The best thing anyone can do in lean times is to make oneself more valuable to ones employer. The great unasked question in the face of bad unemployment numbers is, how many of these people weren’t performing well even in the “good” times?
To pay people not to work (beyond several months) is a huge mistake because it contradicts our basic survival instinct.
Thank you, bloated government.

Unemployed, early forties, single, looking and looking and looking for work, forced by circumstances to move back in with parents? I feel for Dave, because 15 years ago that was me.
As for Dave’s friends, Rod, another possibility you didn’t mention: the close longtime friends who drop you like a hot potato, who no longer will answer phone calls or reply to letters once they decide you’ve fallen off the escalator of success. That is perhaps the most painful memory I carry with me from those days back in the mid 90s when I honestly wondered if I was ever going to get back to life as usual again.
Things did get better for me eventually, and today I’m long since gainfully employed again in my field. Though I do feel for the Daves of this world; like I say, I’ve been there. Lord, what a situation.

I too feel for Dave. My last job in finance was with Wachovia and I left right before Wells Fargo took over. Many of my good friends found themselves out of work like Dave; during a severe downturn and merger-mania is not the time to be looking for work. It was a terrible shock to people who saw their career go right off a cliff.
There but for the grace of God go I.

Bluegrass Up and Richard, I agree with you. Dave could be any of us. And we all know the expression “fair weather friends.” All we can do from afar is pray for him and hope he lands back on his feet soon. Rod, chatting with him sounds like a good idea, if you get the opportunity. Kindness never is wasted and one never knows what will be paid forward, too.

MM provides a good illustration of the difference between crunchy cons and other cons. Everyone else on the thread reads the post and says “Poor guy, I wish I could help”. MM reads it and wonders how best to punish Dave for being a “loser”.

I’m not saying “punish”, Nick. I’m saying, remove the incentive to sit on a park bench. Here’s what I would suggest to Dave:
Since he’s probably receiving unemployment benefits, he needs to go to some employer and offer to do free apprentice (training) work in turn for a paid position down the line. The employer loses nothing in the process and Dave in turn, is able to prove himself (and improve his own self-worth) to his future employer.

MM: A 40-something apprentice? Doubtful. Training costs company money and resources even if he’s working for free. And for what? A guy who is older than the people training him?
I’d sure like to live in your world, MM. It sounds nice.

mm: “To pay people not to work (beyond several months) is a huge mistake because it contradicts our basic survival instinct.”
The voice of modern conservatism is heard from. Thank you.

Let me put in a word for mm, who’s a personal friend. She’s a small business owner who is the only person in her shop. We’ve invited her twice to come visit us, but she can’t afford the time away from her business. She’s not somebody who is wealthy, or even close to it. She’s busting her butt to keep her shop open in hard times. That doesn’t make her right or wrong on this issue, of course, but I think it’s important that you know this before you judge her.

Rod Dreher: “That doesn’t make her right or wrong on this issue, of course, but I think it’s important that you know this before you judge her.”
Mr. Dreher, with all due respect perhaps she should get to know the folks who are unemployed these days before judging them. I wish her nothing but success in her business, and if that fails then I wish her a more sympathetic hearing from the public than she is giving folks like Dave.

mm, since you offer the idea of an unpaid apprenticeship as a possible path to employment, let me ask you a couple of questions.
1) Are you willing to offer such unpaid apprenticeships at your place of business?
2) Do you anticipate ever being able to offer any of these unpaid apprentices full-time, paying jobs?

@Rod:Let me put in a word for mm, who’s a personal friend…
Well, OK, Rod, feel free. After all, it isyour blog. But I owe my success in life to a combination of hard work (yes), good fortune, and help from others and I can remember the fortune and help part when it comes time to have empathy for others. As can you, apparently, even though we’re on other ends of the political spectrum and so it isn’t just a bleeding heart lefty sort of thing. I don’t really have much time for those who can’t.
From a different, bottom line, dollars-and-cents perspective, the economy (and therefore all of us) would be better off if Dave collected unemployment for a while and then returned to full productivity in the career his skills, training, and education are most suited for rather than working at near minimum wage in a job which was an inefficient allocation of his assets. That’s what the econ 101 maximizing-the-area-under-the-productivity-curve arguments tell us.

This morning’s NY Times offers two views on the problems facing our economy. The first article, by Yves Smith and Rob Parenteau, takes businesses to task for not investing in their own growth over the past decade and a half.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/06smith.html?ref=opinion
“Over the past decade and a half, corporations have been saving more and investing less in their own businesses. A 2005 report from JPMorgan Research noted with concern that, since 2002, American corporations on average ran a net financial surplus of 1.7 percent of the gross domestic product — a drastic change from the previous 40 years, when they had maintained an average deficit of 1.2 percent of G.D.P. More recent studies have indicated that companies in Europe, Japan and China are also running unprecedented surpluses.
The reason for all this saving in the United States is that public companies have become obsessed with quarterly earnings. To show short-term profits, they avoid investing in future growth. To develop new products, buy new equipment or expand geographically, an enterprise has to spend money — on marketing research, product design, prototype development, legal expenses associated with patents, lining up contractors and so on.
Rather than incur such expenses, companies increasingly prefer to pay their executives exorbitant bonuses, or issue special dividends to shareholders, or engage in purely financial speculation. But this means they also short-circuit a major driver of economic growth.”
The second piece is from David Brooks, who is hardly what one would call a bleeding-heart liberal. He makes some suggestions for dealing with our economic situation that walk the middle path between severe austerity and profligate spending. Even he disagrees with mm on one key point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/06brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“So you have your doubts, but you are practical. You want to do something. Too much debt could lead to national catastrophe. Too much austerity could lead to stagnation.
Well, there’s a few short-term things you can do. First, extend unemployment insurance; that’s a foolish place to begin budget-balancing. Second, you need to mitigate the pain caused by the state governments that are slashing spending. You need a program modeled on Race to the Top. You will provide federal money now to states that pass responsible long-term budget plans that will reduce spending and pension commitments. That would save public-sector jobs and ease contractionary pressures without throwing the country into a fiscal-debt spiral.”
Finally, from July 4th we have this piece from Paul Krugman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/opinion/05krugman.html?src=me&ref=general
“But there are also, one hopes, at least a few political players who are honestly misinformed about what unemployment benefits do — who believe, for example, that Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, was making sense when he declared that extending benefits would make unemployment worse, because “continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” So let’s talk about why that belief is dead wrong.
Do unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to seek work? Yes: workers receiving unemployment benefits aren’t quite as desperate as workers without benefits, and are likely to be slightly more choosy about accepting new jobs. The operative word here is “slightly”: recent economic research suggests that the effect of unemployment benefits on worker behavior is much weaker than was previously believed. Still, it’s a real effect when the economy is doing well.
But it’s an effect that is completely irrelevant to our current situation. When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would have been otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn’t booming — again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can’t take jobs that aren’t there.”
Krugman goes on to make the point that anything which decreases consumer demand will only make our economy worse off, creating an economic “catch-22″ situation in which we eventually spiral into another Great Depression.
He closes with this, which I fear is more true than even Krugman suspects.
“So, is there any chance that these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.””
So I guess the question for modern conservatives is simple. Which is more important: retaking Congress or turning our economy around?

