Robin Henig wrote a long piece in the NYTimes Magazine about why today’s 20-somethings have yet to reach what she describes as “adulthood,” in words that evoke a similar rant not too long ago.

Again, I note that she spent far more time describing what people wear than the world they inherit: Plenty of time with psychologists but not with economists.

Well, let me give a little bit of insight. What has historically stopped people from leaving their parents’ home? What has historically pushed back the age of “settling down,” getting married and starting a family? Why can’t these 20-somethings start a career?

It’s the economy, stupid.

In times of recession, kids don’t leave home – not because they’re not adults, but because they can’t afford to. The average age a kid left the nest in 1975, during the recession, was 25. We’re none too different now.

In times of recession, it’s almost impossible to start a career, because none are to be found. That’s why the average 20-something today has seven jobs in ten years. Nobody can truly expect to hold a job that long. Who the hell has job security nowadays?

And if you don’t have money, how the hell are you supposed to start a home? It’s not a state of mind indicative of a creche culture in the modern society, it’s cold hard facts of money.

The subject of the economy got a scant three sentences in a ten page article. Robin Henig should spend less time noting the details of our day to day lifestyles and more time acknowledging the 400lb gorilla in the room.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group posted record profits from its Motts processing plant in Rochester, NY. At the same time it’s seeking to cut wages and benefits from its employees, citing, among other things, that the job market is depressed, that other blue-collar employees are paid less, and because,

“as a public company, Dr Pepper Snapple Group has a fiduciary responsibility to operate in the best interests of all its constituents, recognizing that a profitable business attracts investment, generates jobs and builds communities.”

ie: We are bound by our investors to maximize profits, no matter what.

None of this is exactly new – treating employees like a commodity, paying scabs to undermine strikes, using any excuse to cut labor, basically doing whatever the company thinks it can get away with – but the openness by which Dr Pepper Snapple Group is going about it brings pause.

Perhaps they forgot that the only public good private business offers is in tax money and wages. Without which it’s just a drain on society: A leech not unlike any other feudal aristocrat. Profit for its own sake – especially the faceless legal necessity for greed; the convenient inhuman source for corporate inhumanity – is a destructive, disastrous affair, and even the most cynical economist would first frame his argument by how private greed can benefit society overall.

Either way I hope Andrew Cuomo throws his support behind the union strikers and– I’d use the word “shame” but you cannot shame a corporation (look at BP), rather, uses his candidacy to remind the public just what it means when you let corporations run free.

Bob Herbert points out the distressing and depressing truth on labor statistics (we’re closing in on 11% unemployed if we count those who, by dint of “no longer actively searching” or falling off the unemployment rolls, are no longer counted as part of the labor force) and the lack of decisive action by the Democrats in power.

The solution is easy. It always has been, though getting there requires the Democrats finally saying “fuck you” and stop dithering about: Raise taxes for the top bracket. Put ‘em on a war-time footing. Raise ‘em from the 30-odd percent they are now to 91%, like they were the last time this happened. Tax the rich. Now.

The New York Times did an editorial essentially thanking city officials for unanimously voting to allow a mosque and Islamic community center to be built two blocks from the WTC site, for having done so they have upheld the highest aspirations and values of this country.

That’s all well and good, but what gets me is the sheer unbridled vehemence of those who would deny such – from Republican leaders across the country to the very commentators to that editorial, all of whom repeat a mantra as ugly, hateful and bigoted as it sounds: “The terrorists were Muslim and the mosque is a purposeful statement to the victims of September 11th of that victory of Islam over America, and to spread their cult in this nation.”

The sheer blinded arrogance and hatred of that statement is mind-blowing in this day and age. To list the lack of insight:

• Muslims died along with everybody else during September 11th; New York City is a polyglot city.
• The Muslim community of New York City is no more tied to Islamist terrorists than the Christian community of New York City is tied to the neo-Nazi movement.
• Al Qaeda terrorists are extremists first and Muslims second. If we are to indict Islam as a whole on the basis of these extremists, then we must indict Judaism for Israel’s transgressions, and Christianity for– where to begin? I know:
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow Catholic churches near schools or playgrounds.
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow Baptist churches near federal buildings.
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow missions near any poor community.

The sheer bigotry and prejudice that openly lives in our society must be killed once and for all. The unanimous vote was, as stated by the New York Times, not just the right way but the only way. Let’s go further: Let’s censure every Republican to have stood against this. Let’s not stop until they are no longer a voice in our political process. We must expunge this sort of intolerance now and forever.

Foreign Policy magazine is coming down on Obama for failing to create much positive headway in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Israel. “Zero for Four.”

To which I ask, who has made headway with them in the last 30 years? Stephen Walt says he’ll be blamed for “losing” our two wars. We knew they would be lost in 2003. There is no other possible outcome. I suppose Obama could have said “damn the consequences,” fallen on the grenade, gotten us out of the wars post-haste, watched the region go to shit and had a world of bad press kill the Democratic party’s mandate as the Republicans mocked him for being a second Carter while secretly thankful that we were out of that mess, but… seriously now.

That said, what I got out of the article – the indictment – was that, by so much as having that byline, he has insinuated that Obama could use an executive mandate to fundamentally alter America’s antagonistic stance towards Iran and chummy relationship with Israel. Arguably, Obama does have more official power as the executive than anybody in this or the last century thanks to Bush’s policies and party, aside from, perhaps, the mandates of FDR. Whether that translates to real power, however, is up for debate.

The anemic ministrations of this current administration can only mean two things:

a) The Democratic party was unwilling to use the mandate it got in 2009

b) The Democratic party was unable to use the mandate it got in 2009

Just so I don’t go mad, I’m going to assume the latter. At which point we have our most damning indictment of democracy – its utter inability to turn the ship around in any time-line remotely necessary to stave off disaster.

Someone please mark the exact time and date of the death of satire.