A story in the New York Times today by dreadful dot-com era reporter Jennifer "8" Lee paints over the employment problems for today's recent college graduates in shocking neon rosy pink:
Young people LOVE being jobless, broke and on welfare.
Here is the story.
A Ms. Kelly, recently graduated from the University of Florida. Her career? She works part time as a secretary and does some freelance work for a website on the side. She has no money. In her position, many people would have no health insurance.
AND SHE LOVES IT!!!!
But is Ms. Kelly stressed out about the lack of a career path she spent four years preparing for? Not at all. Instead, she has come to appreciate her life. “I can cook and write at my own pace,” she said. “I kind of like that about my life.”
Well -- maybe this country doesn't have a jobs problem.
Underemployed people like their lives that way!
Spend $120k on a Harvard education, but no jobs to be had?
It's FAAAAABULOOOUS!!
Listen to this:
One night she bumped into a friend, who asked her to join a punk rock band, Titus Andronicus, as a guitarist. Once, that might have been considered professional suicide. But weighed against a dreary day job, music suddenly held considerable appeal. So last spring, she sublet her room in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn and toured the country in an old Chevy minivan.
“I’m fulfilling my artistic goals,” Ms. Klein said.
So don't feel bad for young people. No jobs? Food stamps?
It's a lifestyle they love -- why rock this boat?
Maybe we're going to become a nation of artists?
For Geo Wyeth, 27, who graduated from Yale in 2007, that means adopting a do-it-yourself approach to his career. After college, he worked at an Apple Store in New York as a salesclerk and trainer, while furthering his music career in an experimental rock band. He has observed, he said, a shift among his peers away from the corporate track and toward a more artistic mentality.
Meanwhile, from another New York Times website front page story, I just learned this:
Seeking Space, Well-to-Do Londoners Dig Deep.
They are building not just swimming pools, but also cinemas, recreation centers, gyms, wine cellars, bowling alleys, squash courts, climbing walls, servants’ quarters, saunas, waterfalls, Jacuzzis, hair salons and multicar garages with special elevators to shuttle vintage car collections up and down.
These two stories are related.