No, it's not, but the current situation smacks of systemic job loss rather than cyclical job loss. It's a problem. What happens when people absolutely can't find new jobs? Self-feeding demand destruction?
Sounds like we're back in the 80's - 'the Japanese are taking our jobs! The robots did it!' and then we went into the 20 most prosperous years humankind has ever known. I hear people cry left and right that today's job loss is systemic, but I hardly see any factual arguments to support that position. Jobs were cut over the last two years, this quarter profits are back up, and if those improved profits repeat themselves for a few quarters the confidence will come back and more people will be hired. A regular business cycle, even if the nature of the drivers is changing.
Now I'm not saying it doesn't suck for those without a job, and I'm sure some people have it really rough, but come on like Jacques says - today's poor (in the West) live lives 10 times better than the kings of 500 years ago. I'm sure that's no consolation for a welfare mom who has to put her children to bed some nights crying because they're hungry, but overall, these are still great times to live in. Let's keep some perspective, put problems in the right context and fix the comparatively small deficiencies rather than cry wolf, pack cans of beans and ammo and head for the mountains.
The weird thing is that it is more likely that mom and those kids suffer from chronic obesity, at least in the U.S. Doesn't change the fact, though, that the poor face much greater health risks than the affluent when it comes to nutrition. Just that the nature of those risks has changed, and take longer to manifest themselves.
The difference between then and now is that some of the people that were affluent then are feeling a little bit of the heat right now and they're scared shitless. But given a slight economic upturn they'll forget about all that and it's back to business as usual. Except for the people that had it bad in 2002, they'll continue to live in a way that a civilised country ought to be ashamed off.
There is no crisis, there is only a totally weird distribution of wealth that has temporarily gotten a bit weirder. If we really wanted then we could solve this problem, but all the majority wants is to return to the situation of 5 years ago.
"10 times better than the kings of 500 years ago." Yes, but both you and jacquesm are confusing technology advancement with an economic phenomenon, which is defined by high structural unemployment rate and many business failures
"pack cans of beans and ammo and head for the mountains." Nobody says you have to do that. 75% of the people that lived through the great depression lived a normal but frugal life. However, if/when the dollar suffers from hyperinflation, that's another story.