# Has the recession created a "lost generation" of permanently unemployed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657 "2010-08-09T01:42:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/261 "2010-09-12T10:35:28Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > > [@ralph124c](#): > > > > No, I see outsourcing (to China) as a major reason why recovery isn’t happening. > > Because we have no domestic manufacturing anymore, the people who made cars, electric blankets, tools, etc., don’t have any place to go for work..except a low wage job at Walmart or McDonalds. > > I am glad at least “1” person on this thread understands what happens when we replace protective tariffs with “free trade”. Do you? What does it matter what low-level low salary job the unskilled and uneducated take? Why is job working in Walmart or McDonalds any more or less demeaning than working a mindless factory job? I worked all manner of crappy jobs when I was a teenager. Warehouses. Factories. Retail stores in the mall. Fast Food. Mail room. The one thing these jobs all have in common is that nearly any person can do them and they all don’t pay very well. All protectionism would do is raise the prices of products those people would buy effectively cutting their salary. > [@RickJay](#): > > Jesus, look what we’re up against. The problem with discussing economics with people who don’t know much about it is that what is “intuitive” to them based on their experience is often wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/262 "2010-09-12T11:16:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Has the recession created a “lost generation” of permanently unemployed? Oooohh! Doom. Doom and Gloom. Boo-hoo. I heard it _all before_, 2 recessions ago. We’ll bounce back. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/263 "2010-09-12T16:46:22Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > This recession wasn’t caused by outsourcing or Chinese imports so I’m not sure why you are discussing it. Its making it tougher for employment to recover. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/264 "2010-09-12T17:05:58Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Yeah, that sorta implies a free floating currency doesn’t it? > > Their new mercantilism isn’t very friendly, but it’s also not permanently sustainable. They can’t sit on their dollars forever. A trillion greenbacks don’t do them any good gathering dust forever in bank vaults. The currency peg will have to loosen eventually. Yeah, when they decide they want to buy Hawaii or maybe California. Ohh, maybe they’ll buy Texas, see there’s always a silver lining. > [@](#): > > And even right now, without waiting, we can give them a nudge in the right direction with a better monetary policy on our part. Their wealth _will_ lead to more wealth for us. They just appear to need a little push in the proper direction. More like a shove. > [@](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > There are a few vibrant Asian economies I can think of that had pretty centrally planned economies. > > China has a very controlled economy and is doing quite well. But that’s because they moved away from an attempt at total control toward liberal market reforms – they’ve made strong moves, but they still have a ways to go. We’d be making a mistake if we attributed their current success to the remaining economic controls, instead of the reforms. They will soon have need of more reforms if they want their success to continue. Of course, there’s no need to do it all at once. They have reason to take their time with it. I think its a combination of the remaining controls with the introduction of capitalism. Unplanned economies do not become as export oriented as China has become, they tend to focus at least somewhat on the domestic market (and perhaps even importing stuff from other countries). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/265 "2010-09-12T18:36:03Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > No, we’re positing that illegal aliens are a legitimate source of pricing pressure. Just like the guys losing their jobs to illegal aliens are overpaid because there is someone (an illegal alien) that will do it for less, why isn’t my doctor overpaid if there is an Indian that will do it for less if he could only gain entry into the USA. > > Perhaps they are. Perhaps not. Little evidence has been provided. Didn’t you just say that if an illegal alien is willing to do your job for less then you are overpaid to begin with? > [@](#): > > I was specifically, in that case, referring to the common (and silly) fear that immigrants - i **t doesn’t matter if they’re legal or not, if you stop and think about it for longer than two seconds** - are bad for the economy because they allegedly send all their salary out of the country. And you would understand the concern better if you would only read through what people write. Noone says that illegal aliens send every penny they make out of the country. Someone said that illegal aliens don’t hurt the economy because they spend the money they make here. Someone pointed out that this wasn’t true because they send a lot of their money back home (I haven’t seen a cite for this but based on anecdotal evidence, there is a significant portion of the illegal immigration population that do not intend to set down roots here, when you see a house with 20 single illegal alien males here for construction jobs, they are sending a lot of that income back home,where they intend to return when the jobs dry up). Now I guess you could say the same thing about imports and people are making the argument against imports as well. > [@](#): > > In the specific case of China, not at the present time, though as you yourself have pointed out that’s a monetary issue, not a trade issue. But the U.S. has trade surpluses with other nations and might well have one with China in the future. The currency issue and the trade issue are fairly closely linked, don’t you think? Not really, no. Importing goods, after all, requires labour. > [@](#): > > If it doesn’t even