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factsarenotfair

(910 posts) Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:56 AM Dec 2012

Europe clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens, from The Telegraph, UK

Like the generals of the First World War, Europe’s leaders seem determined to send wave after wave of their youth into the barbed wire of tight money, bank deleveraging, and fiscal austerity a l’outrance.
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 Nation’s 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

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Europe clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens, from The Telegraph, UK (Original Post) factsarenotfair Dec 2012 OP

Incidentally, extreme youth unemployment may have led to the Arab Spring. Selatius Dec 2012 #1

I agree. factsarenotfair Dec 2012 #2

link Prometheus Bound Dec 2012 #3

Thanks! factsarenotfair Dec 2012 #4

Selatius

(20,441 posts)

1. Incidentally, extreme youth unemployment may have led to the Arab Spring.

Reply to factsarenotfair (Original post)

Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:02 AM

Dec 2012

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.