swift would have put it.

Contrary to most "civilized" countries teachers at all levels are accorded little respect in the US. How many really good students want to go into teaching and endure low pay, hideous hours (don't forget grading homework!) and the death of a thousand cuts from local politicos seeking places to cut budgets.

My daughter recently finished her PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Thankfully she was able to finance both her MA at Notre Dame and the PhD through assistantships, etc, but now comes the struggle to stay employed. She had a one year fellowship at U Wisc Madison and now she's filling in for a sabbatical at Beloit, but after that who knows? Making a living as a poet is even riskier than photography, unless you land a teaching job. I'm sure she wouldn't want to teach in public schools unless there were no alternative. Imagine, holding a PhD from a good school, with college teaching experience, and being told "You need some "education" courses before we can consider you" by some clerk at the county school board.

And we don't want to think of health care costs and saving for retirement without a teaching position or some sort of continuing employment.

[Nesster]

A further sad trend is for the "best and the brightest" to go into finance and Wall Street, where the real money was, and to a large extent, still is, instead of the sciences or engineering or something which builds real products instead of chimera.

Yes, the employment and pay distortion mirrors the capital distortion generated by Wall St. Instead of useful service, Wall St having become overly large has to a good degree concentrated on enriching itself through innovative financial engineering - and the social value of that is very debatable. Regulating banks more is a good step, but unfortunately all this does is enable the hedge funds to do even more.

[Ratmagiclady]

A further sad trend is for the "best and the brightest" to go into finance and Wall Street, where the real money was, and to a large extent, still is, instead of the sciences or engineering or something which builds real products instead of chimera. But of course when presidential candidates express doubt in settled science, evolution, and in climate change for which there is broad qualified acceptance I can understand why many wouldn't want to have their professional knowledge yahooed, as Jonathan Swift would have put it.

Contrary to most "civilized" countries teachers at all levels are accorded little respect in the US. How many really good students want to go into teaching and endure low pay, hideous hours (don't forget grading homework!) and the death of a thousand cuts from local politicos seeking places to cut budgets.

My daughter recently finished her PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Thankfully she was able to finance both her MA at Notre Dame and the PhD through assistantships, etc, but now comes the struggle to stay employed. She had a one year fellowship at U Wisc Madison and now she's filling in for a sabbatical at Beloit, but after that who knows? Making a living as a poet is even riskier than photography, unless you land a teaching job. I'm sure she wouldn't want to teach in public schools unless there were no alternative. Imagine, holding a PhD from a good school, with college teaching experience, and being told "You need some "education" courses before we can consider you" by some clerk at the county school board.

And we don't want to think of health care costs and saving for retirement without a teaching position or some sort of continuing employment.

Yeah, it's pretty awful, that way. Frankly, the big-money-big-religion "Free," (as in totally-bought-out and corporate controlled) market agenda may appeal to people's politics and even say they 'protect families,' and promise much, but what's happened has always been the opposite.

I look at what the 'conservative' agenda of infinite profit for the ultra-rich, social control for the uber-self-righteous, and ignorance for the 'masses' they scorn and blame... has actually done, even in my own life, especially as they claim, 'Pick yourself up, get an expensive education, and work yourself out of hock for us, if we feel like letting that happen, but, oh, not you, and not you, and not you.... Why don't you want to indoctrinate our children to ignorance and bigotry for peanuts while we demand said mortgaged education and treat you like the bad guy?"


They even want to protect the kind of thugs and thuggery that have a lot of smart (and especially LGBT) kids, hurt, broken, or dead, coping with families torn apart over bigotry, before we even *get* into qualifying for college or even working-world range... Then blame the people dealing with this insane system for the obvious and colossal failures of them *getting* their own way so long. They see regular people holding up some signs and call it a 'Class Warfare violent Left mob,' ... when the real problem is they've been screwing *everyone* so long that they want to keep pushing it *till* maybe there's *real* social disorder. I wouldn't play 'Civ II' with their policies, never mind accept personal/collective personal 'blame' for the kind of situations that actually occur.

