W.F. Price described the state of some friends he had visited who are manual workers (well, working in construction — which would be a skilled trade in New Zealand).
I met up with him at a small get together with some of his other friends and coworkers, and although they are essentially the same healthy, strong young men you would have seen in years past, they are much diminished compared to those of my father’s and grandfathers’ generation. There is no sense of mastery, self-assuredness or even belonging. Jobs are scarce and tenuous, and despite the fact that they are surrounded by oversized houses and cars, one gets the sense that they are living on leftovers from the recently vanished prosperity of the last couple decades. They don’t really own anything, and the women around them are the ones with the steady jobs with benefits and potential.
One of his commentators elaborated on this.
This article describes the very something that has ignited the restive passions of young Spaniards of Europe in the last year. They are now beginning to agitate discontentedly against excessively interventionist governments which achieve nothing for them except indebtedness.
Youth unemployment in Spain is running at 45% in spite of all the left wing socialism and femaleism peddled by the liberal government of Jose Louise Zappatero. And Spain’s economic collapse on account of its gigantic debts consequent to excess entitlements and excess liberalism hasn’t gone unnoticed by the youths.
The same can be said of the young Greeks, young Czechs and young Irish whom are also starting to understand and reject the idea that bigger and bigger government is relevant or meaningful.
Western capitalisms collective experience is going to eventually be that bigger and bigger government doesn’t create any real jobs or any real prosperity, but only cannibalises existing productivity and existing marketable skills in the service of unsustainable political ideas having no basis in reality or morality.
In the US, states are going bankrupt. (hat tip Mish)
St Louis Post-Dispatch.Monday May 23 • Illinois chief fiscal officer said Monday he is willing to dial up the bond houses and finance companies to alert them that lending the state more money, as Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed, would be a “major risk.”
‘ ‘If I need to send letters o the rating companies to tell them the treasurer of Illinois is opposed to more borrowing, I’m going to do that,” said Republican Treasurer Dan Rutherford.
Quinn, a Democrat, warned that without borrowing vendors and service providors would be left unpaid. In a statement, he challenged Rutherford to identify schools, state vendors and non-profits that should “continue to operate — or close their doors — while they wait for payment from the state.”
In NZ, we are attempting to turn around… gently. In the hope we have no more shocks — two earthquakes, a mine closed after fatal explosions, and multiple floods in the last year have left a considerable dent in production and increased repairs and rebuilding. But… NZ gov’t debt is under 30% of GDP (our total debt is around 100%).
This is the US federal debt. Not the states, just the Fed.
And this by comparison, is the UK national net debt
NZ is but 4 million people in the Antipodes. The US is 300 million people and the UK is 60 million: when (not if) their financial bubbles (which were re-inflated by excessive borrowing) collapse the plight of the working man will be much worse.