As a fellow ITer, I can say that most of the non-IT people in this country do not care about our plight, they think we were overpaid for sitting at our cubes. As far as the rest of the world, they love to see the US standard of living get knocked down a peg or two.
The bottom line is, don't expect anyone to help, especially the government. It's not what many want to hear, but it's the truth.
Much of what you say is true. A lot of folks figure hey, you had a good ride, but it's over, which seems to be true. To me it's just common sense. We all knew at the time that it was an insane stock market--ok, not everyone knew, but
come on, you had to have your head in the sand not to know--everyone knew that times were really cooking, that CEOs were delirious about the New Economy and were buying into it BIG TIME. And so, unless you were a total moron, you had to know it was going to end. Just common sense would tell you.
So what do you do? Well, if you are smart, you might try saving that money, and/or investing it wisely and prudently, while continuing to maintain a reasonable, frugal standard of living. But many didn't. And now they are on the curb.
I don't know. Maybe it's me. I am not that old, but I have already "retooled" myself a few times, and I basically go on the idea that a) no one owes me a living and b) you gotta huck and chuck to survive in this world. So I don't let it get me down if the stock market's down, or there's a war, or a recession, or whatever. Those are all just excuses to fail.
The thing that concerns me is that we have a service-based and consumption-based economy. If you cut wages and jobs broadly enough, people will stop using services and stop consuming and then we'll be where Japan is. And there is no end in site to where Japan is and deflation is starting to kick in. I think our biggest hope lies in the Bush administration letting the dollar weaken. That will simultaneously make imports and overseas outsourcing less attractive and exports more attractive while preserving asset values within the US.
As a fellow ITer, I can say that most of the non-IT people in this country do not care about our plight, they think we were overpaid for sitting at our cubes. One good reason this is being done piecemeal ---one job category at a time. No one cared when garment workers were permanently put out of work, then no one cared when factory workers lost their jobs. The IT people got it next and higher skilled manufacturing types too.