Happy New Year, dear debaters of Europe! We’re officially starting our next season on Monday, when we’ll have a packed agenda with answers to some of your questions / suggestions from last year coming from more than one government minister and a couple of high-profile European commissioners. First, though, we couldn’t help but start with a little mini-debate to warm things up for next week.
The New Year, then, begins with stronger-than-expected growth from the US but mixed data coming from Europe’s economies: Spain’s unemployment level has hit a 15-year high, whilst unemployment in Germany hit the lowest level since reunification. So what do YOU think? What will unemployment figures be in one year? Will Europe manage to close the gap (at least in part) between the strongest countries and the weakest? Do you have any personal experience with the job market and how difficult / easy it is to find a job in “crisis Europe”?
Tell us what YOU think, tell us your stories, and we’ll take your questions and comments next week to politicians and policy-makers for their reactions!
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Quite disappointing wlile the prospects are rather bleak!!!!!!!!
“Will Europe manage to close the gap (at least in part) between the strongest countries and the weakest?” < haha absolutely no
A key question seems to be: why does youth unemployment as a ratio when compared to adult unemployment vary so much across Europe? What are the circumstances which mean that young people are disproportionately vulnerable to unemployment? There was a good ILO report a couple of year back which focused, in part, on the disadvantages young people face in terms of access to work-relevant social networks, insight into job hunting as well as access to relevant experience (alongside qualifications). Different educational systems will equip young people in different ways with such resources allowing greater competitiveness within tight job markets. Whereas unemployment is dreadful experience, at whatever age, the long-term scarring effect makes it especially destructive for young adults. What can we do within the education system to ensure that those coming into the labour market have best possible chance of competing for scarce jobs? A clear comparative assessment of national experiences and between those who have successful transitions, and those who do not, would add much useful knowledge for policy makers and, if embedded more stronlgy in educational experiences, offer prospect of savings on remedial activity to support young people, identified only after enduring the scars of early joblessness.
The nations are DIFFERENT. Europe is UNION of CULTURES. Every culture have advantages and disadvantages. The Nordics are better organized then populations from the south. The southerners are more talkative etc. All this things are visible in economies of the states member of EU. For things to go in the right direction are necessary common rules BUT EFFECTIVELY APPLIED ! not only on paper. Regulations and SANCTIONS. There ARE NOT CORRECT CITIZENS BUT SANCTIONED CITIZENS ! At the highest level of EU the rules are not respected as they should be. The rules are made to be respected. In this moment there are some laws, WITHOUT CLEAR SANCTIONS if they are not respected. In this case everybody brake the laws. ONLY when the situation becomes EXTREMELY GRAVE, not the laws and sanctions intervene through their mechanisms, but THE LEADERS ! So, the responsibilities are not on the “shoulders” of an incorruptible thing (the law) but on the shoulders of the human factor – AND THIS IS WRONG. Who should make the laws, must make the laws and the rest must only apply them, but they must be “forced” to apply the law by mechanisms that prohibit the major possibilities to avoid the law.
So, there is needed a GENERAL VERY CLEAR LEGAL FRAME of PRINCIPLES and under this level it can be freedom, BUT a very well studied one. A freedom that will not allow slides outside of the top level legal frame. In the case of Hungary constitution?the EU did not reacted VISIBLE AT ALL at the proper time. It reacted ONLY TOO LATE. For any government from EU it must be CLEAR that ANY slide to DICTATORSHIP will bring IMMEDIATE ECONOMICAL AND POLITICAL SANCTIONS and the threat that state to be SOON kicked out from EU.
So, it?s necessary to make CLEAR RULES for EXCLUSION FROM EU !
