I’m bright, talented, hardworking, well-educated and have good social skills. Why can’t I find a job? After I graduated from college I worked for about two years for a small company, but they went under over a year ago. Since then I’ve been pounding the pavement with no results. I couldn’t even land a retail job I’m overqualified for. What the [CENSORED] is going on?*

Dear Jobless,

In the smaller picture, you may be doing something wrong –looking for the wrong kinds of opportunities, not projecting a professional image, showing up for your job interview with spinach in your teeth –something that can be fixed. It’s quite probable there are specific practical steps you can take that would lead you to finding and obtaining a job you would be very happy with, at a nice salary, with friendly, cheerful coworkers. That’s all possible in the smaller picture.

This is a philosophy column, however, and the big picture has less to do with your brightness, your talents, your work ethic, your education, or your ability to carry on a conversation and chew gum at the same time, and more to do with the impending –some would say ongoing –collapse of our society’s economic system.

I am not an economist, nor do I play one on television, but there are three current trends that require neither a Harvard degree nor a psychic sixth sense to read as warnings of dire consequences ahead. Understanding them might just be your last best chance at a brighter future.

NEXT WEEK: Dire Trend # 1

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