out, you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is not trade, but monetary policy and debt. The reason debt is an issue is because China has nothing else to do with the dollars they get for selling us stuff other than buy US treasuries because US goods being exported to China suffer an almost insurmountable disadvantage because of the currency peg. I think you are confusing monetary policy with the currency peg. Monetary policy is usually used to increase or decrease the money supply which accelerates or decelerates economic activity. The currency peg is designed to make Chinese stuff cheap in America and American stuff expensive in China. The purpose of the currency peg is to create an imbalance of trade in excess of what we would have if the currency was free floating. > [@](#): > > As for China, as Hellestal points out, China can DELAY the purchase of U.S. goods, but they cannot avoid it forever. Why not? Why do they ever have to buy anything manufactured in America? Why can’t they simply lend us money and let the interest compound, a lot of other countries have systematically stockpiled US dollars for decades without ever seeing a drawdown in US dollars that they hold. I’m not saying we should close our borders and kick out the foreigners but too many people (many of whom generally have no faith in the free market) seem to thin the free market will take care of any imbalances. In the long long loooong run, it might but not before the there has been a geoeconomic shift. At that point the Chinese may not be spending their US dollars to go sightseeing in NYC, they may be coming here to buy our resources in teh same way that we go to Africa to buy their resources. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/266 "2010-09-12T19:06:04Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Has the recession created a “lost generation” of permanently unemployed? > > Oooohh! > > Doom. > > Doom and Gloom. > > Boo-hoo. > > I heard it _all before_, 2 recessions ago. > > We’ll bounce back. It hasn’t been this bad in 80 years and the last time it got this bad the world order shifted. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/267 "2010-09-12T19:17:22Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Didn’t you just say that if an illegal alien is willing to do your job for less then you are overpaid to begin with? No, I certainly did not. > [@](#): > > I think you are confusing monetary policy with the currency peg. Monetary policy is usually used to increase or decrease the money supply which accelerates or decelerates economic activity. The currency peg is designed to make Chinese stuff cheap in America and American stuff expensive in China. The purpose of the currency peg is to create an imbalance of trade in excess of what we would have if the currency was free floating. I’m aware of the fact China doesn’t play fair with its currency; that said, this has a lot of negative implications for China’s economy, too. It doesn’t benefit China for the U.S. to be poor. Regrettably, China’s not a free and open country and I’d agree that our trading relationships need to be carefully managed, but that’s not an indictment of free trade as a general policy. The U.S. does most of its trade with countries other than China; it would be very stupid indeed to adopt a generally protectionist approach to punish one trade partner. ---
**Author:** ![randy054](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@randy054](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randy054)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/268 "2010-09-12T22:12:14Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > My sister is a doctor and my brother in law is an engineer and both of them have fully competent analogues in India that would do the same work as they do for half the pay. Does that mean my sister and brother in law are overpaid? > > **If someone in India can do the job exactly as well as they can in every respect - even after you account for the logistical difficulties of them being in India - for less money, then yes, they are overpaid**. By that reasoning, CEO’s are way overpaid in the US as well. Lets look at CEO pay across the world versus America. [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2010/07/how-does-executive-pay-in-the.html](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2010/07/how-does-executive-pay-in-the.html) In the chart on that page, it shows the Payout to CEO’s in the US vs everywhere else around 350X. Or how about this guy in China that heads the largest bank in the world. Reuters) - You wouldn’t know it by his pay stubs, but Jiang Jianqing heads the world’s largest bank. [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58M2QU20090923](http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58M2QU20090923) > [@](#): > > Jiang, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, made just $234,700 in 2008. That’s less than 2 percent of the $19.6 million awarded to Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the world’s fourth-largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co. The question is, how do we get those CEO’s insourced over here to the USA. Just think of how much more efficient and less expense it would be. 40 Million dollars is a huge expense. The shareholders would be happy as well, getting rid of such a large expense as that. But the truth is that those large corporations are in bed with our government and the the board of directors in bed with the CEO have no intention of giving up the gravy train while everyone else has to sacrifice and is expendable and has to settle for less. So if it truly is all about Global Markets, Free Trade and capitalism, then why don’t see a lot of CEO’s being replaced by CEO’s from overseas, in record numbers as is happening with everyone else’s job? Do they see themselves running an honest enterprise through the global markets, are is it more like survival of the fittest, and greed take all? Lets see what a couple have to say on that: [http://www.americanpendulum.com/2010/05/top-billionaire-hedge-funder-sees-himself-as-a-hyena-devouring-wildebeests/](http://www.americanpendulum.com/2010/05/top-billionaire-hedge-funder-sees-himself-as-a-hyena-devouring-wildebeests/) \*\*Top Billionaire Hedge Funder Sees Himself As a Hyena Devouring Wildebeests \*\* > [@](#): > > So now we know why hedge fund managers are raking in record pay (last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned on average about $1 billion each), while hundreds of thousands of America’s teachers are getting fired all across the country: Nature hates teachers and other do-gooders. Sure, Dalio’s hedge fund is flush thanks in no small part to all the teachers retirement funds that Bridgewater managed to tap—without those teachers pooling their money together, he’d have a lot less to plunder, and society would never even know what a great person he is. > > To which Dalio would answer, “ **Be a hyena. Attack the wildebeest**.” > **[Stock Portfolio Management & Tracker - Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/portfolios)** > > Track your personal stock portfolios and watch lists, and automatically determine your day gain and total gain at Yahoo Finance **Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein say’s firm is doing God’s Work** > [@](#): > > Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS), has put an unusual spin on the bank’s activities. He says his firm is doing “God’s work.” This may seem like an audacious statement coming from a man whose company has been harshly criticized for planning to give many of its employees multi-million pay packages just a bit more than a year after the collapse of the credit markets. > > Blankfein told The Times of London, “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. We have a social purpose.” That is, of course, a social purpose that comes at a very steep price; it charges huge fees for raising money and handling M&A transactions, even if they eventually fail. I liken Goldman Sachs to a parasite that feeds its host in order to keep it alive, not much different than the parasite in the movie Alien that attaches itself to the victim and keeps it alive while it slowly kills it. Sure, there would be pain if a lot of these investment banks collapse, but theirs would be more so. In the long run, it would allow for a different system where the majority are not being held hostage via Financial Terrorism like the one we have now. For now, the situation continues to be the same and we may soon here threats again of “Bail us out or else.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/269 "2010-09-12T22:48:57Z")
> [@randy054](#): > > > [@RickJay](#): > > > > **If someone in India can do the job exactly as well as they can in every respect - even after you account for the logistical difficulties of them being in India - for less money, then yes, they are overpaid**. > > By that reasoning, CEO’s are way overpaid in the US as well. I fully agree. If you could get an Indian to come over and put her in charge of a major U.S. company as CEO and have her do \*\*exactly as good a job \*\*as the previous CEO while making far less money, that makes it pretty likely the previous CEO was overpaid. What CEOs make in OTHER countries, however, isn’t at all related to what I said, just as what an Indian accountant would make in Delhi isn’t relevant to what he’d make in Denver. > [@](#): > > So if it truly is all about Global Markets, Free Trade and capitalism, then why don’t see a lot of CEO’s being replaced by CEO’s from overseas, in record numbers as is happening with everyone else’s job? Perhaps the U.S. isn’t as good at controlling executive pay and needs to do something about that. Perhaps U.S. investors should be paying more attention to how their corporations are run. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/270 "2010-09-12T22:55:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > > [@RickJay](#): > > > > Jesus, look what we’re up against. > > The problem with discussing economics with people who don’t know much about it is that what is “intuitive” to them based on their experience is often wrong. We need the economic equivalent of a TalkOrigins web site to counter the claims of Economic Creationists. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/271 "2010-09-12T23:43:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > > > Oooohh! > > > > Doom. > > > > Doom and Gloom. > > > > Boo-hoo. > > > > I heard it _all before_, 2 recessions ago. > > > > We’ll bounce back. > > It hasn’t been this bad in 80 years and the last time it got this bad the world order shifted. Cite? As I recall reading, unemployment was far, far worse during the Depression. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/272 "2010-09-13T00:44:32Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Has the recession created a “lost generation” of permanently unemployed? > > Oooohh! > > Doom. > > Doom and Gloom. > > Boo-hoo. > > I heard it _all before_, 2 recessions ago. > > We’ll bounce back. For the right effect, you need to stick your fingers in your ears and say “LA LA LA”. Meanwhile, wrap your head around the fact that this is the first time since the Great Depression that global banking almost _completely shut down_. It is different from previous recessions. You’ve heard the phrase that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold… to extend the analogy, the US banking system had a major heart attack and is in the middle of a quintuple-bypass operation. Of course, there will be a recovery eventually, but it won’t be in a hurry, and it won’t be without some significant repercussions that have yet to unfold. But hey, since every recession in your own personal memory turned out fine, maybe you’ve got an edge on all the economists and finance experts who are pointing out how this time is totally different from everything since the Depression. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/273 "2010-09-13T11:49:55Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > > > Oooohh! > > > > Doom. > > > > Doom and Gloom. > > > > Boo-hoo. > > > > I heard it _all before_, 2 recessions ago. > > > > We’ll bounce back. > > For the right effect, you need to stick your fingers in your ears and say “LA LA LA”. > > Meanwhile, wrap your head around the fact that this is the first time since the Great Depression that global banking almost _completely shut down_. It is different from previous recessions. You’ve heard the phrase that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold… to extend the analogy, the US banking system had a major heart attack and is in the middle of a quintuple-bypass operation. Of course, there will be a recovery eventually, but it won’t be in a hurry, and it won’t be without some significant repercussions that have yet to unfold. > > But hey, since every recession in your own personal memory turned out fine, maybe you’ve got an edge on all the economists and finance experts who are pointing out how this time is totally different from everything since the Depression. More doom & gloom. Unemployment is stabilizing, & a new auto plant is being built a couple of hundred miles from here…a big one. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/274 "2010-09-15T15:56:29Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > But hey, since every recession in your own personal memory turned out fine, maybe you’ve got an edge on all the economists and finance experts who are pointing out how this time is totally different from everything since the Depression. Please point to a link that shows that this recession is fundamentally different from all others. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/275 "2010-09-21T05:33:55Z")
To get back to a little more of what my OP was talking about, here’s a [NY Times article on that very thing.](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/economy/20older.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) The scary thing is, given that even at 40, you’ll face a lot of age discrimination, and the instability of jobs today, do you have until age 35 or so to find a job you’ll have to be lucky enough to work at for the rest of your life if you want to survive financially? How many people EVER did that in the past 20 years or so? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/276 "2010-09-21T15:57:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Didn’t you just say that if an illegal alien is willing to do your job for less then you are overpaid to begin with? > > No, I certainly did not. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12868185&postcount=242](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12868185&postcount=242) Here we were talking about illegal aliens taking contruction jobs, not call centers or outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to China, we were talking about the impact of illegal aliens on the domestic job market. You said that if your job is so low tech that an illegal alien could do it for half the price then youa re overpaid. well my point was that thsi is true of EVERY fucking profession in the united states. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I think you are confusing monetary policy with the currency peg. Monetary policy is usually used to increase or decrease the money supply which accelerates or decelerates economic activity. The currency peg is designed to make Chinese stuff cheap in America and American stuff expensive in China. The purpose of the currency peg is to create an imbalance of trade in excess of what we would have if the currency was free floating. > > I’m aware of the fact China doesn’t play fair with its currency; that said, this has a lot of negative implications for China’s economy, too. It doesn’t benefit China for the U.S. to be poor. Regrettably, China’s not a free and open country and I’d agree that our trading relationships need to be carefully managed, but that’s not an indictment of free trade as a general policy. The U.S. does most of its trade with countries other than China; it would be very stupid indeed to adopt a generally protectionist approach to punish one trade partner. No of course its not an indictment of free trade generally but it is an indictment of what we have going on right now in the NAME of free trade. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/277 "2010-09-21T16:58:21Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Perhaps the U.S. isn’t as good at controlling executive pay and needs to do something about that. Perhaps U.S. investors should be paying more attention to how their corporations are run. Perhaps the system is rigged so that it is very very difficult for shareholders to rein in executive compensation. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/278 "2010-09-21T17:02:44Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > It hasn’t been this bad in 80 years and the last time it got this bad the world order shifted. > > Cite? > > As I recall reading, unemployment was far, far worse during the Depression. I didn’t mean to include the great depression. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/279 "2010-09-21T17:03:06Z")
I think the problem is that the shareholders have become more important than the customers. Think insurance or drug companies. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657/280 "2010-09-21T17:08:44Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > I think the problem is that the shareholders have become more important than the customers. Think insurance or drug companies. Don’t fool yourself, stock options have become more important than the customer. Where the interest of stock option holders align with teh interests of the shareholders, great otherwise, screw the shareholders. I still remember when we limited the deductibility of salaries in excess of a million dollars. All these consulting firms strated peddling stock incetnive pay which was supposed to replace the lost income while at the same time aligning the interests of management and shareholders. Eventually this evolved into compensation schemes where stock options became as good as the old cash salary PLUS bonuses for stock performance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-recession-created-a-lost-generation-of-permanently-unemployed/549657.md?page=15)