I received a rather alarming McKinsey Quarterly report today, which analyzed job prospects in America. McKinsey calculated that 75 to 85 percent of the average American’s pretax income comes from wages from labor (rather than investments). Given the hit that most of our portfolios have taken of late, I’m actually surprised it wasn’t higher. In any case, that puts a lot of pressure on people to earn more if they want to increase their standard of living.

The problem is that 71 percent of us are now working in jobs where demand has been significantly reduced in recent years, and supply of workers has increased, thanks to all the usual reasons (technology, migration, de-unionization, etc). The upshot – we are now very much at risk for yet another jobless recovery, this time one that shuts out not only low end workers, but the middle classes as well.

There were no silver bullets in the report, aside from the obvious – try to join the ranks of companies like McKinsey, which are getting more and more of their revenue from abroad…