Disposable Workers 2016

There was no talk of this kind around the dinner tables or cocktail parties of my youth. Pensions were largely generous and of the defined benefit variety, colleges were affordable and required no loans which would follow students throughout their lifetimes, and their were numerous institutions which bound people of various educational and monetary backgrounds.

Now workers are the first thing which our investment bankers deem expendable. They figure with a little re-training that these bulwarks of the middle class will be fine, and will soon find jobs which pay almost as much as they made previously.

These same people who fill the volunteer positions which keep our society functioning without friction are now asked to make do with less and keep plugging the holes in our society's safety net. Kinda a tough job for limited satisfaction. The middle class is already working two jobs, and no mothers are around to greet their children when they come home from school. Or better yet, the mothers who used to fix us lunch when we came home. Today in Ridgewood every grade school has a cafeteria and an after school club where children study until their parents pick them up at 6 or 7 PM. What a long boring day! This is the resulting education for our next generation when their parents are considered disposable and just in need of some re-training.