No, we're the Atari generation.
If that's the problem, then 'splain this one on me:
I got a BSEE degree on an Army scholarship--student loans 0. I served as a counterintell officer until I got so sick of the Clinton Army and its institutional failures that I left honorably in '95.
I had a security clearance and a BSEE degree, I figured I had a good shot--I applied at the National Lab my dad retired from. His pal there told me: "If you aren't a minority with a master's degree, we don't have a place for you."
I was unemployed for 6 months pounding the pavement until I took a job installing security systems, safes and vaults for 8 bucks an hour. The bookkeeper ran off with 60k and the company folded. I was there a year.
I was out of work for 5 months until I took a job installing computer network cabling for 8.50 an hour. Our main client went bankrupt and that company folded as well. I was there a year.
I was out of work for 9 months looking for a job as an actual electrical engineer. I finally found one, I was on my way! The company was bought by an Eskimo tribe, they failed to keep the 8a status current, we lost all our gov contracts, they moved eskimos into all the leadership positions and I was out on the street. I was there 18 mos.
I was out of work for 6 months when I took a crappy job as a database manager for Sun Healthcare Corp. I knew they were going bankrupt, so I continued to look for a good job.
A year later, I got hired on with a defense contractor as a systems engineer on the Crusader program. That's right, the Crusader that Rumsfeld cancelled. However, because I did a good job and I'm a good worker, they xferred me onto a cool new project. I really like my job here I've been here 24 months.
Do you know how hard it is to hide that amount of time unemployed on a resume? Not to mention the jobs I had to take outside of my field? The rules have all changed
I drive an old pickup truck and a motorcycle I bought cheap and rebuilt. I live in the old adobe house my dad left me and I fight with my wife about buying expensive crap because I'm fanatical about saving money after what I've been through.
Tell me, smart guy, how did my generation's 'libertarian' attitudes' do that to me?
"Free" trade and H-1B visas have rendered your skills obsolete in the domestic market.
If you're unwilling to subsist on a daily bowl of rice flavored with fish scraps, you're SOL.