hivanburen
I am asked on occasion that very question from people. My answer to them is, no. I work in a very specialized, highly skilled trade.
(Think: watchmaker) I would lose money training somebody because I would spend all my time training and no time fixing. I do however, hire skilled sub-contractors for the excess work. Yes, I intend to make them full time as my work load permits.
Now here are some trades that I think this apprentice-for-hire will work: (The businesses/trades have to be big enough to “absorb” the temporary decrease in productivity from their full time trainers.)
Carpentry
HVAC
Electrical
It seems to me, HVAC would be fairly recession-proof.

I humbly (ahem) point out some obvious fallacies at work (ahem) here:
Dave has been sitting on his duff. This assumption could be true, false, partially true, partially false, or all of the above if examined over a long enough period of time. As one who has beat the streets a few times looking for work, a significant contributor to personal depression is the unending repetition of rejection from jobs for which I was more than sufficiently qualified.
Dave has not considered changing careers. That’s a tough one. I did that. It required 13 months of schooling, 16 hours per week on three evenings and Saturday mornings. Would anyone like to make assumptions about how that affected my family? I was one of the lucky few in my classes who still had a job during that interim.
We can validly critique the Daves of the world, but not until we get actual information about their actual experiences. Sure, there were and are “welfare queens” letting the rest of us fund their comforts, but they are not and never have been even close to a defining aspect to people forced to live on welfare due to circumstances beyond their control, often even with significant sacrifices by them and their families.
Go ahead. Make your assumptions if you’ll feel better about your commentary. But do please be prepared to be wrong. Compassion is not about assumptions. It’s about accurate information about the actual conditions faced by Dave.

I am actually in a similar position as Dave. I became ill about seven years ago, and never recovered- or rather, am just barely making a full recovery. My wife has financially supported me from day one of our marriage. I fought through college, and had to take 2-3 years off, one at a time, in between years at school, in order to make it through and work on my medical issues. Yet, I graduated with honors in my major.
It is depressing not to be able to work. Regardless of what “politically correct” views I am supposed to have, as a man, it is difficult, to not be able to provide for my wife and daughter. I am just now getting to the point where I am ready to try to look for work. It has been a long road. One of the things I have faced, is lots of judgement; this gets extremely frustrating at times, regardless of how much you say you don’t care. Honestly, on a lot of levels I don’t, but what people don’t realize is that the judgement sort of sets an environment that you live in when around certain people. And that environment gets old, especially when they are people that you can’t or wouldn’t be wise to displace from your life. It gets tiresome people questioning your honor and integrity, when deep down you (meaning I) know that you have fought and found remedies and solutions for an illness that literally, many people would never overcome, due to despair and lack of willingness to take the extreme initiative to find answers to- I know I have heard of and watched a few of these types of people. But few people are willing to give me personal accolades for doing what I have done to overcome my medical issues, or even know that it is remarkable that I have overcome them, many of these people want to downplay the illness I deal with in the first place and are eager to question or criticize me.
I mean the weird thing is that I have worked so hard, to just get back in a sense to just ground zero, career-wise . I have a degree, and a decently useful one at that, with employable skills, not just conventions of a profession I have learned, and yet I haven’t worked in 6 years, have no real resume in my field as a result, and yet it has taken literally everything I have to get myself to the point where I have a degree, and I have the health to try to start doing something with it, and yet here I am at 30 years old, at the point that many 22 year olds are at. And so employers are bound to wonder what has he been doing the last 7 years? I’m not exactly about to launch into an explanation of my personal medical issues, and how hard they have been to overcome…for a number of reasons.
Anyway.. I guess I don’t know where I am going with this…just thought I’d share that I really relate to Dave.

MM: My critical tone above was not intended for your commentary. While I might wish you to clarify your statements (as you have just done, my thanks), my criticism of assumptions included the ones being made about your situation.
One thing about apprenticeship approaches: Even in good times, or maybe especially I’m not sure, but such positions are generally “reserved” for recently-minted young adults with some level of familial connection to the business person in question. Many companies that don’t have “and Sons” in their name could easily deserve it, and with good reason. The days of vocational training, with apprenticeship a key and integral component, are long gone.

mm: “Now here are some trades that I think this apprentice-for-hire will work: (The businesses/trades have to be big enough to “absorb” the temporary decrease in productivity from their full time trainers.)
Carpentry
HVAC
Electrical
It seems to me, HVAC would be fairly recession-proof.”
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics June 2010 report
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
“Construction employment decreased by 22,000 in June, with the largest
decline in nonresidential specialty trade contracting. On net, con-
struction employment has shown little change over the last 4 months.”
And as this report from the BLS shows, construction is still showing an unemployment rate at or above 20%.
http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm
As to your comment about the HVAC industry this report shows that the future looks better for this segment of the market, but how much of that growth is in publicly-financed projects that modern conservatives wish to cut?
http://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ep/ind-occ.matrix/ind_pdf/ind_238220.pdf
Finally, you state the following, mm: “I would lose money training somebody because I would spend all my time training and no time fixing.”
How many of these construction, electrical and HVAC firms do you think are in exactly the same position as you? If they have someone who has the free time to train a new person, even someone working for no wages, is that person really being productive in their current position? Wouldn’t that person probably have already been laid off in the rush to ameliorate short term losses in light of the current employment picture in the construction trades?
I’m sorry, but your dog will not only fail to hunt, but he will also do little except eat, sleep and dump in inappropriate places.

