I can totally relate to what you're talking about. I'm a graduating engineer and it seems the job market sucks more than ever, and if you're not some drooling moron who can't bullshit his way into finding a job then good luck pal. Then on top of that getting stacked up against hella outsourcing and wage arbitrage. These problems are just as important as any coming from this financial meltdown business. A resolve to those issues would save the day for plenty of Americans.
You can read econometrics books till 5am, like I am now, and still only have a mess of ideas. Very, very difficult to do this outside of a university.