Before I get onto the actual subject at hand, I’d like to take a moment to personally thank Kate for the great honour of blogging on SDA in 2011. Like many of you, I imagine, I was drawn to this site several years ago as a refuge from the liberal-MSM and a temporary sanctuary of sanity. Living here on Canada’s Left Coast, as I do, throughout much of my life I was told that my fiscal conservative principles and dismissiveness of political correctness made me: selfish, ignorant, narrow minded, unenlightened, and a host of other pejoratives. Fast forward to 2011 though . . . like two freight trains heading toward each other, the Great Lies of “Progressives” are starting to meet head on with Undeniable Economic Facts. As the infamous Jeremiah Wright once said, “the chickens are comin’ home to roost!”
Earlier this week, American radio talkshow host, Dennis Prager, spent 2 straight hours focused entirely on this stunning article about the increasing collapse of the social welfare state in Europe. There are several great quotes within, including this one:
“By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.” — Giuliano Amato, economist and former Italian prime minister
The never ending cycle of borrowing from the future to pay for unaffordable luxuries today has worked well in Europe for many decades. Quite frankly, any political party that dared put a permanent halt to it would have been thrown out of office in no time for the liberal media and public sector unions would have had no problem convincing a majority of voters that More-More-More didn’t have to Stop-Stop-Stop anytime soon.
This coming decade may finally signal European society finally hitting rock bottom, not all too dissimilar from an addict reaching the same point. But they’re not there yet and it’s going to get awfully messy before it gets better. Until then, watch both the unemployment and the debt throughout Europe continue to soar.
Paywall on the NYT link?
CERDIP: The link to the NY Times article is working fine on both my home computers and my iPhone, showing the full article intact.
Congratulations on your addition to the SDA crew of guest bloggers, eat a hot pepper and a Pelalusa style west coast beer Robert W. “you’re in the club”
CERDIP, I’m not getting the paywall @ NY Times for either of the pages there….
It’s a tough article to read, people spending big bucks and years studying to become… placeholders for the next generation, which doesn’t appear to be “being born” as of yet.
Still, they’ve (the country at large) no one to blame but themselves and their cradle to grave welfare gifts.
I doubt the papers / MSM of Italy are clamoring for the cutbacks to everything necessary to repair the state of financial affairs.
Certainly Silvio Berlusconi is finished with his chances with Veronica, does he have any more chances with the country?
and what an interesting life he’s led !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi
I’ve been calling the entire world economy a ponzi scheme for years.
Hear, hear Robert!
Danke schone, Marc & John! P.S. I’m thrilled to pieces!
Good bye Europe.
Good bye California.
Good bye Detroit.
Good bye Canada. Huh?
The daughter of a high school teacher the first in her family to graduate from college? Apparently the Italians have an even lower standard for teachers than we do.
“Go forth, multiply and fill the provinces”
“When biological anthropologist Helen Fisher appeared on The Joy Behar Show in November to help celebrate women who choose not to have more than one or two children, she tossed out a provocative term to describe women who do: littering. (“We have too many people on this planet,” she said.) It’s fashionable to go childless these days – as birth rates in wealthy countries attest. But surely it isn’t necessary to demean women who choose to have more children than the national average. From a purely evolutionary perspective, giving birth remains an important mammalian responsibility.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/go-forth-multiply-and-fill-the-provinces/article1854555/
…-
“With regard to declining population Weiss writes:
“It is crucial to understand that…regulation of population density and behavioral changes being in a feedback loop, a full cycle requires the complete destruction of social hierarchy and a total disorientation of the female individuals— i.e., their diversion away from the successful reproduction and rearing of offspring. Today’s humans call such behavior ’emancipation’ and ‘feminism’.”
For Weiss, it is the general introduction of universal political suffrage and the idea of equality against hierarchy that indicates the beginning of the point of no return. There does not appear to be any hope for the West, as we are, in this respect, very late into the game.”
“Volkmar Weiss and the Spenglerian Cycle of History”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4628
“As a result, a deep malaise has set in among young people. Some take to the streets in protest; others emigrate to Northern Europe or beyond in an epic brain drain of college graduates.”
And yet we still insist on scraping the bottom of the immigrant barrel?
With regard to population, in Europe official agencies have followed quite deliberate policies to reduce the indigenous population and increase the alien (largely Muslim) population.
