News / Brèves Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente The Brutish Empire’s New Concentration Camps: Youth Unemployment Soars in Europe... and the United States 2 May 2013 (LPAC)—Other than gas ovens, one of the most efficient ways of destroying a nation and killing off its population is to induce skyrocketing youth unemployment. It destroys the future potential of the productive economy. It leads to soaring drug addiction, worsening health conditions, and explosive criminal activity, including epidemics of deranged homicides/suicides. It is the perfect circumstance for terrorist recruitment. And above all, it leads to the rampant cultural pessimism which has always been fascism’s breeding ground, and the underpinning of any successful depopulation policy — such as that promoted by the British Empire from the Roman Empire to ’The 100 years war’, to Thomas Malthus, to Bertrand Russell, to Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth themselves. In Europe today, youth unemployment (ages 16-24) has surpassed 50% of the labor force in both Greece and Spain — two of the leading victims of the policies dictated by the infamous Troika (the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund). In fact, the youth unemployment rate has overall more than doubled in Cyprus and the five so-called PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) between 2008 and 2012. For example, Greece’s youth unemployment had more than doubled, from 22.1% in 2008 to 55.3% at the end of 2012. Spain’s had also doubled, from 24.6% in 2008 to 53.2% at the end of 2012 (and further soared to 57% in the first quarter of 2013). Ireland’s had more than doubled, from 13.3% to 30.4%. [1] This is the period of the British Empire’s "solution" to the 2008 financial meltdown: hyperinflationary bailouts for their banks, coupled with fascist austerity for the population, as enforced by puppets such as Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and the like. Maps comparing European youth unemployment in 2008 and 2012, present an even more sensuous picture. In 2008, "only" six European nations had youth unemployment rates of 20% or greater: Spain, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. None was higher than 25%. But by the end of 2012, the number of nations with youth unemployment above 20% had tripled, to 19. Of these, four had youth unemployment rates between 30-40% (Portugal, Italy, Slovakia, Ireland); and three exceeded 40% youth workforce unemployed (Greece, Spain, Croatia). The tide of economic fascism is clearly, once again, sweeping Europe. But the United States has fared no better. America on Barack Obama’s watch has seen the real youth unemployment rate soar by nearly 50%, from an estimated 23.8% in 2008, to 34.6% in 2012. Back in 2008, there were "only" three states with real youth unemployment rates of 30% or higher: Michigan (34%), Rhode Island (31%), and California (30%). But by 2012, the tide of despair had spread to 60% of the states of the union: 30 states plus the District of Columbia had real youth unemployment rates of 30% or higher. Of these, five exceed 40% (Nevada 42.6%; Illinois 41.7%, Mississippi 41.2%, California 41.2%, and North Carolina 40.4%); and another 11 have rates in the range of 35-40%. Should we not do as Franklin Roosevelt did, and stop the tide of fascism with Glass Steagall and related economic policy measures... before it is too late? [DNS] [1] A Note on EIR’s Calculations of Youth Unemployment in Europe and the United States. The report presented by LPAC regarding "The British Empire’s New Concentration Camps’’ showed the dramatic rise between 2008 and 2013 in youth unemployment rates on both sides of the Atlantic. The sources for the data contained in that report are as follows. For Europe, unemployment rates for youth (ages 16-24) came directly from the European Commission’s official statistical agency, Eurostat, and the data was not further elaborated, despite the fact that the reported numbers unquestionably understate the actual level of unemployment, since the method used by Eurostat is similar to that used in the United States, and omits consideration of those individuals who: a) have gotten discouraged and have stopped looking for work, and are therefore no longer considered part of the labor force; and b) hold only part time jobs, despite the fact that they would like to have a full-time job. ( http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statis ... statistics ) For the United States, we began with the official national unemployment rate, both for the total labor force and for youth, which is provided by the . For the end of 2012, the official youth unemployment rate was 16.2%, which is slightly more than double the overall official unemployment rate of 7.9%. However, real unemployment is far greater than the official rate, as even the BLS has been forced to admit. In fact, the BLS itself provides a measure called ``U-6,’’ which they define as: "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.’’ They additionally explain: "Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.’’ ( http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab15.htm ) For 2012, that U6 unemployment rate for the total labor force was 14.7% ( http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet ). However, U6 only considers those looking for a job in the last 12 months, and excludes from consideration those that were previously looking, but did not do so in the last year or longer, in many cases out of discouragement at ever finding employment. When that category is added in, a better estimation of real unemployment at the end of 2012 is 16.9% — more than double the official rate. A state-by-state breakdown of official total unemployment rates is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics ( http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm ) and this was then used as the basis for pro-rating each state’s real youth unemployment rate, based on the total national parameters explained above. Although this method of calculation may slightly distort the specific state results (some on the low side, some on the high side), the presentation of the rate of change between 2008 and 2013, which is the central point made in the The British Empire’s New Concentration Camp, is fully justified valid.