Disagree all you want, but the numbers aren't on your side. And this is important because it shapes how people structure the debate. If you think people's employment troubles are they're own damn fault no matter what the economy was up to, then you aren't likely to be very generous when thinking of solutions.

Luck matters. Some people are born lucky and succeed despite their monumental shortcomings; some people are born unlucky and all their hard work just goes to keeping their heads above water.

And unemployment doesn't have to be at 50% to destroy the economy. First of all the unemployment measure isn't as statistically significant as it used to be because off all the part time work. There are plenty of people who work, but don't have enough hours or make enough money. You want to look at the sum of the unemployment and the under/marginally employed. Underemployment went from 4 million in 2007 to 8 million in 2009.

The recession disproportionally affected new people ending the work force, which is the point most germane to this conversation. In 2008, 750k new entrants to the work force were looking for work; in 2009, 1.3 million new people were looking for work. That is a combination of new graduates and a large fraction of last year's graduates all competing for the same job. And that trend continued for three years. If you didn't get hired when you graduated you're probability of getting job goes down in the next year as you compete against equally qualified people.