[nascarnation]

I’ve sent several recent grads from here in Indiana to DC and they have prospered.

DC area is the only one with job security.

The boys wear 1000 dollar suits and the girls 400 dollar handbags, dresses, and shoes.

[Organic Panic]

Since my working life at about 16 I have lost count of how many jobs I have. When I wasn’t working for myself I use to have older bosses who would look at my resume and ask why I have had so many jobs. They don’t realize it has been this way since the 90s. Probably earlier.

It started to be a running joke among friends to have our resumes refreshed on a daily basis. Sure enough it was true. Even in the large aircraft companies the longest person there was maybe 5 years.

Now it’s just the way it is. If you aren’t flexible and keep your skills updated and keep educating yourself you will lose when the doors are closed.

Me, I’m self unemployed now. The people that can shut me down and destroy me are the government bureaucrats. I have plenty of customers.

Sure you can get 8 years of Obamaunemployment benefits so that has a lot to do with it. Why work when it’s free?

[Don Corleone]

the "20-year career and a gold watch" model,

Actually I had more like a 40 year career, did not get a gold watch but was able to put aside an adequate retirement kitty. The Marxists are plotting to destroy all that if we let them.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Those days, which Allison Pugh, professor of Sociology at University of Virginia, refers to as the "20-year career and a gold watch" model, are over.

Only in Greece or the government sector was it "20 years" for a career. It was usually 40 years and a gold watch.

The exception to that has always been the military (even going back to the Roman era.)

[SuzyQue]

One thing I think we tend to overlook in this kind of analysis is that the post WWII era was an anomaly and not the norm. In the years right after WWII, Europe and Japan were destroyed (and Japan had never been a manufacturing industry) and that left US to build the cars, ships, refrigerators, lawnmowers, etc. As Europe recovered, Japan modernized, and third world countries developed manufacturing ability, we Americans lost our almost-monopoly.

I think we need to look forward and not backwards.

[dfwgator]

After World War II, there was a golden era when Americans, especially those that had an education, could expect to have a job and keep it until retirement and retire with an adequate pension.

Which represents but a blip in time, the rest of history has been like it is now, your livelihood is a day-to-day thing.

[vpintheak]

I am thankful and blessed to work at a utility. The work may be boring most of the time, but it is steady and important to keep the lights on.
I also work harder and know more than the others in my group and my boss knows it.

[Sirius Lee]

The end of any semblance of job security and stability harkens the dawn of the neo-nomadic society, which spells the end of land-as-property era, and thus the demise of the middle class.

It's being driven intentionally by a small group of well heeled social engineers who do not have humanity's best interest at heart.

[informavoracious]

You didn’t even need an education. Working on a car assembly line or being a telephone operator garnered good benefits and a secure pension. Sadly, many of those that benefitted from the post-WWII affluence think “they deserved it” as though the rest of is don’t. They just had the good fortune of being of working age during boom times. They got social security AND their pension (often with lifetime medical). It isn’t sustainable.