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Boy, you do know how to turn on a dime.

Is there anything that can be done, quickly, to put the young people in Tahrir Square, and elsewhere in the region, to work?

WHAT ABOUT THE YOUNG PEOPLE HERE, JOE? WHEN, THE FRACK, DO YOU START CARING ABOUT PEOPLE IN YOUR OWN FRACKING COUNTRY?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm

This year, the share of young people who were employed in July was 48.9 percent,
the lowest July rate on record for the series, which began in 1948.

The unemployment rate for young people under age 25 is a whopping 15.9%–and rising. It’s been going up since October while the national rate has fallen slightly. For men of this age, it’s a stunning 18.2%. It gets a little better the older you are, but not much. For those age 25-34, 10.4% are out of work.

Being out of work, or in the case of young people, unable to find that first job makes it hard to plan for a future. For us Americans, jobs define us. They support us. They make everything else run smoothly.

source

Is college even worth it anymore?

If you look at the population centers of California, Florida, Texas, and New York student loan debt has worsened practically in the entire state. Clearly the current economic recession has much to do with it but also, the fact that those with college degrees are losing jobs in large numbers as well. Many are no longer able to service their own debt. As we have mentioned, a college degree does not protect your job nor does it assure you in getting one. Some are even suing because of this.

Source

My thought too. I agree largely with Joe’s column but the headline “Our No 1 Priority: Jobs For Egyptian Youth” is just wrong. Our number one priority has got to be good jobs for Americans.

I disagree; while this may be an extension of what JK is saying, we have to encourage a political and economic environment that is conducive to jobs. If Egypt becomes a truly representative parliamentary democracy, will that increase the job growth? Will SEZ’s and a Arab bank be enough to help Egypt tap into globalization?
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I can’t say, but I believe that the future is in the hands of Egypt’s leaders. We could put as much pressure there as we wanted, but our leverage in the ME is greatly reduced. So is Israel’s, and even Turkey’s.
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My doubts are overriding my hopes.

Stop it Gum. Next he will be arguing against unions so he can give young people work. Perhaps he will want to have enforced retirement at say age 60? Maybe he will side with the GOP, and old folks should just die. It is proven fact that if there is no health care the elderly will die at a greater rate creating job openings for the young.

You’ve got a job. Stop Whining!

Americans aged 18 to 29 had easily the highest underemployment rate in July of any age group, at 28.4%, including 11.8% who were unemployed and 16.6% who were employed part time but wanted full-time work. Among all U.S. adults in the workforce, a higher percentage of women than of men are underemployed.

You can’t stop the signal.

Pay for it later! You need this!

The average student debt load for a member of the class of 2009? $24,000, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt. This figure represents a 6 percent increase from 2008.

And its only going to keep going up.

Talk about bad luck based on when you were born. Anyone born in the late 80s and early 90s is facing the largest debt levels in order to be educated just because of when they were born. And to top it off, they aren’t likely to get a good job when they graduate either.

And when you take into account the fact that wages haven’t risen in the last 30 years, these debt levels mean that post-bills people today are making less than what their parents made (inflation adjusted) and can’t expect to nearly do as well.

But, who’s important? The people in Egypt? Libya? Japan? What’s important? The debt? Whether the rich have to pay more taxes?

From my generation to yours Joe. Go suck on a duck.

I think you may be over-reacting to the headline, rather than Joe’s sentiment. With regard to government’s taking action to provide more jobs, particularly for younger people, your problem is not Joe or most of the mainstream media but rather a political party that has opposed every attempt to put people back to work since the Great Recession began. And, while I am not blaming you, a big reason that Republicans have the leverage and wherewithal to continue their assault on the American working class is because turnout among younger voters dropped fairly dramatically from 2008 to 2010. If the electorate age profile of 2010 had even roughly mirrored the profile of 2008, the Democrats would still be in power, a second stimulus would have likely passed, and unemployment, while still not great, would be a few ponts lower.

Now, to be fair, the mainstream media, and Joe himself, could be shining a harsher light on Republican efforts to keep America in economic misery up to November, 2010. But that does not mean that we should abandon being concerned about developments in the Middle East, or forego this opportunity to help turn around a important geostrategic nation in Egypt. Chances to usher a nation peacefully from dictatorship to a working democracy do not come along very often, and when they arise it is, I think, actually efficient to expend some resources to make this happen.

