I wonder what our kids would think if there was an unemployment rate of 40% for them to contend with. We did get as bad as 25% unemployment rates for young people here in B.C. when the NDP was in power, but 40% would be beyond dismal.
That horrible rate is an accurate description of what is happening in Spain. The overall
unemployed rates are now the highest they have ever been since statistics began and that was in 1976.
When it comes to families being hurt by their financial mess, well, if you are a member of the 1.39 million families who have no one working at all, life must be pretty horrible.
The Government is struggling with the problem and they are even paying airfare to foreign workers who would be willing to go home.
Spaniard’s are mad and sit ins and demonstrations are taking place despite Government bans. The Socialist government has suffered defeats in civic and regional elections and it’s expected they will go down to defeat in the National elections.
Security reports indicate that Spain appears to be the epicenter for youth protests across Europe and most expect trouble ahead. The people in Spain and in particular the young workers believe that it’s the government who has failed them and by simply turfing the socialist out, things will suddenly get better.
For more than a hundred years mankind has flirted with political parties who have preached that it’s always someone else who is responsible for conditions folks are living with. The more people these political parties can convince to feel like victims, the more people will support political opportunists.
We see evidence of them in almost every country. These parties use regional or geographic complaints to gain support and if that doesn’t doesn’t work they begin creating class warfare, as long as they can convince enough individuals to feel aggrieved
they win.
The solution to all these problems is for any society to have the resolve to demand that a core set of values should form the basis of the way to manage their affairs. Simple things like a work ethic, accountability, honesty and a fair days work for a fair days pay provide a foundation for any people to build on.
Prudence in managing a countries budget and less handouts to groups that feed at the trough without the media crying foul for every so called worthy cause. It takes an almost insurmountable amount of effort for a people to accept that they are in financial trouble because they allowed themselves to be talked into selling themselves for sleazy promises by parties who will never buy onto accountability.
When the socialists in Spain offered the people this dance the public stood and accepted.
Now they find themselves in the same corner as folks in Greece, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland and Italy.
I’m sure our wonky media will try to suggest that the youth protesting in Spain and other places in Europe are very much the same as what is happening in the Middle East and Africa. There is no parallel between the two places and no one knows who is taking advantage of the fight for dignity in the Arab world.
The size of the economic meltdown in Spain is so bad that many worry the Euro-zone will not be up to bailing them out. We can certainly understand that any Nation with that kind of ugly unemployment figures and bad inflation cannot stay the afloat forever.
The people of Spain elected themselves that socialist government, now they have to pay the bill! Folks in Spain must take ownership for the people they elected and the resulting catastrophe. They have no one else to blame but themselves.
Mel is a retired Director of Operations for a large Canadian corporation. He is a noted world traveller and has studied geopolitical issues for many years. His most noticeable interest is in the effects of different types of governance and organizational behaviour.