 Are we in trouble?
tom_rath: Yeah, probably.  But while you're slogging through it remember this:  It will get better."The Greatest Generation" emerged from the Depression, the dot.com boom followed the Gen-X "McJob" years and the "something-something" will follow whatever we end up calling this mess.Ask any unlucky sod who finished school just in time for the last nasty recession and they may tell you how unbelievably bleak and hopeless things felt while they took any odd job they could find just to pay rent and eat (my own situation, fwiw).  Still, they were able to enjoy the magical tech boom just a few years later and, during that boom, it was hard to believe there was ever a time of job and capital scarcity.The economy is cyclical, fortunes rise and fall, and you have to work with the hand you've been dealt.  Times will be tough (for some, even worse than you're picturing) but things will get better and the good times will return.Then, when they do, remember that it'll crater again some day and prepare accordingly, because almost everyone else will have forgotten.