Signor Amato may now have jumped on the population bandwagon but he is an arch Europhile and former vice president of the Convention which produced the aborted EU constitution, which was resurrected as the Treaty of Lisbon. Here he is, talking to La Stampa on 17 July 2000
“(Amato) said that however daring a political project might be… it must be hidden, camouflaged. One must act “as if” in Europe. “As if” one wanted very few things in order to obtain a great deal. “As if” nations were to remain sovereign in order to convince them to surrender their sovereignty. The Commission in Brussels, for example, must act “as if” it were a technical organ in order to operate like a government…>”
So he is no friend of the nations, nor of the small state. The Euro elite intend to import large, young, mostly Muslim populations from Africa and the Middle East to rectify the problem of the ageing, indigenous populations. I doubt whether Amato has changed his spots. This process is seen as useful in dissolving the nation states.
Out side of the Soviet Union, Italy had the largest Communist Party membership in Europe.
Ladas were manufactured out of a Fiat factory Russia.
I met an Italian-Canadian girl in SAIT in the late ’80s who drove a Lada from her uncle’s dealership in Calgary.
She had visited her relatives in Italy and told me that they were all communists and that communism was very popular amongst the peasantry in Italy.
It wasn’t a surprise to me because I knew that socialism had been very popular in Italy during Benito Mussolini’s time.
Socialism still has not been discredited world wide as the failure that it is.
The age of reckoning is at hand.
Dano said “And yet we still insist on scraping the bottom of the immigrant barrel?”
I think most countries could weather this finacial crises quite easily if it weren’t for the millions of new immigrants that were dumped into the cities wearing down the health care systems and social safety nets.
I’ll look forward to your contributions, Robert! Hopefully, some will be upbeat.
If we are being honest, Canada is right behind Europe. Does anyone know the accumulated government debt at all levels of government in Canada, it must be a huge per capita burden.
“By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.”
I take that Giulian Amato’s brain is broken, correct?
I watched the news from Rochester New York last night and watched the reporter drag out every tear about some of the small spending cuts the state is making. What will happen in the next months when the bankrutcy takes hold. In much of Europe and North America the the takers out number the providers making voluntary change impossible. As one of our Canadian progressives (deniers) I am entitled to my entitlements.
Life is a ponzi scheme. We rely on the continual birth of new humans to keep it all going.
Where we went wrong was in being too greedy, selfish and stupid to know that you must leave enough for those coming up to have a chance.
BUT mostly … You cannot pay people to do nothing forever while extorting money from others to pay for it.
That is what happened … my estimate is that 80% of the population lives of the other productive 20%.
Further to that … there is more than 80% of the population working, but easily half of all the jobs are either government or non-profit or underground types. Those jobs don’t create new wealth to enlarge the pie.
Correction. I meant to say that of the those who do work … 80% have non-productive jobs that do not create, but rather waste wealth.
I know that there is far less than 80% of our population actually working. It’s too early for me to be talking. Sorry.
I think that a growth, as differentiated from a no-growth, society, always has to live to a reasonable proportion, and thus invest, ‘in the future’. That is, in order to build an economic and societal infrastructure that lasts beyond the day’s meal and shelter, one has to build ‘long term’.
To do that means taking money away from today’s use and investing it in things/systems that won’t provide returns for some time. This can be research, factories, land..etc.
The problem emerges when this process of a focus on the future is reversed. When the society borrows from surplus (provided by its own citizens or those of other nations) and USES it for today’s use. Not for future use.
The welfare state, with its distorted interpretation of ‘human rights’ has done exactly this. It has considered that all current existence is a ‘human right’ – whether it be in housing, food, clothing, electronic goods, cars etc…and that the State, which means other people, must provide this.
So, those university students aren’t protesting against our government having taken from their future; they are focused on the NOW, on their insistence that free/low tuition is a ‘human right’. And that someone else should provide it for them.
That’s my point about socialism. It’s a collectivist ideology, denigrating the freedom of the individual. At the same time, socialism and all other collectivist modes, focuses only on the desires of the individual: to receive goods and services. Socialism does not focus on the society and its ability to continue into the future. That’s why socialism collapses in a generation; it eats itself by living only in the NOW time, the current appetite for goods and services.
Great article to start with Robert. Thanks. Also looking forward to some great pictures to illustrate your blogging articles.
Interesting article that showed up in the sidebar. State legislators are actually trying to take on the unions……
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/business/04labor.html?src=me&ref=general
Do you think the magnificently cerebral editorial board of the New York Times has made the connection between the Progressives’ disaster in Europe and the looming Progressives’ disaster in the US?
Thanks for the link to that interesting article, published as it were by The New York Times, that very jewel atop the liberal MSM crown. In light of your preamble, don’t you find that a little ironic?