I didn't get to finish college, myself. And that sure cost. kind of like getting 'brain'-bashed, as well as 'queer-bashed' without the benefits. Fact was, though, I *went* to state school over the Ivy League in order to *not* be beholden to debt and others desperate to try and 'convert' me to some kind of submission. No sooner was I committed to that 'by the bootstraps' course than Republicans get in state office and rearrange things so state university goes from world-class university to can't-get-through-a-semester-and-it-costs-more -than-full time labor-could-pay for.

There went *my* fallback plan. A dear one of mine and I were actually like, 'Oh, this won't work, maybe we should *both* try and be teachers,' and then there's the 'Culture war' trying to expunge queer folks and non-Christians from education. (While turning the 'education' program into where washouts from other programs would pay to provide *day care* ...never mind teach high school. )

I've always been a 'cash on the barrelhead' type person, but those 'Christian Values' were anything but *that,* they were about even families who worked for the public all their lives going into hock for 'private Catholic education' and then expecting 'Obey prejudice and follow the path of greed, then be pious' was going to somehow result in more than debt... Then of course start blaming both workers and victims if anyone actually needs to *collect* on what they worked on paying into.. So what do they do, they redouble the bigotry, and redouble the victim blaming... Even saying of people they approve of as workers, "You just aren't working hard enough, rent-to-own a big-screen TV and work twice as hard for effectively-less pay, while identifying with the rich people you see on that big TV... Blame yourself, 'work harder,' and when that hurts too much, blame someone different from you and 'try harder,' "


It's particularly irksome when they go at education and teachers, though: they have this ideology where only failures become teachers, cause the 'elect' would be able to make more money, then they say, 'Teachers are awful cause they're 'liberals' because they accept our demands they self-sacrifice and help others *learn,* ...when no one will take that job to be a prison guard and indoctrinator anymore! We demand ideological purity of ignorance! Why aren't the kids learning how to be brilliant technicians and engineers that can double-think between making Lidar for Lockheed *and* insist there's no such thing as Relativity!' Why can't these kids taught they don't have to learn biology and evolution make the genetically-modified crops so Monsanto and Dow can virtuously-profiteer?"


Fact is, the rent's too damn high, and the pay's too damn low. It's been that way since things changed in the late 80s. Suddenly state school went from 'I have every merit scholarship on the books: I can get a degree if I can work to cover lab fees and clothe myself' to 'It'd be cheaper to live off campus and work jobs that... Oh, can barely cover *living* with a full-time wage, never mind school...' By the time some more bad things befell me, and *really* bad PTSD set in, it was *already* too late for that old 'Stay out of debt, work hard, stand on your own' ethic I was kind of raised to.

Meanwhile, I got a family that spent *way* more than they could afford to tear itself apart, in part just to try and pound me into being some kind of straight money-wanting Catholic, with a fear and fervor that didn't do *them* any service, either. (Then they had the temerity to be like, 'Did those abusive priests make you queer,' and I was like, 'No, they played us all off each other cause that covered for what *they* did. They didn't get *me* but they sure made sure no one would *listen* to me." It was surreal and awful, and not all about sex, in practice, but this was what it was, money and sex and power and as much scorn, doublethink, and division as it took. Then they say, 'Just make a lot of money and you can be 'on top' of all this... '


I watched a lot of people go mad, turn mean, give up, die, flip out and get expelled, some apparently become right-wing fanatics with age, or very occasionally, register that the 'heathen punk witch' or whatever was about some things for a reason.

One thing's clear, though: what the Right's about, they do intend for people to pay for. I suppose it makes some of them feel invested in it. Maybe so they'll do still worse rather than admit they actually hurt people, which to humanity's credit is a hard thing to face.


I wasn't a declared Pagan in high school, actually, but I wasn't what you'd call asleep-and-sheep, either, and when they covered the Holocaust and all, something really did bother me there, and I posed the question between myself and the spirit world, 'No, wait a minute, what *really* brought people to that.'

I did pay attention, did explore, in time get my answers, and I do look at what the GOP's playing at, doublespeak and all, and say, 'Take Warning.'


What the 'Christian Right' is about is not 'Family Values' ...It's about *dividing families with their 'wedge issues,' *

It's not about *supporting* people, it's about making them *desperate* and *paying* to try and coerce each other.