Two years ago, our congregation’s offerings fell off dramatically due to the slowing of the economy. We also had made a pledge of $20,000 for a special benevolence program sponsored by the ELCA’s national office. So we organized a Thrift & Gift Shop and rented out a vacant funeral home/furniture store in our small community’s downtown area.
We paid off that benevolence loan this month and have reorganized the Shop so we can continue generating about $1,000 a month in profits.
(Profit is NOT a dirty word!)
Much of our success is due to a young engineer with an MBA who was a mainstay of our effort. Downsized from a local company, he literally “came to work” for us. Helped us refurbish and organize the Shop and provided me some excellent help in streamlining our collection and delivery process, even naming me “Warehouse Manager”"
Such titles are always cheap and usually worth a good laugh.
Brian was unemployed for about 15 months and kept looking for employment, though. Fortunately, his wife was able to provide enough financial help they could “make do”. Best of all, his experience with our Shop and our recommendations helped him get his new job! His new employers were impressed by the fact that he kept working at something!!!
Perhaps “Dave” could find something comparable to “give him a reason to get up in the morning”. Best of luck to him!!!
PS: During the recession of the early 80′s, we had literally thousands of unemployed factory workers studying for two-year degrees; an excellent investment in “human capital” with the help of State & Federal funds. One very cold, wintry day in January, one woman said to me she was glad to be there. When I asked why she said, “It gives me a reason to get up in the morning and do something! Perhaps Dave could take some other kind of training and/or do some teaching????

Yup, you should talk to him every now and then and try to cheer him up. That’s the right thing to do.

Let me add as well that I don’t know the extent to which Dave has searched for work these past six months. I know nothing about his personal circumstances since I talked to him back in January. It is possible he’s lazing around, but I doubt it; he just didn’t strike me as that kind of guy. But I don’t know for sure.

Rick the Road Rager: “During the recession of the early 80′s, we had literally thousands of unemployed factory workers studying for two-year degrees; an excellent investment in “human capital” with the help of State & Federal funds. One very cold, wintry day in January, one woman said to me she was glad to be there. When I asked why she said, “It gives me a reason to get up in the morning and do something! Perhaps Dave could take some other kind of training and/or do some teaching????”
Those are excellent ideas. The problem is that many of the programs that would provide Dave with support while doing this kind of training have been cut back over the years (starting with Clinton and continuing during Bush and Obama administrations) by modern conservatives who believe that such programs encourage the unemployed not to look for work.
http://www.freep.com/article/20100630/BUSINESS06/6300384/Funding-cuts-to-limit-job-retraining
:The funding crisis affecting Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program comes as new data show the retraining effort is working.
Of the 57,855 workers who have completed training, 59% have obtained new jobs, according to a report released Tuesday by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth.
“As a country, we should be putting more money into this,” said Andy Levin, Michigan’s chief workforce officer and DELEG’s deputy director.
Thanks to the program, Michigan has become a leader in long-term workforce retraining, drawing praise from President Barack Obama.
But because of a decline in federal funding, state officials say the program’s popularity — 22 consecutive months of year-over-year enrollment growth — can’t be sustained.
Starting Thursday, No Worker Left Behind will only be able to accept a limited number of new applicants. In addition, the statewide wait list to get into the program — which has 20,000 Michiganders on it — will be eliminated.”
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/04/military_veterans_jobtrainingbill_042010w/
“As officials watch cash-strapped employers stop using the Montgomery GI Bill On-the-Job Training Program for veterans, it makes sense to lift the requirement that veterans in the program receive several pay increases, said Chad Shatz, vice president of the National Association of State Approving Agencies.
“We’re looking to help people in the private sector who have suffered from the hurting economy” and want to use the program, Shatz said, describing the proposed change as temporary. “Hopefully the economy will turn around in three to five years.”
Shatz’s organization coordinates the state approving agencies that oversee GI Bill programs. He is also director of the Missouri State Approving Agency.
As the Veterans Affairs Department program works now, employers agree to pay veterans the same as equally qualified employees while they train in their position. Employers also agree to raise the veteran’s wages every six months for up to two years. Veterans in the program then also collect a VA stipend, which decreases every six months as the veteran gets raises from the employer. So as time on the job increases, the employer raises the salary while the VA payments decrease, leaving the veteran with a stable monthly income.
A new bill would take away the required wage increases, leaving the veteran without a guarantee of a pay raise every six months. Authored by Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., and currently stalled in House over budget concerns, the bill reflects a similar but permanent policy already in place for veteran job training in the public sector, Shatz said.”
And it appears that Pennsylvania is right in there cutting funding for these training programs.
http://www.pennbpc.org/30-ways-30-days-workforce-development
“HARRISBURG (June 30, 2009) – When the “Big Three” automakers required suppliers to obtain a standard certification several years ago, companies turned to the North Central Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission Workforce Investment Board.
Art Aiello, representing the powdered metal industry partnership, told the Bradford Era that the auto suppliers would not have been able to obtain the necessary certifications without those training opportunities provided by North Central. And without the certification, the work would have gone elsewhere, and hundreds of jobs would have been lost. Read the Bradford Era article here.
Such workforce training opportunities may disappear if millions in proposed cuts to workforce development funds are included in the final state budget.
Heidi Powley, director of workforce development for the Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry, echoed support for the state’s workforce development programs in a Times Observer article.
“Every year there are various cuts and eliminations to the state budget. This year is no exception,” Powley told the newspaper. “The difference is, businesses are struggling more than ever to stay competitive, some are struggling just to stay afloat. To propose funding cuts to workforce development will absolutely prove to be a catastrophic to our region. We need a trained, skilled workforce.”
Senate Bill 850 would cut $16.4 million that Governor Ed Rendell proposed to fund industry partnerships and industry partnership worker training activities in the 2009-10 Fiscal Year. Even the Governor’s proposed funding levels for these programs are a more than $5 million cut from 2008-09 funding levels.
More than 6,300 employers participate in industry partnerships, which have served more than 70,000 employees since 2005.”
With so many modern conservatives reminding us this past July 4th that “freedom isn’t free”, why do they support policies that act like it is?

@b>MM: Sole proprietors are in a particularly vulnerable situation, being one accident or illness away from being in Dave’s shoes.
As far as apprenticeships, if employers have one on their premises, he/she has to be covered under liability insurance. The days of taking someone on in a carefree way are long gone.
@Rick the Road Rager: Teachers are being laid off en masse these days; districts are unable to pay them due to the shrinking tax base.
Rod, kudos for writing a compassionate post. I hope he finds work, but the long-term problems of joblessness and underemployment are, I’m afraid, only going to get worse.

