At 43%, Spain's youth unemployment is the highest in the EU by far, and more than double the average. For those aged 16 to 19 the rate is 64% – an 11% increase on the previous year. One in five of those under the age of 30 are still looking for their first job, and almost half (46%) are on short-term contracts of less than 6 months.
Youth unemployment here is higher than in Tunisia and Egypt. It's so high that many young people have to look long and hard to see past it.
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"To be honest I never tried to get a job here. There are jobs, but the quality is not very high. I have friends who have economics degrees who are working at a cash register. I definitely feel part of this lost generation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/30/spain-unemployed-under-30-emigration
"Unless the government wants to run the risk of another episode of financial distress and the debt spreads sky rocketing again, it will have to implement another austerity package before the next elections," Fernando Fernandez, an analyst at Madrid's IE business school, said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/22/spain-election-idUSLDE74L02S20110522
"I would welcome it very much if our Greek friends found a privatization agency independent of the government and modeled after Germany's Treuhandanstalt," Juncker said, adding that such a body should be staffed by international experts.
"Henceforth, the European Union will escort Greece's privatization program as if we were conducting it ourselves," he said. Proceeds from the program should be considerably higher than the 50 billion euros Athens has proposed, he added.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/21/us-eurozone-greece-juncker-idUSTRE74K22Y20110521
Implement another austerity package with youth unemployment over 40% and over 60% in those aged 16 to 19? What will this accomplish other than paying the bankers or delaying an inevitability? What happens in Greece, Ireland and Portugal that have similar problems with unemployed youth yet embark on further austerity measures?
The EU wants to send,"International Experts," foreigners, into Greece to sell off and privatize the nations assets at the cost of the citizens and more notably the young people. Vultures yanking the internal organs from a dead or dying carcass that sits on the side of the road.
The uprisings in the Middle East were initially brought on by hunger and joblessness. How soon before Europe's periphery nations follow suit?
Like Osama, democracy is dead. It has been murdered by the leaders of the worlds democratic nations for the enrichment of their own wallets. The kicking-the-can-down-the-road in order to survive the next election cycle is short sighted ignorance on a massive and foolish scale. The financial crisis that gripped the world has not been settled, but delayed. The United States and the EU nations bailed out their banks, their campaign donors, with taxpayer dollars and euros and now the banks as vultures are eyeing the depleted and dying corpses of the citizens as they seek to extract every remaining drop of life and hope.
This will not end well. US hegemony is dead on the vine and a vacuum is filling the empty spaces left. Neo-nationalist movements are already gaining in popularity as they gain favor from the failed policies of the neoconservatises and the neoliberals. Upheavals and unrest on a scale not seen by this world in over fifty years will soon follow. Democracy is dead.
Fatboy sez: What. Me Worry?