Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Tinderbox That Is Europe

True, the Middle East is boiling over with the rise of Al Qaeda in Libya, the mass slaughter of Syrian dissidents, and the takeover over of a one-time ally by the Egyptian strain of the Muslim Brotherhood. But Europe too, as Tyler Durden explains, is on the precipice of widespread civil unrest.

The last time we plotted European youth unemployment in what was dubbed "Europe's scariest chart" we were surprised to discover that when it comes to "Arab Spring inspiring" youth unemployment, Spain was actually worse off than even (now officially broke) Greece, whose young adult unemployment at the time was only just better compared to that... of the United States. Luckily, following the latest economic (yes, we laughed too) update from Greece, it is safe to say that things are back to normal, as Greek youth unemployment is officially the second one in Europe after Spain to surpass 50%. In other words, Europe's scariest chart just got even scarier.

And so while the Greek economy is in tatters, following another downward revision to its GDP as reported last week, this time dragging Q4 GDP from -7.0% to -7.5%, that's only the beginning, and it now appears that a terminal collapse of not just the Greek financial sector, but its society as well, has commenced, as the number of people unemployed in the 11 million person country is now 41% greater than its was a year ago...

You would think that the failure of their model -- the European social welfare state -- would cause Democrats to rethink their approach to governance.

But then, that would require substantial measures of reason, logic, and rationality, all of which are woefully lacking in the modern, Marxist-controlled Democrat Party.


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