Then when that doesn't work claim it's all about money being the reward of virtue. By being unvirtuous, demanding more than people can pay, and still saying 'It's your fault for borrowing, like we sold you,'

I'm not a bad person, not an idle person, not a greedy person, not a selfish person, and certainly not, as anyone who ever courted me would attest, a 'lustful' person... But people who can't keep it in their pants themselves still want to run our lives based on *their* hangups. Tear apart real people and real families on *their* say-so and the shame they want to try and induce cause no one actually lives up or down to their model.


I know, myself, that that never saved anyone a buck, not one that was worth the cost, anyway, and it's a sadness to me that after all I and my own family have been through, my own folks, who have in the past been frightened people, but are not bad people either, well, also have had to pay out of their retirement. Just to keep me off the street. Cause of damage done a long time ago. It's only a few hundred bucks, but without them I'd be homeless again, even if they and I *paid* for Social Security, *paid* for public schools and universities, (which turned into both a battle for survival for me against *paid* again to try and take out of me,) ...then paid and paid for 'Christian' schooling' where I learned all kinds of new levels of surreal and trying to just get other kids *through* shit, and all the money they spent there to end up spending *more* to *really* make things hard and damaging.... Well, they didn't get a genius kid helping the world with an Ivy League education, (Part of why I *ran* was that they'd probably both remortgage the house and use that as a constant reason to try and convert me and claim I owed them that or else.) And then the Christian Right and their corporate masters would say 'It's your fault for being in debt, or not orthodox Fundie enough,' and if you're not virtuous enough to be rich, let us starve you out and kick you constantly if you're impious enough to get *hurt* when we hurt you....

It's like when junior high school Protestant authoritarians find you beaten on the floor, say, 'This is your fault, troublemaker! And kick you a lot, saying, 'Get up!' Then maybe kick you more, if you say, 'Pardon if I'm not more ladylike about my bleeding,' in whatever blubbering sixth grade version that would have come out as. (I mean, hey, you get beaten up by boys cause the girls don't give you consideration, then get dragged into an assistant super's office and tuned up more for being a 'source of trouble,' you clue into some of this game pretty quick.... Frankly, I think it's where conservative pols get their idea how the world 'is supposed to work' to begin with. It's how bullies 'win' and also what they're so desperately-scared will happen to *them* if they don't do it to others, first. They grew up in these schools, too.

I've come to accept that some of these bastards actually hurt me, but I did look em in the eye when they did it. And that doesn't change just cause they get elected somewhere on 'tax' questions.





I mean, the way my story is, if *anything's* unnecessarily-expensive, it's the hate, bigotry, fear, and abusive dynamic.

*That* we can't afford, especially right now. Cause ye mighty are about to run short of gas as well as customers with anything much to bleed out of us.

And we're at the point where if you aren't in that 'one percent,' hurting me or my family will not profit you... Anymore.


Some of my family are still Christian, and hurting me or telling them to hate me ....Or using the government to separate me from my dear one and all we worked for all this past decade, ...Will neither help the economy, help the Christians in the family, un-kick, un-malnourish, or un-traumatize *me* ....never mind convince your own Texas credit agencies to stop treating me as a 'bad credit risk' cause I've never *touched* a credit card.... Well, that sure won't 'save the economy,' nor actually improve the 'bottom line' when you demand families destroy each other over your hypocrisy, hate, theocratic ambitions, and hangups.


Long way around 'student debt,' but I think it's part of it. Someone actually rewrote the big Christian prayer to be about 'tresspass,' (ie 'sacred property rights') instead of 'debts.' Not too long ago.

People pay to justify a lot of things. Hating each other among them. Then they say 'debt' is sacrosanct and virtuous. Scapegoat people for not being their idea of Hebrew enough... claim, 'By rights I should kill you, never mind treat you as an American citizen,' the OT says so... and I haven't heard one say 'Jubilee' yet.


And the simple fact is, Republicans, ...the F'n bigotry you vote for every time hasn't saved you any money, it's meant I *don't* get off Social Security, help my sweetie save the plants and educate the kids, while I try and start small business... It means I'm trying to start trying to sell the photographic equivalent of matchsticks, if I can clear the fifty bucks to make this machine I'm lucky to have run my Paintshop Pro without losing files.