Mr. Dreher, two comments I’ve made are held for your approval (CAPTCHA’s words, not mine). I suspect it is the links I included…I probably missed sterilizing one of them.

mm has her narrative that keeps her from confronting the evil around her. Most people do. It is easier to believe that one has arrived at this point by design than it is to believe that we’re for the most part random and interchangeable cogs in the big industrial machine, less needed by the day. Unemployed folks don’t talk to people about their unemployment because they get tired of opening their lives for amateur psychoanalysis or career advice. Staring at the employment situation on a daily basis gives one a good idea what potentials are out there and after awhile you have far more expertise than Mr. or Mrs. Busybody suggesting looking into the trades or whatever else. Probably the biggest reason I don’t discuss my unemployment is there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it. It’s like asking the terminally ill cancer patient why they don’t want to discuss their cancer: the world will survive the cancer patient not focusing 5 minutes of their on their cancer.
captcha: looters out

Living in the wealthiest county in Texas, and volunteering for that county’s only homeless shelter, I’ve come to learn that the face of homelessness has been changed dramatically. It isn’t just the infermed, addicted or mentaly ill. At this shelter, at many times, ALL male heads of households within its wall EACH possessed college degrees!
It isn’t that bum on the corner anymore; it is your former neighbor.
So long as American corporations insist on outsourcing its white-collar/soft-collar jobs overseas (in fact, forcing remaining workers to train these “scabs” to take MORE U.S. jobs to INCREASE, not just maintain, profits), what Rod has seen will never ever go away.
Workers don’t fire themselves.

I feel for Dave. I’ve been Dave. A few months ago I hired a Dave. And I know many other Daves out there.
It’s tough for long-term unemployed for this reason: At some point you wear out your welcome. Everyone knows why you’re calling, e-mailing, writing. Not that anyone is callous or cold, but most of the time they (we) have nothing for Dave but encouraging bromides. “Keep your chin up” and “give me a call next month.”
The Dave I hired was once more successful than I’ve ever been, but in 2007 when I got lucky he didn’t, and from then until 2010 he was among dozens of people I know who were caught in the vortex of the economic downturn.
My Dave is working at a position three steps down from his qualifications at 1/3rd his former earning capacity. He has displaced someone who normally works at that level for that wage, and I know more Daves among that group than you can shake a stick at.
Which brings me to mm. I admire what Rod has posted about you, but fear that you project too much from your singular experience. There is no career that is “recession-proof,” out here in the west you can’t walk your dog without tripping over the carpenters, plumbers and electricians who are getting, at best, a day of casual labor each week.
Demand across the economy is weak, and if we double-dip into deflation 2011 will make 2008 look like the good old days. In such an environment, parroting the right-wing talking point that unemployment benefits make people lazy is callous beyond description. There are times when people need a kick in the behind, but it’s wrong to kick people while they’re down, and the truth is that there are far more people eager to take jobs well below what they used to do, but there simply aren’t the jobs out there for them.
Dave moved back in with his parents, not because his unemployment made him lazy but because he had no other options. And Dave is now dealing with the depression that every long-term unemployed person feels. Clearly you’ve never had such hardship, and I hope you never do, but for those of us who know your words are the barbs on a whip wielded in ignorance and fear. You might reconsider who you listen to in the media.

Just before the recession hit full steam, I took the leap into schooling for a new profession from one that was, and still is, fairly stable (but boring and stagnant). Now, over a year since completing my degree, I’m underemployed in a lousy PT job unrelated to my training. I’ve applied for dozens of jobs, gotten very close to getting a few of them, but am still here, waiting on the outside, hoping the door opens.
It’s not all bad. My wife’s job, which supports us, is stable and keeps us afloat with nice bennies. We have a beautiful new baby who brightens our lives every day. We have supportive and generous family around us who would help us if things got really horrible. The car runs, we have food, books, cable TV and internet. And I’m writing this while I should be applying for some more jobs. So if you’ll excuse me…

One problem the Daves are facing is that, in spite of everything we’ve all gone through, there’s still the presumption that people who lose their job are losers. Old Darwin is alive and well in CorpLand. Of course, its house is all glass on that point.
Dave could do worse than go George(?) Bailey and start a bank. I’m serious. A lot of us little people would love there to be a small,conservative, fuddy-duddy bank that kept its nose clean and our money safe. So there’s the need; only Heaven knows if Dave’s the man to fill it.

I must defend myself and then no more. I know better.
I am self-employed.
I am not rich.
I take no vacations.
I have no health insurance, life insurance or other benefit.
( I would get disability, because I pay my self-employment taxes along with state, city, county and federal – business taxes and income taxes.)
When the economic downturn hit, I took it as a warning to myself that I need to tweak my marketing plan.
I have survived. God is good.
Every month, my bookeeping starts at 0, and I work until I’ve made enough to cover my business’ bills (which are huge) and my paycheck.
If this makes me insensitive – but I’m really not, y’all – I’d rather you just label me scrappy. It’s a better fit.

