Not news to anybody actually in the job market. Never assume that a Starbucks barrista is an ignorant kid--he/she may well have a Master's in engineering that's been rendered worthless by globalism.

It's particularly facile for Republicans to spout their second-favorite cliche, after "get a job!": "Get an education!". That comes across as particularly stupid and ignorant to the ears of people with advanced education in the latest engineering and technical disciplines, who thought that they already had "21st Century skills". Apparently Republicans define "21st Century skills" as advanced hamburger flipping and ninja coffee brewing.

What's going on is not, despite Republican claims of laziness or greed or ignorance, the fault of American workers. The problem is that we're embedded in an untenable cost structure. If the US were a business, it would have the highest overhead in the world. We got away with it for a long time because technical advantages let us mass-produce goods and spread the overhead over a large number of units, keeping our products competitive despite our high standard of living.

But other people can duplicate technological advantages--once you demonstrate something's possible, it's only a matter of time before somebody reverse engineers it; and the nature of the economy has shifted from hard goods in which the concept of economy of scale has some meaning, to soft goods, like software and media and electronic transactions, which can be endlessly duplicated at little cost. The new economy is fantastically sensitive to overhead costs.

America's high overhead is killing us.

The American economy has benefited itself, and us, with the same efficiencies, by bringing the cost of most essentials of life down as low as possible. But there's one huge exception, and it's what's killing us: The high cost of housing. It's the largest component of the cost of living in America, and in contrast to the declining cost of food and even energy (measured over the long term), it's the one essential whose costs has shot through the roof, past the stratosphere, and into orbit, over the last few decades.

And Americans, perversely, have been cheering on the housing cost inflation, drooling over their paper equity and resolutely ignoring how meaningless it is, ignoring the plain truth illustrated when it comes time to buy another home whose price is equally inflated. There's never been a circle jerk like American real estate speculation.

So here we are after half a century of pursuing the "American dream of home ownership" at the urging of politicians and government programs like Fannie Mae, hostage to mortgages and unable to do much at all to improve the cost of living that's dragging down the American economy.

I don't see any pleasant solution. Trillions of dollars in home equity would have to be flushed down the toilet before Americans can compete against people whose housing costs are within reason. Yet the only way for Americans to compete against people who can live on $200 a month is to reform our own cost structures so that we can live as cheaply too. It wouldn't bother me to be making $500 a month if it costs $400 to live--it's all relative.

Do I think the "real estate bubble" will burst? Yep. Will it hurt like hell? Oh yes! Is it necessary? Absolutely. The party's over, and the pallid satisfaction of watching numbers on a financial statement grow through speculation-induced inflation has to give way to the reality of reforming our cost structure in order to survive.