The mechanical engineer is unfortunate enough to be old. No one wants to hire him because they are afraid he'll just retire in a few years. He's scraping by doing contract work, but he keeps having to take people to court to get them to pay him, and he's just tired. I have gotten by, but it's only because I was lucky enough to have picked up a trade skill; but a lot of people are not so lucky. And it was just that — luck. I could easily have gotten a different job while I was in college and be left right now with no prospects whatever. I certainly didn't have any higher motivations by picking up that skill — as far as I was concerned at the time it was just a job. And now I'd actually be in a better situation if I had not gone to college at all. Funny how things work out. It just bothers me when people assume that everyone who is in a bad situation is there because they have purple hair and reek of patchouli, or majored in 17th century literature. It just ain't so — and sometimes it's not the fault of the person who can't find a job. You can do everything right and still get totally screwed right now. So much is down to timing and luck. I'm not sure standing in the street will really solve anything, sure. But the way things have been handled recently with respect to the banks and the mortgage crisis is criminal, and I don't think it's wrong to object to that, or try to bring attention to it. It's nice to talk about free markets, but if you're going to go for that, you have to go all the way. If you're going to regulate, you have to regulate sensibly. This half-of-one, half-of-the-other nonsense has to stop before the country just gets driven off of a cliff. And I think it's good to put faces to what's going on. It's easy to ignore such crises if you're not forced to confront them.

I have a degree in applied math and have yet to find a job that will pay me a living wage, let alone a job in my field. I know an attorney, an economist, a chemist and a mechanical engineer who are in similar situations. They're all ridiculously smart people who did everything right and are still being boned by this economy. None them are in the least funny-looking or otherwise objectionable to potential employers. It's not just starry-eyed liberal arts kids that are living with these problems.

re: #1, This is what catbibs are for.