Take this job and shove it...

I've been trying to catch up on blogs I haven't read in way too long. Avedon seems to be posting less and less often these days but she's still always worth starting at the top and scrolling. I especially recommend her rant here on the myth that all we need to do is retrain older workers. It starts like this:

And, honest to gods, I so want to smack people around when they talk about retraining. Some of the most skilled and educated people in America are out of work and will probably never have another job because they are regarded as too old. For the most part, they will have better educations and be more literate and have wider experience than the younger people who come up behind them because they were educated before the Reagan administration set to work destroying our educational system.

Read the whole thing at the link. Atrios talked about this a while ago too. That post is long buried but he's right in saying that for people in their late 50s and older, retraining for a new career is ridiculous. Even a two year program takes you that closer to retirement age and the bottom line is no one wants to hire older workers for anything. Competency is not valued, it's considered a threat and to even get a crummy job, in this age group you have to pretend to be less skilled or else you're considered "over-qualified." Atrios suggested lowering the retirement age to 62, which sounds to me like a better solution than raising it to 70 when there's no jobs to be had.

Meanwhile, Avedon also links to a few short interviews done with well know bloggers at Netroots. I liked that Digby gave a shout out to Dan at Pruning Shears. He's one of the most under-appreciated bloggers out there, right next to my much cherished friend Capt. Fogg. They both always have enlightening posts and eloquent styles that should have launched them into greater glory by now.

Do yourself a favor on a slow news weekend and read them both, right now.