Academic

JUST STARTING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT?S BEEN DONE TO THEM: Europe?s Young Grow Agitated Over Future Pr?

By Glenn Reynolds

JUST STARTING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT’S BEEN DONE TO THEM: Europe?s Young Grow Agitated Over Future Prospects.

Indeed, experts warn of a looming demographic disaster in Southern Europe, which has among the lowest birth rates in the Western world. With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later ? and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low ? it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.

?What we have is a Ponzi scheme,? said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.

There’s a lot of that going around. Plus this:

The problem goes far beyond youth unemployment, which is at 40 percent in Spain and 28 percent in Italy. It is also about underemployment. Today, young people in Southern Europe are effectively exploited by the very mechanisms created a decade ago to help make the labor market more flexible, like temporary contracts.

Because payroll taxes and firing costs are still so high, businesses across Southern Europe are loath to hire new workers on a full-time basis, so young people increasingly are offered unpaid or low-paying internships, traineeships or temporary contracts that do not offer the same benefits or protections.

Funny how it seems to work out this way everywhere that high-tax, high-regulation schemes are tried, but young people are usually dumb enough not to realize who gets hurt the most. And what happens when a higher education bubble bursts:

In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.

?I?m a repentant college graduate,? she said. ?If I had it to do over again, I wouldn?t go to college and would just start working.?

Read the whole thing. Plus, related thoughts from John Hinderaker.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on January 03, 2011 (boomark / email).