All good points.
It's an interesting picture these days...and not necessarily interesting in a good way.
On the one hand, as you suggest, I see help-wanted signs all over the place. Restaurants, factories, county government, retail stores...the list goes on.
On the other hand, most of these positions don't seem to be of the sort that lend themselves to long-term careers in support of families and communities.
Forbes published an article earlier this year describing the problems that college graduates are having in finding decent jobs after graduation. Of course the article also discussed how one of the reasons for this is that a lot of these kids are simply not grown up, and companies are looking for grown-ups or people who can at least come across as grown-ups in interviews.
To your point, however, I'm pretty sure most of our five married kids are not heavily invested in the stock market but they (and/or their spouses) are building good careers and providing good lives for their children by simple virtue of high character and hard work, the two elements that have always been the most important elements of success in life, no matter the prevailing economic conditions.
You said not to feel bad for young people today, but in a way I do because they grew up in a consumer society with a variety of comforts and privileges that were unimaginable in previous ages of history while being conditioned to think of success in terms of acquiring things.
Yet by and large, I don't know that most of them were given the most important thing of all, something you can't put a price tag on but is essential: a sense of meaning and purpose in life. I think that's the foundation of character...and character is the foundation of success in everything else.
