In the U.S. economy, being employed is key. That's how you get your insurance, your credit cards, your car and house loan, etc.

And that's a big problem. Sure, there should be a very big financial differnce between having a job and not. People shouldn't have any incentives to live on benefits.

But why should corporations do pensions, healt care, insurance and another ten thousand things? In neoliberal utopia(tm) those things should be financed by the individual. In a more reasonable world, most of those things are done by the state and financed via taxes.

The current US system is just stupid, putting strain on the competitivity of firms while utterly ignoring the needs of the unemployed.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.