The face of unemployment in my neighborhood, a racially mixed, middle class one in a small upstate NY city, is Elaine. She is our tenant who lives downstairs from us in our 2-family home. Her $850 rent payment lowers our mortgage to a very manageable $950 a month, which we pay with my husband’s salary (I am in nursing school).
Elaine is one of those people who in earlier decades would have been gainfully employed at the local factory. In her early 50s, she has a high school education and is good with her hands. She spends a lot of time gardening. She has no car and gets around by bicycle, even when the ground is covered with snow. She gets up early, goes out once a day to run errands or do laundry. She is very quiet in general and goes to bed by 9pm. In the summer, after it cools down in the evening, she sits outside on the porch swing and smokes cigarettes. Her rent is paid by Section 8, she receives food stamps and gets her health care through Medicaid. From what I can see, she lives a pretty comfortable life, living in nice, recently renovated apt. in our old farmhouse on 3 acres. I see her making no move to get a job, although she does take in sewing from time to time.
Her boyfriend seems to be in a similar situation, longtime unemployed, early 50s, reformed meth head (one relapse last summer though). In general he is not very nice to her. I hear them fighting sometimes through the floor. She’ll berate him and ask him when he’s going to get a job, he answers “never.” After they fight, he’ll bike over to the local food/homeless shelter, where he has a room. He’ll stay there for a few days. She’ll inform us they’ve broken up for good, and that she’s going back to school to get her life together, but he’s always back in a few days. And no she’s not going back to school in the fall like she said she would.
He is also good with his hands, and takes in some money fixing bicycles. Again, he seems pretty comfy with this lifestyle. When I drive by the shelter, located on a main thoroughfare, I often see them hanging out on the stoop with their friends.
At their ages, I don’t really see them getting jobs. The economy here is very depressed and most of the lower end service stuff seems to go to either illegal immirgants or folks in their teens and twenties. On the one hand, I am a bit resentful when I am busting my butt getting up early to go to school, coming home to an empty house because my husband works 14-hour-days, and I see my tenant and her boyfriend sitting around outside after a day of doing, well, not much.
On the other hand, I see that the system has failed them and I imagine how different their lives would be if the economy still supported, white, minimally-educated blue collar folks such as themselves, as it did when they came of age. I’m not sure if I’d behave much differently were I in their same situation at their ages. Just hanging around, availing myself of the social welfare system, and not really hoping or trying for anything better.

mm posts valid points, ending with: “If this makes me insensitive – but I’m really not, y’all – I’d rather you just label me scrappy. It’s a better fit.”
Other than the self-employed moniker, I’d be curious how your definition differs from many if not most of the folks who have been laid off long term in this nation. Like you they are not rich, nor do many of them have health insurance or life insurance. If they had vacations I doubt they took lengthy trips. They were probably like my father and myself, who took those times off work to get the “honey-do” list done around the house to keep it in good repair.
Like you they paid taxes: federal, state and local payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, FICA/Medicaid, and the rest.
And every month their bookkeeping probably started at zero, or with a small amount saved from the prior month. They too worked to pay bills, just like you, and sometimes got lucky enough to actually have a bit left over for some entertainment.
So I still don’t understand the bitterness you feel towards these folks. Yes, there are no doubt lazy bums among the long-term unemployed, just as there are crooks among the self-employed. Should we stop any and all programs that benefit the self-employed because there are crooks among your ranks? No!
Then why is it that the modern conservative wishes to ruin the lives of many because of the sins of the few when it comes to the unemployed?

People are losing their careers, which goes beyond the loss of the job. I’ve seen and heard unsympathetic remarks that people like Dave should go work at Home Depot (assuming HD has openings). That is an interim solution to earn money, but its not a long term solution when one’s career of choice or field has disappeared.

Money, you’ve got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you’re gone, spending ends
They don’t come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don’t take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

It’s possible that Dave is simply being slothful and not seizing opportunites to work, but I don’t think it’s likely. Sounds like he had a decent middle class job before and probably a commensurate work ethic. But the loss of a job combined with the (apparent) lack of a support network of extended family and/or friends can nearly destroy a guy, especially in our culture where for most work is our identity. Further, if, like a number of people, he has a genetic predisposition to deparession, he’s probably in a real pit. I have a friend who has this and he has quit work entirely and is working to rebuild his life in a small business with his wife. It’s a painful journey and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. You just can’t render judgement on someone until you know a lot more than you get in a blog post.

One problem the Daves are facing is that, in spite of everything we’ve all gone through, there’s still the presumption that people who lose their job are losers. Old Darwin is alive and well in CorpLand. Of course, its house is all glass on that point.
The latest horrifying trend I’ve read about in the States (mercifully, it doesn’t seem to have followed me to England…yet) is job ads that say “Must be presently employed” or some variation thereof. What hope is there for the unemployed if the few jobs that are left are simply rearranged in a game of musical chairs?
Capcha: in lewinsky. The jokes practically write themselves, don’t they?

All due respect to MM, and nothing personal intended. But reading her latest reminds me of one of the many reasons I stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh many years ago.
Limbaugh’s answer to every employment problem was, “Well, go start your own business!’ He would cite his own unorthodox career path and give examples of other people who had done similar things.
And the polite, recently unemployed men on the other end of the phone, the men whose wives were stay-at-home moms and whose children did not (yet) qualify for state-provided children’s health care, the men who faced the loss of the family home when their savings ran out in a month or two–would thank him. And do what, I always wondered? Create a business plan and then try to get a bank to give them a small business loan despite their precarious financial situations? Fall pray to one of the hundreds of “get rich quick” schemes whose flashy ads say mendaciously “Earn Big $$$ at Home!” or some similar thing? End up even deeper in the hole than they already were?
The old adage about money is true: it takes money to make money. Anyone who wishes to start a business, even in a good economy, has to accept up front that even if his business succeeds, it will take him two years at a minimum to clear a profit. The vast majority of small-business start-ups do not succeed, and failure can be expensive; I’ve heard about at least one family who tried to go the small business route, failed, and a decade later are still paying back, a tiny payment at a time, the staggering amount of money they still owe their creditors (and living in near-poverty to do so).
Because successful small business owners have, indeed, prevailed against daunting odds, I think sometimes they think of the salaried employee as a sort of parasite: “free” healthcare, “free” vacations, pampered and spoiled, with none of the worries of owning the business but every expectation of personal success. But that’s a myth, as employees know well. That “free” healthcare takes a good chunk out of the salary up front–and starting next year, as Obamacare beings to be implemented, that “free” health care will be taxed as income. Those “free” vacations–well, in theory employees get vacation time; in practice, there’s never a good time for them actually to be away, and the laptop computer, pager, and internet-capable phone all mean that business expect employees to be available 24/7 (and this is true even when the employer does not provide the computer, phone, or pager, as happens with increasing frequency in a soft economy). And unlike the small business owner, the employee knows that he is merely a replaceable cog in a rather inefficient and illogical machine; ten, twenty, thirty or more years of service mean nothing, loyalty is not rewarded, “perks” like stock options vanished a decade ago, and there is competition for work from overseas and from recent college grads, both of whom come much cheaper than the forty-plus year old with experience.
The laid-off employee is not like a small-business owner who has suffered some setback or economic loss–he really has nothing to show for all his years of hard work, and has to deal with the new reality that he has to prove himself all over again–he’s really returned to square one, only without the flexibility he had twenty years ago when he was fresh out of college. I have tremendous sympathy for anyone in this situation.