Of course, you came to the original source, as many SDA readers do now, by way of a conservative media filter. So for all your noble rhetoric about being drawn to SDA as “a refuge from the liberal-MSM and a temporary sanctuary of sanity,” what you are really seeking or at least consuming in practise isn’t “sanity” per se or even some facet of The Unbiased Truth, but rather the exact same news stories that everyone else is reading, only refracted through an explicitly ideological lens the slant of which just so happens to align perfectly with your own. It seems that your attraction to hearing/reading things you know you already agree with appears to be just as strong as that of those brainwashed “progressive” rubes that everyone here loves to look down upon.
Which is completely fine, as far as it goes. Just don’t mistake it for critical thinking, or virtue.
It’s the old story, one generation makes it, the next generation spends it. Easy come, easy go.
People can’t stand prosperity.
whew, davenport, that’s quite the rant.
First, I presume you are declaring that ‘critical thinking’ is a virtue. It is indeed; it shows that you acknowledge your capacity for reason, a capacity that relies on empirical evidence and logic…and screens out the ‘noise’ of the fallacious and irrelevant.
But then, you fall apart into your own ideology, which assumes that one’s capacity-for-reason doesn’t exist and that one reads articles only through an ‘ideological lens’. Prove it. Prove that critical thinking is totally non-existent and that we all function only via a smokescreen of ideology.
Or are you also saying that IF one comes up with a conservative conclusion, that this means that one has ‘observed and analyzed’ via a smokescreen? You seem to be saying that.
The facts, economically, are that a society cannot support a population all at the same level of well-being, if the majority of that population are not contributing to the financial pool. Since the welfare state has encouraged its population to remove themselves from the work force, then this has depleted the financial pool. And demands have increased for more and more goods and services, all in the name of ‘human rights’.
This has resulted in extensive borrowing. Result? Use your critical thinking. Nothing to do with ideology of any polarity. Just the facts.
@Robert & marc:
huh. And I’m not getting blocked anymore either. Must have been the whatchacallit that done it.
jcl- yes, it is very important for governments to confront the unions, for the unions have set up a fiscally, and socially, untenable and disastrous economic situation.
Unions began, long ago, as valid and justified agencies to empower workers in private industries. Then, governments took over this protection. But unions didn’t disappear. Instead, they transformed themselves into industries!
Unions have become massive corporations. They are parasitic on the workers, requiring ever more higher wages – and dues. Unions are major investors, taking those dues and investing it within lucrative systems. Their focus on expansion of membership and increased wages/benefits has resulted, actually, in disempowering workers.
The reason is because these Corporate Unions have set up a two-tiered economic system, where elite workers ‘eat up’ the fiscal wealth of a nation by consuming that wealth in ever-higher taxes. The private sector workers can’t compete with and cannot support, fiscally, this elite sector.
A major portion of the benefits of these Elite Workers is non-taxable in the form of benefits and pensions – that include not merely the individual but his entire family. They include both medical and dental and all kinds of equipment (computer); travel, cars, etc. All paid by the taxpayer, particularly, the private sector.
The unions moved out of the private industry sector when those industries were forced, by union costs, to move their factories to other countries. The workers lost their jobs. The unions have moved into the public service – and we’ve seen an explosion in the size of the bureaucracy and govt services. Government has moved into, not merely defense, currency, roads, communication – but into education, health care, etc. The unions have moved into these areas because they are a monopoly; the citizen has no choice but to use these services.
These jobs are protected; incompetence is ignored; the benefits are major and untaxed. This service provides nothing in the way of consumer goods and services – and thus, does not contribute to the wealth generation of the economy. That’s a key factor. These services are non-productive; they do not generate wealth. They are used up NOW.
Then, since these same nations have allowed and encouraged more and more services provided by their governance, and have increased their bureaucracy,..all unionized…and all focused only on their own Elite Set of Workers.. – what’s the result? The private sector worker cannot support this Elite Level of landed aristocrats.
Then, the Welfare State encouraged more people to use these services..and not to work. So, in our modern state, we get 40 to 50% of the population not working and relying on govt support. What’s the result?
Modern unions,both in the private sector and particularly the public, are a parasite on the nation and disastrous for an economy.
“By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.”
– Giuliano Amato
Except all those bright young students protesting want to solve their problems by demanding “more of the same” from the government! In other words, fix our economic woes by even more profligate deficit-spending.
Cognitive dissonance on a Greek scale!
