This is really what most of these kids are angry about, isn’t it? Most of them — except for the usual complement of old lefties and sundry off-their-meds street people — are, as many reporters have noted, college grads. One fellow interviewed last night on the Michael Medved radio show, for instance, was even a J.D. (Tellingly, he was not working in law — a symptom of the lawyer glut.)

They’re mad that they “can’t get jobs.” As Herman Cain points out, surely they can get some kind of job right now — just not in a trendy place like New York, Boston, or Seattle (cities where the Occupy movements have sprung up). In that time-honored Grapes of Wrath–esqe tradition, they could put Ma in the flatbed and set off cross-country to look for work. The job will probably be a low-paying one, and conservatives would do well not to sugarcoat this fact. Wages for entry-level and semi-skilled workers have barely budged in ten years. I credit this to employer’s wariness about hiring anyone at all. Hiring people (and all the litigation risks they present) is simply too risky unless that hire is obviously going to enhance the bottom line. Risks on the young and the untested are simply unacceptable in a tight economy tied down with regulation.

In short, if an Occupy Wall Street kid is ever inclined to look for work, the job he finds is not likely to be the groovy one he and his beleaguered parents envisioned when that $200,000 was shelled out for a four-year degree in poli-sci or women’s studies.