Forget about what a *degree* is supposed to be worth, everything the Right does is *destructive.* It was all sweetie and I could do to leave me with a mostly-working car just so I can get *medicine and a few groceries.* The Right wants to say, 'Well, you people shouldn't have credit cards,' .... But if you *don't* have one running a balance, every utility in the book wants a chunk of your nest egg up front just to have the lights or water or Internet on.

But the Christian Right' has this phantasmagoric notion that the 'Invisible Hand of The Market' either forgives or absolves, while they keep demanding more and more right to kick people they don't like, and blame regular folks by whatever means they can.

Worst mistake I ever made was zeroing out debts with what was left of my education. If the credit-reporting legbreakers aren't into you for *something* then they have no interest in even admitting you exist. And they call it 'morals.'


While doing all they can to hurt you and your families over and over and over again, as if delaying justice or fairness doesn't mean that even outside their own standards of like 'sudden redemption,' ... They actually put it on the rest of us as 'losers' that if even if they deign to not oppress us right now, that 'If you were spiritually-right with the world, sooner or later we'll un-kick-you.'


There's ways in which I can't be 'un-kicked.' Unless someone clones me a new endocrine system, even at my best, I just can't do all I used to be able to do, back during some other kickings. I'm not useless, but I've only got a few hours of certain forms of moving. All they've done to people like me for the past twenty years is what most people call 'the prime of life.' Especially by their own financial 'logic,' that can't be undone. I like to think I bounced back pretty good, but, damn. No one can say it was cause I was stupid or lazy, though.

[mikemike]

get an expensive education

No one ever forces anyone to get an expensive education. There are good cheap schools in every state of this nation which offer discounted in-state tuition rates. You can go through a full 4 year program at your state university for less than the price of 1 year at a brand name school like Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Harvard, Tulane, Westleyen, or Columbia. Why people borrow tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to these schools is beyond me. The decision some people make regarding their educational and career choices is equivalent to buying a Lamborghini with zero down, a minimum wage job, and a family to haul around. These expensive universities should certainly be more up-front with their market and let people know that the expensive education they offer is not for everyone. Instead, they often chase diversity and actively go after disadvantaged minorities who can least afford those schools.

I have no problem with people getting through university debt free or even without paying a dime. A republican governor in Louisiana created the TOPS scholarship program which basically allows anyone who graduated from a Louisiana HS, got a certain score (21 IIRC) on the ACT, and maintains at least a 3.5 GPA in university has an almost full ride to in-state public colleges. After a certain point, you cannot make education compulsory and the government cannot provide it with no-strings-attached. The student has to step up to the plate and do their part to earn the best financial assistance packages. I was able to secure a full ride scholarship to a private out of state college when I got out of high school but managed to blow it by partying a little too much. Instead of continuing that course when I lost my scholarship I transfered to a LA college where I could get in-state tuition and instead of taking out a loan I got a job. Paying my own way with money I had to work for and earn myself certainly focused me on my coursework and made me a much better student.

[Nesster]

Recession Nightmare: From Unemployed to Unemployable

45 percent of the unemployed have been jobless for more than six months.
Of those unemployed more than 12 months, only 1 in 10 return to work.
Unemployment for college graduates is is 4.2 percent No degree, 9.8 percent.
...
Long-term unemployment is becoming the defining feature of the Great Recession. As of September, the average time out of work stands at 40.5 weeks. Of the 14 million unemployed, about 45 percent have been jobless for more than six months, and over 70 percent of those have not worked in a year or more. No other business cycle since the 1930s has come close to matching the current experience.
...

People are less likely to move from unemployment to employment the longer they are out of work. Of people who have been jobless for more than 12 months, only about 1 in 10 have returned to work, while about 90 percent have either remained unemployed or dropped out of the labor force, according to a Labor Dept. study. Since the recession began, the labor force participation rate, defined as the percentage of the population aged 16 and over who are employed or seeking work, has fallen by the most in post-war history to levels not seen since the early 1980s.

...

Studies show that the extension of unemployment benefits—to 99 weeks in some states—has lengthened the average duration of unemployment by about two to six weeks. However, analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in a recent research paper note that since the extension, the average duration has increased by 18 weeks, suggesting that much more is at work than the benefit program’s disincentive to look for work. “After a long period of unemployment, affected workers may become effectively unemployable,” they say