Is this also a warning that the knowledge economy will not be an adequate substitute for the production of actual goods and services? The recession has been particularity harsh in countries that no longer make or sell anything real.
The Boomers. As much as I sympathize with the resentment the young feel towards the Boomers, I doubt the government’s sincerity. European politicians are obviously attempting to divert attention away from their own responsibility by directing anger to the older generation. In truth, these voters had only minimal input into the policies enacted by governments over the last 40 years. Like today, votes may agree with election promise A,B,C but, once elected, government magically discover a mandate to legislate policies D thru Z. Bureaucrats then warped each program to its breaking point. Polices D to Z are generally not driven by the voters, they are pushed forward by lobbyists and activists. For an example, think of today’s climate change laws. IMO, Boomers responsibility is their attitude that they’ll only give up their accumulated entitlements when you can peel it from their cold dead fingers.
Whenever I hear “lack of jobs” bandied about as an impalpable evil by the chattering class I detect a lack of clarity needed to see that “lack of jobs” is directly equivalent to lack of small private business. Yes,yes Europe is an over regulated kleptocratic socialist morass mired with crony corporatism and economic cabals, but that still does not excuse the lack of private enterprise by a younger capable generation. Where are the inventors, manufacturers, shop owners, service enterprisers?
Francesca could have as easily started her own financial, retail or service business rather than rely on the flimsy government or corporate employment systems to provide income. Sadly, most Gen X and Y Europeans have had the idea of independent self employment kicked out of them by years of stat-soc mind melt. They are either too dimmed down to see independent opportunity or too terrified of independent self employment or too arrogant to run a small consumer enterprise.
Small independent business creates jobs. It is the employment backbone of a healthy street level demand curve economy. When fallible government and corporate systems fail, when planned economics fail, there is always the small entrepreneur, the plunger for a clogged employment market.
America isn’t far behind the Euroland nightmare.
Obozonomics is causing such a rapid increase in debt and the profligate entitlement spending on favored causes and other bullet proof spending programs means there will have to be a US dollar default before reality sets in.
My burning question is “with what do we replace this failed system?”. What should be Constitution 2.0?
Perhaps C2.0 should categorically forbid governments from borrowing. Period.
C2.0 should also forbid in camera meetings between ANY government official, elected or otherwise, and any corporation or representative thereof. If you have something to offer government, or a government official, it should be out in the open.
Time to shift from being art critics, to artists. Current system is fatally wounded, and is merely staggering around until it falls over. What rises out of the ashes? Let’s get working on it.
Two young-ish people are profiled in the article.
The first has a law degree, an unspecified master’s degree (presumably in law), and has only worked for social agencies. I’m not surprised that she is unemployed/unemployable. To her credit, though, she speaks five languages.
The second has a Ph.D in humanities and was a drama teacher. Again, no suprise at this person’s lack of prospects.
If this article had shown us unemployed engineers, programmers, or skilled tradespeople, then I’d be more concerned.
It sounds like Europe is suffering from the same education problems that have been documented here: people with fluffy degrees can’t find work, and far too many people have fluffy degrees. I agree that it still sucks to be them, but if they are so brilliant and highly educated, they should have been able to see some of this coming.
Humph.
Robert is a great choice Kate.
Lickmuffin: “To her credit, though, she speaks five languages.”
When people/organizations seek out a lawyer they look for specialties like tax, contract, patent, criminal, etc law. There is little need for the specialty of “five languages”.
Perhaps if she studied those things that would have advanced her career, she might have a job.
I reflect on the comments about how society has structured itself so that there is no room or resources for the young to make their way.
Some years back the Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation confronted the problem of the unfunded liability of future teacher pensions. While teachers were making their (substantial) contributions to the plan, the gov’t was not. Consequently, the funds that should have been seat aside to build up interest income and used to pay pensions, were not there. The government promised to pay as needed from future revenues. This was not just the case for teachers but also for other public employees.
Since 1980, the pension funds have been administered by the teachers themselves and the plan is fully funded. But there is a backlog of retired teachers on an old plan that are being paid out of present government revenues.
I bring this up, because if you include all the public plans that are not properly funded even to this day, and the private plans like Nortel, where required contributions to fund the plan properly were not made (and they escaped their obligations when the company went down) just on this aspect alone, the debt is unimaginable. Also, when private companies go down and the promised pensions are cut or do not materialize, the pressure on the government to make good are huge and often they cave in–essentially according yet another subsidy to private corporations.