Hi, Rod. Just posted–being held in “comment pending.”

Rod – do talk to him when you see him – we forget how much one’s job and economic status defines who you are – and when you lose that job you lose your sense of status, self worth and who you are – it can be very devastating. It is no wonder some will sink into depression after a few months of rejections. You do start to feel like you have lost your life and it gets hard to see alternatives. Not to mention the social isolation – so a friendly word from you could mean a great deal to him.
And of course – IF a place like Home Depot had an opening – they are not likely to hire anyone with significant education or a management higher level type job. This is one the problems people like Dave have – even when they decide to take any job – the local supermarket or HD won’t hire someone so obviously over qualified especially when they have a large pool of high school grads to hire.
People who are losing their jobs because of this mess should get more than our compassion – they need jobs and both the public and private sector must act in a way which starts to provide those jobs.
hvlburan – yes to your comments re: the failure to invest in research and development- that is where the jobs of the future as well as productivity gains comes from and we have failed to do this – and it is the emphasis on profit and stock price which causes this (along with stupidity). Short twerm gain – no consideration for the future. This is why China and Germany are corralling the international market for alternative energies – and creating jobs for their workers while we have the Dave’s of the world sitting around unemployed.

Erin
Whatever my disagreements with you in the past, I will say now that your post above is one of the best I have read in some time. The glib, pie-in-the-sky pull yerself up yer bootstraps and start yer own business is a cruel (and financially catastrophic)lie for most people who try it. Suggesting that it is the answer for people who have no job at all borders on utter insanity.

This is one the problems people like Dave have – even when they decide to take any job – the local supermarket or HD won’t hire someone so obviously over qualified especially when they have a large pool of high school grads to hire.
After yet another layoff in the aviation industry some years ago, I went down to apply for a job at a Winn Dixie store (since you have to apply for jobs anyway while on unemployment).
The manager looked at my resume and remarked “You make more money then I do. I could hire you, but you would be gone in a heartbeat when aviation picks back up. I can’t use somebody with your skills and salary history.”
It didn’t matter that I was desperate for even minimum wage at that moment. He wanted somebody just out of high school who might stick around for four years, and he was correct that I would not be that person.

Ms. Manning, the only response I can offer to your comments is one word: bravo!

MM,
Rod claims you as a friend and everyone else has already piled on, so I will try to keep the gloves on, but I wish you would reconsider you idea that people who are laid off somehow deserve it. Can you not see how offensive that is? It’s very nearly as bad as telling a stranger who has lost a child (for reasons unknown to you) that that must have been the fault of their bad parenting.
Yes, we have all known the occasonal thief or drunk or outright lazy bum who was fired wth abundantly good cause. I helped get someone like that fired when I was in college (he was embezzling money at the store where I worked and I was the one who detected it) But those people usually don’t get unemployment. Most laid off workers were just in the wrong job at the wrong time, especially in these times when entire corporations have failed and others have eliminated whole dvisions and offices and factories. Or sometimes the reasons for the lay-off are not so innocent and are quite reprehensible on the part of the employer: they don’t like older workers, or someone has a sick spouse running up the healthplan premiums, or they want to hire someone with no kids so they can be worked lots of (unpaid) overtime.
I have been through two layoffs. In 2001 I was working for an IT consulting firm when the consulting opportunities dried up in the tech bust; and in 2006 the company I worked for went bankrupt. I can’t see that either was remotely my fault. Nevertheless in 2002 I was passed over for a job, despite hitting it off well with the hiring manager, because an HR person (so young she could not have been out of college more than a year) was convinced I could not have a lost a job without some misbehavior on my part– she could not grasp the concept that a consulting firm can hardly be expected to keep people on the payroll with no work for them and no money coming in, and she asked some very leading and obnoxious questions of me along those lines. (All’s well that ends well: that job was in the NOLA suburbs; had I taken it and still been there in 2005…)
You may well be a decent person, MM, and I have no doubt you struggle in your business. But please have some empathy for the fact that others struggle too, perhaps in far harder circumstances. That costs you nothing after all.

Erin,
Minor note: the tax on health insurance premiums (or rather the cancellation of the exsting tax break) only involves premiums over and above a fairly munificant level, and it does not kick in until 2017 (if my memoy is correct).
Otherwise I am not surprised as others by your post (other than to say it is very articulate). You have never impressed me as a cafeteria Catholic who eats only from the right side of the buffet, and your Church, for all its current woes, has a solid reputation of being on the side of the angels when it comes to justice.
Celticdragonchick:
In 2002, with income from self-employment starting to fizzle, I tried to find a part-time bartending job. I had bartended in my younger days and always thought I could fall back on it in a pinch. Well, no dice. No one wanted a bartender with my resume. Which makes sense: low wage employers won’t want to hire people who may bolt for a better job without notice, be full of bitterness or be tempted to dishonesty if they are in bad financial straits. I was eventually hired as a telemarketer (I would have rather scrubbed toilets) since in that job it is expected people will quit soon, will naturally be bitter and even the pens and post-it pads had to be signed out and returned.

“I have no health insurance, life insurance or other benefit.”
So who pays if you get sick and have some big medical bills? Do you expect the government to pay or will you try to get rid of the bills through bankruptcy?

I get it, I really do. I deal with the public and hear their stories.
I know many fine poeple who have gone through layoffs including chemists at Glaxo who, as you said Jon, are being replaced by a younger, cheaper crowd. I am in no way justifying the decisions of any business other than my own.
The writing is on the wall though. Many jobs aren’t coming back. It’s time to think in new directions – toward new careers – for some of these unemployed.
What I did say is, those who are currently employed need to do all that they can to increase their value to their employer. It may not be fruitful ultimately, but it can’t hurt.
People are placing words in my mouth that I never said and linking me to a man I don’t much care for (Rush). I’ve only made three comments today. Not much to read, but apparently a lot to read into.
Question to the room: If you were an employer and had to eliminate one job from two identical ones, what would be your criteria for choosing whose job that was?