Our No. 1 Priority: Jobs for Egypt’s Restive Youth
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That’s how we roll in the mainstream media. There is an incessant tide of undifferentiated cataclysms; we rush to the sound of the guns and the natural disasters, especially if there are pictures. But all bang-bang is not equal. There are times, as in the case of Libya, when gunfire obscures more important news. Before the historic Japanese catastrophe changed the cable-news conversation, Libya was careering toward an American overreaction.

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Which Joe wanted. Remember when he WANTED a no-fly zone?
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And lets not forget that now that we NEED to focus on Egypt that its still at the cost of all those boring things that the media is ignoring because “that’s how they roll”.
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I’m not saying that Egypt isn’t somewhat important. But its about number 36 on my list of top 40 things that need done by America.

Hey don’t be so hard on Joe Klein. Hillary will save us all. She is out busy as a little beaver creating or saving jobs in TUNISIA!!!!!
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZpp4B9FcYOu-GEUImXtVJMSLfdQ?docId=CNG.4b1705bd8aeb3fb7c23a8cab0215312e.01
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Ya bunch of whimps. This is American Exceptionalism Obama/Clinton style man. Don’t you get it yet?
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Everybody will get JOBS, EXCEPT Americans!!!
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Come on now get with the program here.

On this, gumOon, I must agree, although I am not sure we baby boomers are entirely to blame as a generation. We had a lot of help.
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But what is true that in the 1970s (uh, when I was in school) our nation got a lot of warning signs – about the coming shortage of fossil fuels, the increasing surplus of industrial capacity, i.e. other nations doing what we did, but cheaper; and the ability of the financial sector to suck the industrial sector dry. And, to put it politely, we did not respond. Jimmy Carter (admittedly pretty flawed as a communicator) was widely sneered at for daring to suggest that Americans take the Energy Crisis seriously. Anyone having the temerity to state that the US had to get busy getting the US off its reliance on oil and gas was derided as a gloomy Gus. The left, and the environmental movement generally, contributed mightily by opposing nuclear energy which would have helped to both decrease our dependence on foreign oil and tendency to overheat the planet. And while we watched our industrial cities from my own Providence and Pawtucket to Detroit and beyond quietly die, we told ourselves it was “Morning in America”. It all happened under the watch of the man the Republican Party labels its Greatest Hero Ever and it will, sadly, resonate throughout your generation and my own childrens’. You have the right to be mad.

But, there is stil a chance to at least begin the turning of the ship. 2008 was important step in the right direction, sadly offset by the two steps back of 2010. The (modern) Republican Party is, indeed, the enemy, but so is Despair. It is our responsibility, and yours, to keep fighhting until the last light goes out.

As if on cue, here comes Dick Rod to demonstrate the attitude that got us into this hole in the first place.

How many jobs did Condoleezy and Colin create??

Beng55, RDW, your responses would be welcomed…

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/03/14/trouble-on-the-west-bank/

That’s an astonishing number. I count myself incredibly lucky to have gone to a state school with a full ride for tuition and have a full time job in my field. (First day of work was a week after I graduated) Granted, I did have to move across the country for the job, but it’s still alot better than nothing.
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At the other end, I have a number of friends who went to grad school because they knew the job market was so slim.

gumOnShoe: You know Joe would tell you are unemployment problems are due to all those teachers and the nasty unions.

What happens three months from now when life hasn’t changed in any appreciable way for the hundreds of thousands of young people who took to the streets in Cairo?

What happens three months from now when life has gotten appreciably worse for the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets in Wisconsin?

It is not unwise to be concerned about the unemployed youth of Egypt. I just wish Joe has as much concern for Wisconsin workers.

I am not somebody who thinks we can’t be concerned about the needs in other countries while we ignore our own problems.
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Joe has not shown as much compassion or understanding of the status of American workers. I think the description below of the Villagers is spot on.
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http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/148205-share-the-sacrifice?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d792753e3aebca1%2C0
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D.C. is doing much better than the rest of the country economically, which is a significant contributor to what he terms “social distance” from the Americans the government purports to serve. That distance is disorienting and bizarre to those of us outside the Beltway, and is hugely fueled by the annoying conceit of many in the political media that they personally embody the concerns of average Americans.
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Yet out here in the real world, poll after poll shows that, in fact, Americans are far more concerned with unemployment and favor surtaxes on the wealthy to close the deficit. And so, from time to time, these gilded Regular Joes are forced to regretfully admit that sometimes the people are like dotty old relatives who “just don’t get it” or that they just want a “free lunch” — after which they promptly forget those findings and go back to pretending that the American people see things exactly the way they do.

NewsBusters: Joe Klein Hails Obama’s Followership on Libya Crisis
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2011/03/18/joe-klein-hails-obamas-followership-libya-action