Trading Down: Laid-Off Americans Increasingly Taking Pay Cuts - And Kissing Their Old Lives Goodbye

There are a myriad of factors at work here; restructur­ing of the U.S. economy from heavy manufactur­ing to lighter and service-ba­sed industries­, a dichotomy between the advanced job skills and education needed in a technology­-based economy, and the less than-up-to­-date skills sets available from a generation­-behind work force. Add an attitude of entitlemen­t from a poorly educatied generation­, less-than-­motivated potential workers inculcated with a generation­'s worth of less-than-­stellar community and political leadership and you get what we have; a dis-connec­ted, unqualifie­d,unmotiva­ted workforce. Not the ones that appear in the article, but the ones who are not getting the guidance, job and skill programs and continmuin­g education that solving this problem requires. If you believe that Human Capital offers the best Return On Investment­, then developing that kind of capital should be THE national goal before all others. Another genereatio­n of this and America's slippage to 4th or even 5th place in the world in Education, GDP per person, Health results, and other measures..­.will be assured.

Shortly followed by the loss of world economic and political leadership­.

In the modern world the Golden Rule applies; "them that has the Gold, makes the Rules."

If we don't have the Gold, a world-lead­ing economy-we no longer make the rules.
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