The debts must be controlled BEFORE to become a HUGE European problem and NOT AFTER, when it’s too late. The problem is that if you try to impose this very clear and correct system you will be accused that you want to kill the economical growth. We need HEALTHY economies with or without big growth. The stability of the economy is more important then the growth. If you grow too fast and unhealthy, you will fall from the top and it will be very bad. The scope of the economy is to provide wellness FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION and NOT to provide mechanisms for corporations to make ECONOMICAL DICTATORSHIP and all things that finally result from this: corruption, killing of the small enterprise etc. The dimensions of corporations must be limited by law. The population need some good services, NOT HUGE CORPORATIONS. The communists made all companies to be controlled by the state. The capitalism is going to ECONOMICAL DICTATORSHIP. Corporations are becoming stronger then some states. Few people are controlling HUGE CORPORATIONS that have millions of employees and can change dramatically decisions in medium or small states. If the owners go mad millions can remain without jobs in a short period of time. Too much money are going in too few hands. We are not in the communist extreme, but in the capitalist economical extreme. This capitalism do not offer equal chances for the majority, but only for the richest – SO TENDS TO BE AS BAD AS COMMUNISM for the majority. The right system is BETWEEN COMMUNISM AND THE ACTUAL CAPITALISM. There must be some strong rules and clear control but not over everything like in communism. Too much freedom = freedom without discernment = CHAOS. Too much censorship brakes the human rights. The right system is in the middle of this two.
The economy to work well must become PERFECTLY PREDICTABLE and NOT BASED ON PANIC. It must be based on REAL DATA not on panic/trade markets. Trade markets are a tool necessary in the economy, but trade markets ARE NOT THE ECONOMY ITSELF. In this moment the economy is not at all predictable and this makes impossible for any businessman to build coherently anything. You build something today, and tomorrow everything can fall not because of the calculations of the businessman, but because of currency fall or other stupid thing. The actual economy is not economy but GAMBLING ! This is why it just not work and no one knows how to fix it. How you fix a casino game if you don?t cheat ? You don?t. So we will starve or how ? I am not interested to starve ! Romania and any other country from EU didn?t join the EU to starve ! The system must be changed. The RULES MUST BE CHANGED !
WHY all this doom and gloom ONLY about Europe? How about looking at the REAL data for the US and so-called “united” kingcondom.
For example… there is all this catastrophologia about how Europe will need to find around one trillion Euros to recapitalize the EU banks and help bail out Italy, Portugal and Greece and yet THERE IS NO MENTION THAT THE FED HAS “SECRETLY” ALREADY GIVEN OVER 17 TRILLION – YES, 17 TRILLION – DOLLARS TO MOSTLY US/UK BANKS!!!
check out page 131…
http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf
We have heard soooo much about the total debt of Greece being a disastrous 120 to an artificially inflated 160% of GDP and yet NOTHING ABOUT THE TRUE TOTAL DEBT OF THE US AND UK which makes the EU debt seem like pultry, petty cash!
Just the REAL DEBT of UK banks is over 500% of GDP!!!!! There are some very, VERY big fat social-economic chickens coming home to roost for the “special relationship” AND NO AMOUNT of trying to “sex up” or “blame it on the Euro” is going to make them go away!
WAKE UP YOU SILLY SHEEPLE…
“We have heard soooo much about the total debt of Greece being a disastrous 120 to an artificially inflated 160% of GDP and yet NOTHING ABOUT THE TRUE TOTAL DEBT OF THE US AND UK which makes the EU debt seem like pultry, petty cash!
Just the REAL DEBT of UK banks is over 500% of GDP!!!!! There are some very, VERY big fat social-economic chickens coming home to roost for the “special relationship” AND NO AMOUNT of trying to “sex up” or “blame it on the Euro” is going to make them go away!
WAKE UP YOU SILLY SHEEPLE…” < So what if they have more debt than Greece?..They can borrow more money and at a lower interest rate, also their economies are much stronger AND people are more likely to invest in these countries than in Greece. Dont forget the most important thing, they have more political power than Greece.
Well for 2012 I do not hold much hopes for jobs or economic recovery. a) I do not see any real solutions coming from our leaders, especially long term solutions..They are trying to patch things up again… b) they are putting more and more people on the unemployment lists in some states (Greece) without creating any new positions to absorb the newly unemployed.They plan to cap the numbers of those who work in the public sector, but they are choosing the wrong time to do it..where will all those people go now that there are no jobs around? Spain’s unemployment problems are chronic, long even before the crisis, they haven’t managed to solve them..Ireland brings down the dole ques by emigration..So any good news yet…?? Then I will start to believe that something can be done…
No andhere’s why
I ve bn a long time saying real unemployment numbers cld be twice what the official ones show.
Germany is a powerhouse of Europe..
I am certain that unemployment is twice the given numbers.
Here is someone who does it well
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
Appalling. Europe is commited with unemployment, racism and backwarness.