In 2013, nearly half of 15- to 29-year-olds in six southern European countries are underemployed — meaning they are either unemployed or working part time but wanting full-time work.
Though the unemployment rate is the labor market indicator that typically grabs headlines, underemployment may be almost as damaging to younger people in terms of their own long-term prospects and their countries’ labor productivity. Temporary and part-time jobs are those most often available to young people, and they are often the first to be laid off because they lack seniority. Underemployment rates are much lower among southern Europeans aged 30 to 49 (26%) and those aged 50 and older (24%).
Young people in southern Europe almost universally (90%) say it is a bad time to find a job in their communities, versus about two-thirds of young people in western Europe (67%) and eastern Europe (68%). However, at 57%, labor force participation among young southern Europeans is as high as it has been over the last several years, suggesting that those who find themselves out of work do not have the option of leaving the workforce altogether — to pursue educational opportunities, for example — until the labor market improves.
What’s Needed vs. What Happened
What’s needed is work rule reform, easier standards to fire people, fewer government workers, lower minimum wages, less regulation, and less taxation.
What happened was higher taxes thanks to pressure from the IMF, Troika, and EU nannycrats. Economic pundits incorrectly labeled the result as “austerity”.
Yes, austerity did not work as implemented, as Keynesian economists predicted. But Austrian economists predicted the same thing.
Raising taxes in the midst of a recession is a downright foolish thing to do, and it happened in spades. The results speak for themselves.
Explosive Mix
Nearly half of young Europeans are simmering in a pot of misery. Something has to give because “austerity” as implemented is not working.
This is going to boil over in a political explosion of some sort, and when it happens, fully expect heads of state to say “no one could possibly have seen this coming”.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
In five years, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, the agent of hope and change, has become the prince of darkness and his presidency has become a farce ~ an absurdly futile exercise in pretense and broken promises from a president who cloaks himself with drones and armor and who answers only to the corporate global elite.
The cost of occupation in both Iraq and Afghanistan is the silence of moral disillusion and betrayal by a dying Empire ~ for our military has bought into a War on Terror farce which will not go away and continues through this Veterans day in 2013. If you want to get a feel of what American troops go through in Iraq and Afghanistan ~ watch The Hurt Locker and read Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down and realize that eventually The Flies will conquer the fly paper in both Iraq and Afghanistan ~ as they most certainly did in Vietnam
This Veterans day we have over 200,000 homeless veterans on the streets of America; yes 200,000 ~ that is not a misprint. That is a disgrace, a national disgrace and part of the cost of occupation along with national betrayal and dying for lies. Here are the current death and wounded numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan;
IRAQ:
Killed In Action: 3/2003 ~ 12/18/2011:4,818 Wounded total to 12/18/1I:54,834 Iraqi Civilians Killed:1,366,350
Here is reporter Ann Jones firsthand, close-up-and-personal look at the impact of our recent wars on America’s unlucky soldiers ~ as she describes the silence of moral disillusion and betrayal; “The last time I saw American soldiers in Afghanistan, they were silent. Knocked out by gunfire and explosions that left them grievously injured, as well as drugs administered by medics in the field, they were carried from medevac helicopters into a base hospital to be plugged into machines that would measure how much life they had left to save. They were bloody. They were missing pieces of themselves. They were quiet.
It’s that silence I remember from the time I spent in trauma hospitals among the wounded and the dying and the dead. It was almost as if they had fled their own bodies, abandoning that bloodied flesh upon the gurneys to surgeons ready to have a go at salvation. Later, sometimes much later, they might return to inhabit whatever the doctors had managed to salvage. They might take up those bodies or what was left of them and make them walk again, or run, or even ski. They might dress themselves, get a job, or conceive a child. But what I remember is the first days when they were swept up and dropped into the hospital so deathly still. They were so unlike themselves. Or rather, unlike the American soldiers I had first seen in that country. Then, fired up by 9/11, they moved with the aggressive confidence of men high on their macho training and their own advance publicity.” Must read articles: Tomgram: Ann Jones, Silent Soldiers, The Losers From Our Lost Wars
Here’s Ann Jones being interviewed by Amy Goodman onThe Untold Story of War: U.S. Veterans Face Staggering Epidemic of Unemployment, Trauma & Suicide
Excerpt:Regarding veteran suicide rate which is actually closer to 50 a day when you count veterans who have left the military ~
AMYGOODMAN:“These suicide numbers are astounding. I mean, I think people just have to close their minds; they can’t comprehend: 22 veterans or soldiers a day in the United States take their lives?”