Rod, Let me put in a word for mm, who’s a personal friend. She’s a small business owner who is the only person in her shop. We’ve invited her twice to come visit us, but she can’t afford the time away from her business. She’s not somebody who is wealthy, or even close to it. She’s busting her butt to keep her shop open in hard times. That doesn’t make her right or wrong on this issue, of course, but I think it’s important that you know this before you judge her
I completely disagree with this.
mm’s words should stand on their own – it should make no difference if the speaker is male or female, democrat or republican, saint or sinner, nice or mean, compassion or none. Zero, zilch, nada. What is being said is either true, or it is not.
The idea that because somebody “knows somebody” or somebody is “nice” or a “nice person” or “one of us” or “on our side” is a terrible way to judge what is being said, period. In my opinion, this attitude really makes it impossible for real democracy to work – everyone is merely on some side or another, and nobody can be honest anymore. It’s all about who you know or how one feels, not what is right and proper.
Btw, I happen to agree with mm – her words are true. And it makes no difference who said them, right is right.

I don’t know anything about Dave’s particular situation, and Mr. Dreher doesn’t know a whole lot more.
But I know this. There are millions of Daves out there, and as long as there are, I do not believe the professional cheerleaders who are busy assuring us that the economy is “recovering” and the days of unlimited credit and spending as before are just right around the corner.
I went to lunch yesterday with a professional colleague, and we were discussing the economy, about which his views are very gloomy. I said, “What about the Wall Street Journal, they think boom times are just around the corner?”
He said, “I’m a busy man, I don’t have time for fantasy.”

I’m late to this thread, but I’d like to point out that most financial services firms use a structure called a model organization. It’s a strict pyramid with numbers at each layer. As you get promoted you advance up the pyramid and so does you salary.
When the base of the pyramid contracts, then the top must by a proportional amount. But often not in the way that you or MM would think.
Management will lay off more of the workers at the top of the pyramid. They will then promote some workers at the bottom up to back fill, but of course freeze their wages. They’ll also lay off people who’s compensation ratio is deemed to high at lower levels of the pyramid too. So they reduce salary costs, but at the cost of an ironic outcome.
You get promoted or have a high comp ratio by being one of the better employees! This also kills morale of people left behind too. So bean counters prove they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

@ MM
“The writing is on the wall though. Many jobs aren’t coming back. It’s time to think in new directions – toward new careers – for some of these unemployed.”
Part of the problem is that many people who are being laid off are of an age where reinventing themselves maybe very difficult. I’m in my early 50′s and have gone through 3 complete career changes. Even if I did reinvent myself for a fourth time. I’d run the risk of being too old to be hired. That’s where the problems are in this economy.
“What I did say is, those who are currently employed need to do all that they can to increase their value to their employer. It may not be fruitful ultimately, but it can’t hurt.”
True, however, decisions are not always based on employee value. They are usually made on employee cost. A number of years ago there was a psychological and accounting change in how businesses viewed their employees.At one time, well run companies viewed their employees as assets, now they are expenses. It’s that shift that has caused some of the upheaval. When employees are viewed as expenses, the goal becomes simple. Keep the expenses down. The less people, the less expenses, the more profit.
Captcha machinery refiling

“Btw, I happen to agree with mm – her words are true. And it makes no difference who said them, right is right.”
I assume you mean this.
“To pay people not to work (beyond several months) is a huge mistake because it contradicts our basic survival instinct.
Thank you, bloated government.”
The Katz study is the one most often cited showing that unemployment insurance keeps people from working. It had a couple of flaws, which have been repeated in some of the European studies. First, in his study, there 2 people applying for every one job. The ratio is now five to one. Secondly, most people do not get jobs immediately when unemployment insurance ends. They just drop off the lists entirely. So, during times of full employment longer UI leads to people not looking for work. Not so for our current situation.
Steve

Re: If you were an employer and had to eliminate one job from two identical ones, what would be your criteria for choosing whose job that was?
Obviously if one of the workers is trouble with a capital T s/he is out the door.
But all things being equal (no disciplinary problems, similar levels of intelligence and dutifulness etc.) I’d keep an older worker. They younger one will have an easier time of finding a new job, and can probably rely on family for help. And older workers as a group are more experienced, more settled in life, with a better work ethic (e.g., weekday hangovers are unlikely). Also, if I knew that someone was in a difficult situation (sick family member for example needing insurance) I would keep that person, or else I would have trouble looking at myself in the mirror let alone walking through the church door on Sunday. Basic morality is never optional, nor exiled to the rear seat.
As an aside though, please note that job losses these days are not at all discriminating: companies don’t chose between this and that job; they eliminate jobs in blocks with entire facilities getting shut down. Also, those who do the cutting may have no acquaintance at all with the people they cut; they not even be in the same city. A small business like yours can be discerning; a big business sees nothing but numbers, not human beings.
On your larger point, I agree that considerable retraining is needed. However we do not make this easy. Several European countries (not all of them) do a very good job at this and I think we should learn from them. Anyone out of work for over six months should have the option of retraining and at a program that is required to place them in a job (assuming they suceeed at the curriculum) or else not be paid for their effort– that to weed out the numerous frauds in this area. Meanwhile those in training would continue to receive reasonable stipends to keep a roof over their heads. A long time ago there was a program called CETA, cancelled by Reagan. Now I have no doubt there were problems with the program as it was, but it should have been fixed, not ended. And we should bring something like that back. We are going to need to retrain people on a large scale, and failing to do so will hobble our economy for years to come if we do not accept this challenge.

@ mm
“Question to the room: If you were an employer and had to eliminate one job from two identical ones, what would be your criteria for choosing whose job that was?”
What *I* would look for may not be what my superiors would want. ALL other things being equal (I’m showing my age) I would defer to the most senior person, that is the one that has been there the longest. Longevity to me is a form of loyalty.

mdavid,
A little chivalry, including yours, is a refreshing breeze in a white hot world. Thanks for that.
Now let’s put our tutus on and bust open a Bailey’s.

MH
I wonder if your observation is the underlying cause of the
“Peter principle”: people tend to rise to their level of incompetence. The good but well-paid workers get the axe, the poorly paid incompetents are left behind.

@ mdavid
“mm’s words should stand on their own – it should make no difference if the speaker is male or female, democrat or republican, saint or sinner, nice or mean, compassion or none. Zero, zilch, nada. What is being said is either true, or it is not.”
Actually, it does help to know where a person is coming from. Knowing mm is self employed helps me to understand her comments and her viewpoint. It’s helpful to the discussion. The fact the she’s friends with Rod makes no difference. The fact that I understand who she is helps immensely.

