Market forces? Absolutely. But we were also misled into believing that we earned the luxury of our high expectations, like it was our birthright to be a critic or designer or documentary film maker.
When I was at a small liberal arts college in the 90s and considering a career in academia, I remember hearing conflicting things about the job market. From the same elder Gen-Xer who was my advisor, I heard that tenure track jobs were no longer guaranteed with a PhD but also that there would be many open slots on the horizon due to hordes of soon-to-be retiring Boomers. I said, "F*#* it" and went the academic route (literature) only for college administrations to turns those tenure track lines into adjunct positions. And so be it, I entered adjunct hell with everybody elbowing each other as we climb up the greasy ladder. Now I say that I wouldn't be sad if they DOGEd much of academia out of existence because it's not really serving anyone anymore beyond the administrators. My stepfather is a retired union HVAC commercial installation guy, and he said he could get me in the trade back in the late 90s. I seriously considered it, and now I wish I had went that route.
I read an article some years back about a guy named Omar the plumber. He wanted to be a fire inspector and went to a 2-year college to get his qualification, but later found out the hiring was done from within the fire departments. He then went on youtube and found plumbers were in short supply. He's doing well. The "market forces" you mentioned will determine what and how much are people willing to pay one to do. Then there's the problem with lack of long-term stability in employment. My grandfather was an insurance salesman, and he had pins for 5, 10, 15, 25, all the way to 45 years with the company. I believe the lack of commitment between employer/employee is a major factor in mental health problems today.
SPOT ON!!!! Add into this the Boomers constantly telling Xers that it’s our fault for not working hard enough or seizing those now nonexistent opportunities. Meanwhile- Boomers are high on the government pyramid schemes they created and benefit themselves from.
The Social Security Act was signed into law by FDR in 1935, a decade before the first "boomer" was born. Most of the people who created it were born in the 19th century.
That's the way it's meant to work, and it would work well if government incompetence and corruption were absent. When I was young the Social Security payments deducted from my checks benefitted people older than me at my expense. Now, after making those payments for half a century, I get benefits. It will one day benefit "Gen Z" people at the expense of people who haven't been born yet. Then those people will have their turn. "Boomers" haven't got any more of a free ride than anyone else has or ever will. Everybody pays, then later everybody benefits. Besides, whether you like Social Security or not, "Boomers" didn't invent it. It was in place long before we were born. It's just what we found when we got here and started our work lives, and we had no choice but to participate in it, just like people today.
The fiction is that it is some sort of government fund, but the reality is that younger people end up paying for older people in the expectation that still younger people will later pay for them. If there is a problem with this, part of the problem might be the millions of younger people who have been eliminated because of rampant abortion.
I went to college in the '90s and worked in my disappointing profession for over twenty years. If I had it all to do over, I'd skip college, learn all the building trades, and become a contractor specializing in restoring old houses.
The ideal is to have a job that we really love. At minimum, we need a job that we can at least tolerate reasonably well while we pursue our own interests on the side. The real horror is a job that we absolutely hate, especially when it has long hours that take us away from the things that are really important to us.
When I was at a small liberal arts college in the 90s and considering a career in academia, I remember hearing conflicting things about the job market. From the same elder Gen-Xer who was my advisor, I heard that tenure track jobs were no longer guaranteed with a PhD but also that there would be many open slots on the horizon due to hordes of soon-to-be retiring Boomers. I said, "F*#* it" and went the academic route (literature) only for college administrations to turns those tenure track lines into adjunct positions. And so be it, I entered adjunct hell with everybody elbowing each other as we climb up the greasy ladder. Now I say that I wouldn't be sad if they DOGEd much of academia out of existence because it's not really serving anyone anymore beyond the administrators. My stepfather is a retired union HVAC commercial installation guy, and he said he could get me in the trade back in the late 90s. I seriously considered it, and now I wish I had went that route.
I read an article some years back about a guy named Omar the plumber. He wanted to be a fire inspector and went to a 2-year college to get his qualification, but later found out the hiring was done from within the fire departments. He then went on youtube and found plumbers were in short supply. He's doing well. The "market forces" you mentioned will determine what and how much are people willing to pay one to do. Then there's the problem with lack of long-term stability in employment. My grandfather was an insurance salesman, and he had pins for 5, 10, 15, 25, all the way to 45 years with the company. I believe the lack of commitment between employer/employee is a major factor in mental health problems today.
SPOT ON!!!! Add into this the Boomers constantly telling Xers that it’s our fault for not working hard enough or seizing those now nonexistent opportunities. Meanwhile- Boomers are high on the government pyramid schemes they created and benefit themselves from.
The Social Security Act was signed into law by FDR in 1935, a decade before the first "boomer" was born. Most of the people who created it were born in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, it works like a pyramid scheme benefits Boomers at the expense of all of those coming after.
That's the way it's meant to work, and it would work well if government incompetence and corruption were absent. When I was young the Social Security payments deducted from my checks benefitted people older than me at my expense. Now, after making those payments for half a century, I get benefits. It will one day benefit "Gen Z" people at the expense of people who haven't been born yet. Then those people will have their turn. "Boomers" haven't got any more of a free ride than anyone else has or ever will. Everybody pays, then later everybody benefits. Besides, whether you like Social Security or not, "Boomers" didn't invent it. It was in place long before we were born. It's just what we found when we got here and started our work lives, and we had no choice but to participate in it, just like people today.
The fiction is that it is some sort of government fund, but the reality is that younger people end up paying for older people in the expectation that still younger people will later pay for them. If there is a problem with this, part of the problem might be the millions of younger people who have been eliminated because of rampant abortion.
I went to college in the '90s and worked in my disappointing profession for over twenty years. If I had it all to do over, I'd skip college, learn all the building trades, and become a contractor specializing in restoring old houses.
The ideal is to have a job that we really love. At minimum, we need a job that we can at least tolerate reasonably well while we pursue our own interests on the side. The real horror is a job that we absolutely hate, especially when it has long hours that take us away from the things that are really important to us.