<p>Especially for points #4 and 5. </p>
<p>5</a> Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation | Cracked.com</p>
<p>Sakky, perhaps you have been guilty of those points but not all parents have been.</p>
<p>It’s a societal trend, nobody’s placing specific blame. And I’ve read the article myself and agree with many of the points. The idea that the universe owes you a great living and nobody has to scrub the toilets is misleading.</p>
<p>I wanted my D’s to work at one of our local McDonald’s, but around here in CA, all McD’s employees are 20 yr old-to-30-something men who barely speak English - same with the carwashers and construction jobs which might have been good first jobs for my S. Do kids do these jobs any more? They do not seem to be interested in teen employees anymore. What are some manual labor jobs that are open to teens nowadays? My Ds did work in retail and learned a lot from it.</p>
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<p>I believe the real issue, rather than assigning blame, is to determine what exactly is the best way to motivate youths to study hard and do well in school, when the economy is structured in a way that even if they do, they might still end up having to scrub the toilets anyway? For many people the whole point of studying hard and earning the best possible grades was to lift themselves from the underclass.</p>
<p>What we really need to apologize for is allowing our political system to become almost completely corrupted. That is the main complaint of the protesters, that the political system and the politicians have been taken over by corporate special interests. The corporate special interests get the politicians to pass laws making it even easier for the swindlers to legally perform their swindles, which allows them to accumulate even more wealth, which they use to buy more politicians and change more laws, which allows them to accumulate more wealth, … in a positive feedback loop, or a downward spiral, which, without fundamental change, will likely continue until the entire system comes crashing down. The people I know who have been involved in the protests see it something like that.</p>
<p>There are too many mediocre students going to low-tier colleges. They are the ones who will end up with the same jobs they would have had if they hadn’t gone to college. It is probably too un-politically correct to suggest that certain students are not college material and should go straight into manual labor jobs after high school.</p>
<p>If you think it’s tough to lift yourself out of the underclass with a college education, try doing it without one.</p>
<p>Good. You guys should be sorry. The generation that messed up Wall Street is the worst generation that’s been seen in a long time. Even worse when they become the self-righteous, crusty curmudgeons that they’re turning into.</p>
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<p>You can say that, but there are very few manual labor jobs left, they don’t pay enough to comfortably support a family, and the quality of those jobs is being eroded in numerous ways (automation, immigration, outsourcing).</p>
<p>I agree with you, al6200, that is what I think, too. I do not know the answer, other than reducing immigration levels.</p>
<p>^or increasing immigration of those who would create jobs?</p>
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<p>That seems rather ironic, does it not? After all, the immigrants who are likely to spark concern regarding the ‘stealing of jobs’ come from nations that are far poorer than the US. {I assume that nobody really minds wealthy foreigners such as David Beckham coming to the US, unless you want to argue that Beckham is somehow stealing a job that should have gone to an American soccer player.} Yet those poor immigrants who are purportedly ‘stealing jobs’ are simply trying to escape poverty and improve their lifestyles, having had the bad luck of being born in a poor country through no fault of their own. </p>
<p>If anybody represents the truly downtrodden 99% of the world, it’s poverty-stricken foreigners. Even a minimum-wage US job is far better than whatever they could make back home.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are plenty of Americans who would be appreciative of a minimum wage job right now. My S will be looking for one next summer. I hope he finds one.</p>
<p>The UFW ran a [Take</a> Our Jobs](<a href=“TAKEOURJOBS.ORG”>http://takeourjobs.org/) campaign trying to get US citizens to take farm worker jobs commonly taken by illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>They started it in June 2010; as of September 2010, seven US citizens took those jobs.
[UFW:</a> The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America](<a href=“http://ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=news_press&b_no=7195&page=2&field=&key=&n=661]UFW:”>http://ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=news_press&b_no=7195&page=2&field=&key=&n=661)
[UFW:</a> The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America](<a href=“http://ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=news_press&b_no=7812&page=1&field=&key=&n=680]UFW:”>http://ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=news_press&b_no=7812&page=1&field=&key=&n=680)</p>
<p>^An example of immigrants depressing market-based wages.</p>
<p>I have a lot of compassion for immigrants (how can we really blame someone for wanting - legally or not - to get their kids out of a violent situation where there isn’t enough food?), but I have to agree. My husband does electrical work, and his employers consistently hire about half their team in immigrants - legal and otherwise. They do highly skilled electrical work for about half of what american electricians will accept. The real problem is that unions have almost been destroyed in this country. In the past, unionized working class employers could never get away with replacing a bunch of guys making $20 an hour with Bosnians who will take $8.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this, sakky. This article makes a lot of excellent points although I really wish it proposed some solutions (maybe there aren’t any 
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<p>I do know that the mother of one of my DS’s friends told him that if he took a job bagging groceries (in HIGH SCHOOL), that girls wouldn’t want to go out with him… I guess she thought he should open his own consulting firm?</p>
<p>I’m distressed by how so many discussions such as this that focus upon the economic problems of struggling people inevitably are turned into the bashing of immigrants (or the people of China) - two groups that are far worse off than Americans are, through no fault of their own but just happened to have the bad luck of losing the ‘world birth lottery’ of not being born as Americans. I suspect that having poor people scapegoat each other for their ills is exactly what the 1% want.</p>