I was somewhat like Dave for the most part of 5 years, from 2004 until last year. I was laid off for being too expensive (over the protest of the project’s government contract officer). Collected unemployment for the requisite time (incidentally, anyone who claims that collecting unemployment allows one to live the “Life of Riley” has never collected unemployment, unless they can do so on 30% of $50,000/year–subject to taxes, also).
My field was very specialized, and I wanted to stay in it, and it is in high demand. For reasons having little to do with me (security clearance Catch-22) it took a long time to find a company to sponsor me for a clearance, and an even longer time for the clearance(s) to come through. I did some consulting, some teaching, some part-time work, burned through my retirement savings. The kicker for me was that I didn’t feel I could switch careers, or take on a full-time job, because if/when my clearance came through, I’d be gone.
Anyway, late last year, the stars aligned, my clearance came through, and I began work immediately (at over twice what I was making at my last full-time job). I had no idea how depressed I had been before: my wife would tell me I was depressed and should talk to someone, and I’d tell her that I knew exactly why I was depressed, and that I would stop being depressed when I started working. That was true, but the effects of my depression were insidious, robbing me of my confidence, threatening my natural optimism, and affecting how I dealt with friends, family, and potential employers. I was fortunate in my friends and family, all of whom were supportive.

mm: “If you were an employer and had to eliminate one job from two identical ones, what would be your criteria for choosing whose job that was?”
That depends entirely on why I was eliminating that job. If I were eliminating it to cut payroll costs and stay competitive with firms who had moved to areas of the world with lower payroll costs, I would likely cut the higher paid worker, all other things being equal.
If I were cutting the position because of decreased demand for my product in a cyclic market, I would probably lay off the younger of the two workers (again, all other things being equal), as he/she would have a better chance of re-marketing to another employer.
However, if I were laying off because of a long-term cut in demand for my products, one that would require that I focus on re-modeling my business plan and perhaps my product line, I would likely keep the younger worker (all other things being equal) since it is generally the younger workers that adapt more quickly to change. They are also generally more easily trained in new skills.
Now, it’s easy to come up with exceptions to the rules above. In a union shop the decision would be based on seniority. In a business with contracts that had a severance package it might well be the decision would be based on lowest cost of separation. Or, I might decide to open the choice up to the two employees and see if one was willing to take a voluntary layoff.
Your question, if asked sincerely, lacks the information necessary to make an intelligent answer. These decisions are not made in a vacuum, nor based on a single variable.
Kinda like the reason that Dave is sitting on a park bench daily instead of working. It’s not that he is lazy. He may actually have played by all of the rules and simply have run out of options.

Jon and Steve D, your sentiments are certainly noble. But as Jon himself pointed out, these layoffs are more like an impersonal force of nature than something on a human scale.
Jon, I told a younger co-worker that during the 92 and 01 downturns the push out the door was followed by a pull out the door. Basically the good workers that were laid off found new jobs. As the market turned they networked with their former co-workers, and convince the ones who were promoted without a pay raise to jump ship. The result was exactly your observation. A few years after the major layoffs these companies succeeded in retaining their lowest quality workers.
When/if this job market turns we’ll see if history repeats.

We all must begin thinking and acting like entrepreneurs. Our businesses, industries, communities, etc. have to come up with some new and different ideas on how to create wealth and, subsequently, jobs!! On a TV program recently, Mike Bloomberg argued strongly for admitting and encouraging more immigrants!!
He pointed out that immigrants are really hungry (almost desperate?) for work. So they are willing and able to think “outside the box” and create new and different ways to make a buck!!
As a retiree, I am now actively working with the local Chamber of Commerce to see what new and unique enterprises we can encourage or get started in our community. Doing so is much harder than I thought it would be!! Plenty of good people willing and able to try, but coming up with really workable ideas that are good enough to get bank loans (especially these days!) is a difficult, demanding task.
And where I live in a quite conservative corner of Wisconsin, the locals don’t take to immigrants too well!! But we’ll keep trying!

@Rick
“We all must begin thinking and acting like entrepreneurs. Our businesses, industries, communities, etc. have to come up with some new and different ideas on how to create wealth and, subsequently, jobs!!”
I’ve heard this before. Like in every downturn in the past 3 decades. The real problem is that as a society we’re really not set up for 300 million entrepreneurs. We’d have to rethink everything from tax structure to credit to family life. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. It’s just that there are too many players who have vested interests in how things are. To paraphrase Dilbert: We’re talking about shifting paradigms without a clutch.
Captcha: maserati guilty

Kinda like the reason that Dave is sitting on a park bench daily instead of working. It’s not that he is lazy. He may actually have played by all of the rules and simply have run out of options.
Then again, he may be working his behind off and taking a break. Note that Rod doesn’t see him every day, but occasionally. Note also that Rod has no idea what Dave is up to when Rod’s not looking. None.
Dave’s job search might be nation-wide and persistent, and from my experience the changes in his appearance are just as easily those of someone who is working too hard as from someone who is allowing himself to go to seed.
Ever see those traders leaving Wall Street at the end of the day? Saggy-grey-skinned guys? They’ve been working in a pressure cooker, but if you took them to the street and sat them on the park bench with a dog you’d wonder if they were ill and/or homeless.

We all must begin thinking and acting like entrepreneurs.
As an entrepreneur, I find this simplistic at best.

Way late to this party, but I also wanted to weigh in on applauding Erin’s wonderful post here and wanted to comment on this bit:
“The old adage about money is true: it takes money to make money. Anyone who wishes to start a business, even in a good economy, has to accept up front that even if his business succeeds, it will take him two years at a minimum to clear a profit. The vast majority of small-business start-ups do not succeed, and failure can be expensive; I’ve heard about at least one family who tried to go the small business route, failed, and a decade later are still paying back, a tiny payment at a time, the staggering amount of money they still owe their creditors (and living in near-poverty to do so).”
This right here is the most key aspect of the system that needs to be fixed. Not the impossible end of the matter that most efforts end in failure, but the part where there is a bar to entry or an unrecoverable aftermath to failure. On top of a proper basic safety net, we need to provide an open-ended system of grants to anyone without the means to self-finance such projects; expand or even completely incorporate the NEA into this, and expect the 90% failure rate as people need to keep coming back for another go.
Will people scam it, even if you put up a nominal requirement of having a passable business plan? Sure. But at the worst, that means that the money is being taken and spent on things, making it more likely for other projects to succeed well enough to hit the point that they can pay back into the system.