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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly

The "quiet catastrophe" is particularly dismaying because it is so quiet, without social turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

The work rate for adult men has plunged 13 percentage points in a half-century. This "work deficit" of "Great Depression-scale underutilization" of male potential workers is the subject of Nicholas Eberstadt's new monograph "Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis," which explores the economic and moral causes and consequences of this:

Is it an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come?


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  • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 09 2016, @01:33PM

    by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Sunday October 09 2016, @01:33PM (#412051)

    You're way too used to talking to people with a modicum of intelligence.

    At least half (likely much more) aren't capable of understanding even the most basic problems of society, and that's without the drugs or television! Just look at my countries choices for leadership this year. And the cheerleaders of both sides defend their actions. That's not rational.

    Bread and Circuses. Make sure they have at least something on the line and keep 'em just happy enough not to rise up, because when they truly have nothing to lose.....well, we know where that story goes.

    Automation though, is going to make this go around a lot more interesting, and governments are slow to react to change. What will they do when most service, driving, janitorial and industrial jobs are automated? There will have to be a massive change to society to keep it in check once only mechanics, coders, and politicians have real jobs. (way oversimplified I know, but I'm rambling as it is, too much drugs and TV...)

    Idiocracy is fast becoming a documentary.

    --
    Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:44PM (#412106)

    Idiocracy was a commentary on our society, not a prediction. We are already there, minus some of the exaggerations.