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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEurope clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens, from The Telegraph, UK
Like the generals of the First World War, Europes leaders seem determined to send wave after wave of their youth into the barbed wire of tight money, bank deleveraging, and fiscal austerity a loutrance.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
7:48PM GMT 09 Dec 2012
"...
The North has been engulfed at last by the contractionary holocaust it imposed on the South. French car sales crashed 19pc last month, even before its fiscal shock therapy -- 2pc of GDP next year. The Bundesbank admitted on Friday tore up its forecast on Friday. Germany itself is in recession.
The youth jobless rate has reached 58pc in Greece, 55.8pc in Spain, 39.1pc in Portugal, 36.5pc in Italy, 30.1pc in Slovakia, and 25.5pc in France, with all the known damage this does to the life-trajectory of the victims and the productive dynamism of these economies.
EU policy elites blame "labour rigidities". The United Nations economic arm UNCTAD counters that the EU demand for "wage compression" is itself perpetuating the crisis.
...
Yet no leader seems ready to admit the Europe has been in thrall to a false religion. The grim possibility is that nothing will be done to change course until Europe is already reduced to an economic Passchendaele."
This article is full of details, some of which I frankly do not understand, but I find it very disturbing. Here is the Wikipedia article that explains Passchendaele, one of the greatest disasters of WWI:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele
Selatius
(20,441 posts)In countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, etc., the unemployment rates were appallingly high for younger workers. People got upset, and they eventually lost patience and rebelled against the state that would not help them.
If Europe's youth rebel, it may signal a fall of old governments and coalitions and the formation of new coalitions that are more left-wing instead of right-wing/neoliberal. At least, that's the hopeful outcome. Of course, austerity in the face of economic recession is rank stupidity.
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)It is so sad to see young people so desperate.
Prometheus Bound
(3,489 posts)factsarenotfair
(910 posts)I somehow left it out...