For Europe’s vast unemployed, hopes remain dim

Associated Press ^ | Sep 6, 2014 9:02 AM EDT | Paul Wiseman

[Olog-hai]

For the struggling Spanish shopkeeper or the Portuguese restaurant owner, the European Central Bank’s latest economic stimulus plans won’t likely provide much relief anytime soon.

If ever.

Confronting a stalled economy and painful unemployment across Europe, the ECB is doing what it can. It surprised economists and investors Thursday by cutting its benchmark interest rate to a record-low 0.05 percent. And it announced plans to pump money into the financial system by buying bonds backed by assets such as auto and credit-card loans.

But Europe faces a crushing array of problems—from burdensome regulations to growth-killing budget policies—that analysts say remain beyond the ECB’s powers to fix. …

[Olog-hai]

Another so-called beneficial crisis waiting for a solution to be imposed from the top. Keep watching this one.

[wdk535]

Ah, the joys of socialism!

[Olog-hai]

Misery almost equally shared . . . not by the elite, though, who keep giving themselves raises.

[rbg81]

I wonder how many of these are Jihadi-wannabees on the dole?

[PoloSec]

"For Europe’s vast unemployed, hopes remain dim"

And in other News:

"For America's vast unemployed, hopes remain dim"

[sphinx]

Misery almost equally shared . . . not by the elite, though, who keep giving themselves raises.

The sophisticated argument for slavery -- yes, there was one -- from antiquity through the ante-bellum American South was that slavery, in an agrarian society, was the essential means of supporting an educated leisured class which was the repository of high culture. The dismal situation of the slaves was the unfortunate price that had to be paid for the glories of high civilization. This, of course, was an argument that came most easily to members of the landed aristocracy. For the laboring classes, it was less persuasive.

This is today the same argument that is made for socialism, implicitly and sometimes explicitly. Socialism works very well indeed for the political and administrative classes, who pay themselves very well while suppressing competition for positional goods. It inflicts misery on everyone else, but this is merely the unfortunate price that must be paid.

[353FMG]

Why should the European unemployed worry?

Isn’t there a cradle-to-grave safety net that they can fall in?