So far as being angry, Americans should be getting angry -- 30 years of conservative orthodoxy have all but destroyed the American Dream.They should be angry, but at themselves. They were marketed an image of a perfect, prosperous future, and then acted all appalled when the realization came up somewhat short of the Dream. The American Dream you speak of is an ideal, but is nowhere near an entitlement, and certainly nothing other people are under the obligation to guarantee for those who didn't get theirs. On average, you will end up better than your parents through hard work and diligence; but shit does happen, and our attempts to counteract that are arbitrary at best. We can't make the world fair; developing an antagonistic attitude, and expecting payment for a broken marketing-slogan-turned-assumed-promise, threatens to drag everyone down. Which of these is more fair, I wonder?
I see a lot of complaining about my position in your comment but I'm not seeing what you say the root cause is... I'd like to hear that.
I'm not certain what the root cause is, to be honest. You have the tone of someone who feels severely cheated, and with a desire to take it to those whom you feel cheated you. You have certain expectations of the way things ought to be, and seem convinced to at least a certain degree that there is a group behind the curtain manipulating things such that your expectations don't come to pass.
In the words of the late Eric Naggum: if this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.
You claim one of your prior employers didn't want to invest in your well-being or professional development in any way. Do you feel employers ought to do these sorts of things, and not just as perks to entice you to work there? Would you leave an employer that didn't for one that did? Is this not an option for people in general? Or do you believe that people are trapped in whatever jobs they land, and that, as a result, we can't reasonably make them responsible for their own professional well-being?
As for chasing young people away, they're chasing themselves away.
Not from what I've been able to gather from the youngsters I work with. They're scared shitless of the fire-and-brimstone accounts told to them by people who have spent the last thirty years cataloging every moment they've felt screwed, and counter-balancing that with an empty catalog of anything good. It leaves me with a lot of work to do, to be honest, because they are honestly as drawn to the profession from a standpoint of personal interest as I am, but they can't help but think that living as a fry cook at McDonalds might be a better way to go. I think this is a shame; I can't help but think you believe this is anything but.