ANNJONES:“And those are soldiers who are still in the military. Those who have already left the military are not counted. And there’s a lot of indication that they may be committing suicide at even greater rates. But to me, the most shocking part of this is that many of those who kill themselves are receiving treatment at the VA, but the treatment they’re receiving is Big Pharma drugs, the opioid painkillers. They’re prescribed not for psychological problems, but for simple body pain. And they’re highly addictive, and they’re very deeply implicated in soldier suicides. I tell the story of one Texas soldier….” Must see 12 minute video
Every dying Empire has its truth telling prophet and America had its own with Chalmers Johnson. Johnson correctly compared the decay of the American empire, with its over 900 overseas military bases, with the fall of the Roman Empire whereas the Senate becomes a wealthy corporate club and irrelevant compared to the ruling Military Industrial Congressional Complex.Read article:
Johnson’ s main points were; The United States is treading the same three steps as the former Soviet Union;
Inability to deal with corporate corruption.
Imperial over-stretch is leading to fiscal insolvency ( 900 plus bases throughout the world )
Inability to reform, thus accelerating the inevitable fall.
Chalmers offered the solution but rightfully suspected that it was already too late for America;( with my inserts )
Reform Congress ( Good luck )
Reform corrupt election laws ( good luck )
Re-division of electoral college ( good luck )
Cutback funding of intelligence agencies and department of the defense and take steps to break up the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. ( more good luck )
Chalmers expected considerable resistance but also said that only the truth could avoid the inevitable fall of the American empire ~ as it did in bringing down the Soviet Union.
Thus, only the role of the alternative media and courageous whistle blowers in exposing the truth can rescue a crumbling Republic that has rapidly become a corrupt plutocracy.
It is my opinion, that there is one central truth that can bring down America’s Berlin wall of denial along with the deceit of the War on Terror ~ it’s the big, big lie and America’s greatest act of treason, it’s the rationale for the cloak of secrecy, torture, Guantanamo, Drone assassinations and illegal spying that now erodes our Republic ~ it’s the monstrous lie of 9/11 along with its unchallenged official story.
What started as a War on Terror in Afghanistan has now become the front for an Orwellian never ending War of Terror which is rapidly draining the heart, resources and spirit of America.
The object of this perpetual war, as Orwell describes, is to keep a society or ‘Our Way of Life’ intact ~ The war in actuality is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society or the global elite status quo intact.
Tony Blair sporting his Yarmulke and the self-satisfied smirk of an AIPAC supported war criminal.
Who can ever forget Tony Blair justifying the Iraq war and occupation as “protecting our way of life”
The American Killing machine most certainly still exists and now we have Nick Turse’s new book,Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam to confirm this obvious truth ~ “No one has ever described the American killing machine in that country the way he has; nor, as he did, tracked down Americans charged with war crimes by the U.S. military in that era, nor tramped through distant rural Vietnam to hear what it felt to be on the other side of massacres or experience the American-imposed “system of suffering” in those years. A decade in the making, it is a book that should reshape in fundamental ways how we remember the Vietnam War.“
Afghanistan excerpt:“Untold numbers of Afghans have also died of everything from lack of access to medical care (there are just 2 doctors for every 10,000 Afghans) to exposure, including shocking reports of children freezing to death in refugee camps last winter and again this year. They were among the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have been internally displaced during the war. Millions more live as refugees outside the country, mostly in Iran and Pakistan. Of the women who remain in the country, up to 2 million are widows. In addition, there are now an estimated 2 million Afghan orphans. No wonder polling by Gallup this past summer found 96% of Afghans claiming they were either “suffering” or “struggling,” and just 4 % just “thriving.” See article:
If you really want to know what our troops are going through in illegally occupied Iraq and Afghanistan ~ read John Steinbeck’s ‘ The Moon is Down ‘ or better yet read Paul Rockwell’s poetic and moving commentary ‘The Agony of Occupation / The flies have conquered the flypaper ‘ from Common Dreams .