It’s hard to know where to begin to appoint the blame. All these entities who drew up contracts to provide certain benefits (with no requirements to fund them as they went)? Or unions who pressed for these benefits without insisting that the funding be put in place. It was easy to return to their membership waving a big fat contract and giving everyone the impression that a lot has been won. But these gold-plated benefits and retirement schemes were occasionally won by trading off something more immediate like an increase in salary which would have had to be paid on the spot. In retrospect, perhaps everyone would have been better off to have simply been paid a salary and then expected to provide for their own future–not putting their future in the hands of politicians and corporate entities.
And now we have the prospect of our young people having to work at lesser paying jobs, with no access to the fancy plans that they are helping to provide for others…how does one go about fixing this incredible mess? It’s all become a precariously balanced set of empty promises. When one topples, all the rest will come tumbling down. Maybe I should start keeping chickens and growing potatoes because when all the fake money disappears, only the tangibles will have any value.
Sorry about this long rant. I feel responsible, guilty, sympathetic to the upcoming generations. Yet I have nothing to offer except perhaps my own extinction.
Of course the “progressives” blame the big banks for the failure of the welfare state.
Rita, start with education. Like compounding interest, compounding degradation of education eventually brings about a system failure. I refer to education in this context in the fullest sense – including the wisdom handed down from elders through the generations, formal erudition, and the school of hard knocks.
Without a platform upon which to critically assess, risks are not adequately perceived. When this is the case, exploitation is simple. Exploitation of this is everywhere, including how our media exploits the decay in critical thinking ability.
Public education, with its attractant pension structure, draws the risk-averse. Where is the counterbalance in education to develop skills to assess risk, and make decisions in a climate of risk?
Does not exist.
We need a massive reset of the whole system, but my thesis here is that if systemic flaws in public education are not addressed, another long-cycle system failure is inevitable. This long cycle started in 1913. We are now becoming aware of its inherent flaws.
While the left’s admonitions to care for one another are humane, sound lofty, these can only be followed if one has something of value to provide. Doing each other’s laundry, not matter how well decorated as a social imperative, simply cannot feed a hungry person.
∞² wrote —
When people/organizations seek out a lawyer they look for specialties like tax, contract, patent, criminal, etc law. … Perhaps if she studied those things that would have advanced her career, she might have a job.
I totally agree. It would be interesting to know in what she specialized. Considering that she was working with state social services, I suspect that she specialized in victimhood law, rather than the useful fields you mentioned.
There is little need for the specialty of “five languages”.
In Europe, there might be: a lawyer who can work fluently in multiple languages would probably be an asset to a European firm. But again, more depends on what you’ve noted: if she’s specialized in social work/victimhood/dependency/entitlement law rather than productive law, then the languages are not going to help her.
When I wrote that the five languages are to her credit, I was thinking along the lines of the learning and adaptation skills that can be implied by her ability to learn five languages. If she can learn languages, she can probably learn a marketable skill.
Lickmuffin’s bang on.
“By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.” — Giuliano Amato, economist and former Italian prime minister”
BING fcuking Ohhh!
Here is a comment by yours truely on a previous thread this week ‘But Glenn Beck is the Crazy One’ on Jan3,11 which was started by Canuckguy at approx 5:50pm.
“As I’ve said many times before, we appear to be living a paradox where yesterday’s big spending liberals are today’s so called ‘small c conservatives’ lecturing gen x’ers and all that follow on austerity. Personally, I wish the lot of you would head over to the Liberal and Democratic parties where you belong. You know, with guys that want people to ‘do as they say, not as they do'(your ilk). That would inevitably alienate the youth vote that appears to be socialist, but only because the true socialists (you and your ilk) have usurped the small ‘c’ conservative label and perverted into a win win game for yourselves. Screwed if you’re Right, screwed if you’re Left.” – me
You might notice, that the GOP managed to attract the Seniors Vote in the last election. The Seniors that typically would vote Dem. Why? Well, because the GOP is promising to protect their entitlements (medicade). I have little doubt that if their entitlement were not touched by Obamacare they would have been some of his most ardent supporters realizing they might get more for free.
Like I said, lose Right, lose Left, of course unless you’re a Boomer.
Until guys like Canuk start to refuse overpayment(s) and such as we discussed, you have no right to a) call your self a small ‘c’ conservative; and b) claim that you are looking-out for the best interest of the country. It really appears that the aforementioned generation hates Canada, the US, and liberty as much as the TOTUS does. The only difference is, the later wears it on his sleeve.
Action speaks louder than words!
“Sadly, most Gen X and Y Europeans have had the idea of independent self employment kicked out of them by years of stat-soc mind melt.”
Occam
Anecdotally speaking, in my experience, there is a much higher percentage of x,y’ers who work for themselves than the older folk. It’s been my expedience that most lifers in most industries are just that, old. It’s been my experience that when you cut-out and clarify the Leftist rhetoric most people my age want nothing to do with government, big business ect. I believe our generations are very innovative and entrepreneurial compared to the ‘work somewhere for 25yrs and collect a check after that until you die’ club.JMO
ET @ Jan 5 1027 “Modern unions, both in the private sector and particularly the public, are a parasite on the nation and disastrous for an economy.”
Agree. The gem near the end of the linked article is this:
“Yet in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, any change in national contracts involves complex negotiations among governments, labor unions and businesses — a delicate dance in which each faction fights furiously for its interests.”
Labour laws (includes regulation) and unions have the Italian economy by the b@lls. You want to kickstart the eco?–Begin by deregulating and sending the unions packing.
The article is usual mix of MSM, facts are correct but some of the interpretation is not.
It may be true that there are no jobs in Italy for people with degree in humanities, however person with legal degree and five languages could have easily found job. If not in her field, then elsewhere. Languages, in contrast to the US are really helpful with finding a jobs and it is necessity to speak at least one or more languages apart from their mother tongue. So if people look for the lawyer knowledge of languages is necessary.
Italy’s demonstrating students don’t want change, they want the privileges their parents had – good job and the welfare state. And if not …..to hell with everything and everybody.
There are jobs. In Germany there are jobs for people in IT, nurses, for physical and skilled trade people, and for many others. The demand is quite high and I know that HR people from Germany are seeking people from eastern Europe to fill these positions. However there also want employees who know their language. So you see, infinity squared, language is necessary if one wants to work outside one’s own country.
There are not so many small businesses in EU because taxes are quite high. In Germany the tax goes from 15% (for people earning above 10,000euros (or ~ 14,000 CAD) to 42% for people earning 52,000 euros (or 68,000 CAD) I assume the situation is similar elsewhere in EU
And lastly there is no reason for Chinese to colonize Europe, Western Europe is already being successfully colonized by believers of “religion of peace (TM)”
******
In Europe, there might be: a lawyer who can work fluently in multiple languages would probably be an asset to a European firm. But again, more depends on what you’ve noted: if she’s specialized in social work/victimhood/dependency/entitlement law rather than productive law, then the languages are not going to help her.
Oh, yes, they would. She would get a job in Brussels. Victimhood lawyers are spread all over EU, nowadays. And their number is growing. Unfortunately.
The Italian prime minister is quoted as saying that “(the) youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.”
The older generations in Europe (France and Greece, notably) have certainly set up an unsustainable government system wherein they get paid more, and in perpetuity (they think) than they collectively put in, but I’ve seen no evidence that the youth/students/anarchisits are protesting against the system that pays out without regard to what’s coming in; to the contrary, the angry protesters are either demanding the continuation of the fiscally unsustainable g-train that they’ve been riding, or, in the case of the anarchists and the “youth” (in the tuition protests, for example), they’re demanding their *own* seat on that train.
I’ll believe that the angry/rioting “youth” are opposed to unsustainable spending, and to government entitlements – including those that go to the older generation – when I start hearing that from them.
some excellent comments on this topic…so I’ll not post one…except that Robert is a good addition to the SDA familly
What the western world really needs is millions of more unskilled third world labor, balanced with twice as many liberal arts’ majors who speak 5 languages.
Productivity verses touchy feelings, hmmmmm.
Well if there’s once solace, it is that it is only a matter of time until it all collapses around everyone’s ears. Those that see this coming and plan will fare better than those that don’t. In the not too distant future, liberalism will be dead by default and a new ideology will reign. Gone will be the latté’ lappers and gone will be the blood sucking left that facilitated their own societies suicide.
steve @ 9.03
According to the CIA World fact book, Canada’s public debt is 82.5% of GDP or $1,061 Billion, that is $31,432 for every man, woman and child. Presumably this is both Federal and Provincial combined public debt.
By comparison Italy is $34,624 per person while Greece is $35,154 but the U.K. is “only” $23,324.
CIA World fact book: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html
Why I wouldn’t want a native Italian lawyer in Germany, and why I wouldn’t want a native German lawyer in an English speaking country:
Check out Germany
http://tinyurl.com/2ej9np3
When I’m looking for someone to fix my car, the ability to say “internal combustion engine” in five languages is not even a minor consideration.