Excerpt:” It is impossible to read Steinbeck’s masterpiece without thinking about our own soldiers in Iraq , about their daily fear, the growing tendency for revenge, the agony of conquest.‘The Moon is Down’is not primarily about the Norwegian people, or even about the resistance. It’s about the terror, the self-doubts, the slow transformation of arrogance to self-loathing, under which invaders live… ‘The Moon is Down‘is not about the violence; it’s about the psychology of occupation. Steinbeck focuses on the inability of occupying soldiers to cope with the ingratitude of a “liberated” people. Germans trusted their leaders and expected to be greeted with flowers, not contempt. The public hatred of the occupation, not sabotage alone, destroys German morale … When a lieutenant is upset by the hostility of the local population, his commander admonishes him: “I will not lie to you, Lieutenant. They should have trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led you along with lies. But you took the job, Lieutenant. We can’t take care of your soul.”
The occupiers are not pacified. “Captain, is this place conquered?” “Of course,” the captain replies. But the listener cracks. “Conquered and we’re afraid, conquered and we’re surrounded. The flies have conquered the fly paper ! “See article:
The War on Terror farce is still with us and will be until the truth prevails.
About the Author: Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com. Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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Everyone elected president comes into office modeling himself on some predecessor: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan. But those who win re-election eventually end up wondering whether they should have emulated James K. Polk instead. Why? Because he promised to serve only one term, and he stuck to it.
Barack Obama is probably reaching that stage about now. Ten months after concluding a victorious campaign, he finds himself with a public approval rating of 44 percent. That’s down 10 points since December — and the same as that of George W. Bush at this point in his presidency.
Obama’s threat to attack Syria has put him at odds with Congress and the public. By last weekend, The Washington Post reported that “a majority of House members are now on the record as either against or leaning against authorizing President Obama to use military force.”
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on the eve of his Tuesday TV address found that only 28 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the matter. Public support for the proposed attack, says Gallup, is lower than for any U.S. war in the past two decades.
The numbers reflect a couple of facts that are largely beyond his control. The first is that after 12 years of nonstop fighting in distant lands, Americans are sick of war. The second is that after nearly five years of watching him in the White House, many are also tired of Obama.
This is a common consequence of protracted exposure. Most TV series don’t last more than five years — and TV series don’t air seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. There have been several new iPhone models since Obama was first elected. If you bought a suit or a dress five years ago, it’s no longer the epitome of fashion.
Facing the aftermath of re-election is a challenge for the people in the administration, as well as the people they serve. Top aides burn out or cash in, leaving the White House to find replacements, who may not enjoy the same trust or access. Presidents run out of ideas. If they have any left over, they’re even less likely to be able to get them through the second time around.
Scandals also have a tendency to erupt in the second term, and the IRS targeting of tea party groups arrived this year right on schedule. All this comes before the midterm congressional elections, which typically bring losses to the party in the White House. Republicans are expected to enlarge their House majority and could capture the Senate.
Obama’s honeymoon with Democratic liberals is a fading memory. Some are disillusioned by the National Security Agency surveillance, some oppose an attack in Syria, and most of them gag at the thought of Larry Summers taking over the Federal Reserve.
While most presidents try to add new achievements in their second terms, Obama is still wrangling with Congress over the central one of his first term. The House has voted some 40 times to undo Obamacare, and some members want to force a government shutdown if necessary to attain that goal.
So the president may get to relive the exquisite torture of battling Congress over the debt ceiling.
Republicans show no inclination to pass the immigration reform he champions. The economy has been lousy for his entire presidency and shows every indication of staying that way.
Foreign affairs are no ray of sunshine. Vladimir Putin may have spared Obama a war in Syria, but Obama will have to take care to avoid being scammed in the deal on Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons. He has to extricate the U.S. military from Afghanistan without unleashing chaos.
North Korea reportedly has restarted a nuclear reactor to make fuel for additional nuclear weapons. Sometime in the next three years, Obama may have to decide whether to carry out a massive strike to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb. It’s enough to make a guy wish he were free to focus on his presidential library.
At the end of the brilliant 1970 biographical film “Patton,” Gen. George Patton recalls that when a Roman conqueror returned home to bask in adulation, a slave rode along in his chariot, whispering, “All glory is fleeting.” Obama needs no one to remind him. By now, he probably says it in his sleep.
