Power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute, hour after hour.

It's not often one feels compulsed to entitle a blog post with American Gangster rap circa 1995. But it's a rather apt extract.

First of all let me praise the industriousness of our emergency services for their hard work during the flooding in Aberystwyth ad Machynlleth. Until something of this nature happens to you it is difficult to understand the traumatic affect it can have. As parts of Ceridigion were submerged under five foot of water and clean up operations continue to take place in Talybont, Dol-y-Bont and Llandre I trust that the Welsh Government will do all it can not just to help households and businesses seek compensation but to prevent such incidents ever happening again. It is also imperative that authorities thoroughly screen flood waters for potential contamination which could affect farms or even the local water supply.

While it poured here in Wales, the rain in Spain thundered down from a dark economic storm cloud hovering over the banking sector. Indeed despite weeks of protestations we all knew to be vacuous, Spain finally had to plead for a bail out to stabilise the country’s inexplicable nexus between state funds and banking finance. The Spanish Government had borrowed extensively from the banks to fund a burgeoning structural deficit, yet after the property bubble burst in the 2008 credit crunch, the Government was then forced to start bailing out the banks. Now however finances ministers have agreed to pour £100bn to shore up Spanish finances. However a more conservative estimate for the figure needed is £400bn. Even though the sticking plaster may calm the markets temporarily, what is startling is how this will have a knock on effect across Europe. Mediterranean neighbour Italy is responsible for providing no less than 22% of the bail out at a shrivelled repayment rate of just 3%. But in order to cough up the funds, Italy herself must borrow from the markets, at a rate of interest of 7%, inevitably dragging her below the gathering rip tide. Meanwhile the loan to the Spanish Government itself will actually add a further 10% on top of already astronomical state debt. You could hardly make this stuff up.

And still the problems with Greece are not solved. In fact on the 17th June Greece is set to go to the polls again – a day which could see a newly elected government steadfastly refuse to abide by the austerity measures conditional of receiving future financial aid. No wonder. These imposed cuts have ripped the economy to shreds throwing hundreds of thousands out of work, leaving pharmacies empty of life saving medicines, slashing welfare payments as the state finance pot runs totally dry forcing families onto the streets to beg for food. A ‘Grexit’ is liable before the month of June is even up. The exposure of the European Central Bank to bail out countries such as Greece is almost €500 billion. If Greece leaves the single currency, that is likely to cause the ECB itself to go bust, unless it can recoup money from Portugal, Ireland and Spain.

Speculation among Eurosceptics and Financiers alike is that the whole sorry mess was intentionally engineered to force Europe into becoming a European Republic. It has been common consensus for years that a single currency cannot work with so many different Exchequers. As the crisis struck, instead of Brussels shrinking from its disastrous fiscal errors, instead the call has been for deeper integration, forcing the burden of debt to be passed from neighbour to neighbour dragging each and every country into the same calamitous myre. The next country veering headlong towards bail out is Cyprus, and while we are not in the single currency, the exposure of British banks to European debt is an eye watering $430bn, or 19 per cent of our GDP.

Customers of Santander may fear the fate of their savings given the bank’s Spanish parent, but the bank is one of the least vulnerable in the wake of a dramatic and increasingly likely Euro crash. Barclays and RBS, the latter having been already bailed out by the British taxpayer, have the greatest amount of money tied up in the Eurozone. A total of £191.8 billion is estimated to be at risk.

Should the Eurozone fail to repair its problems, the global financial sector would breach under a ripple effect far greater than observed in 2008 after the Lehamn Brothers collapse. Yet it is more and more apparent that perhaps Brussels does not want the problem to be solved. Whilst economic crisis may lead to human misery as we are seeing in Greece, it also, rather conveniently, allows Brussels to conduct the most flagrant power grab for the final slice of federal pie – fiscal integration. For he who controls the money also controls the power

Oil, banks and democracy - a potent blend

Oil carries with it so many connotations.
The social, moral and geo-political implications create a quagmire as opague and viscous as the crude substance itself.
When Ghana discovered oil off its coast line a few years ago there was a sharp intake of breath. Everyone saw what had happened in Nigeria. The Government were not prepared to fall into the same trap, creating a feral landscape where natives and multi-nationals go head to head over the black stuff, where misery is wrought across borders such as in Sudan, and where corrupt governmental allegiances and illegal wars exacerbate religious and ethnic divides. Where there is misery and oppression, there is often oil.

In the case of Spain, Italy and Greece however the interconnection between oil and misery is different.

Oil in Spain?

Yes. The Golden Stuff.

Olive oil.

For in Spain the price of oil olive has slid so drastically, caused by a sharp decline in domestic demand, a failure of potential foreign export markets to embrace the oil - such as the Far East, and a supply overload flooding the market. As a result, the EU has been forced to intervene. [Sigh]

Taxpayers' money is now being driven in to shore up the prices in order to maintain employment in rural areas that rely almost exclusively upon olive plantations.

We all know what happens when the EU intervenes, fixing prices and stockpiling resources.
Should we expect olive oil producers over the next few years to become completely dependent upon single payments?

The future of the Mediterranean economies in the Eurozone is bleaker than is being made out. In Spain, the Government are beginning to realise there is little they can do to avoid becoming the next Greece. The likelihood of the country needing an EU bail out is almost certain. Spanish banks have been propping up state finances to the tune of €316 billion borrowed from the European Central Bank. Those banks now emergency finance, to the tune of €23.5 billion, which the Spanish Government has been determined to find itself - creating an ironic cycle of debt that cannot be broken without outside stimulus.

Yet the people of Spain have already shown vehement opposition to the Government's own austerity measures, and with a quarter of the adult population now unemployed, who could blame them? Yet any EU bail out comes with a multitude of conditions that must be met - however unsympathetic to the plight of the normal person. This is the situation we are now seeing in Greece, where the democratic choice is an end to austerity, yet the EU refuses to climb down on the demands stipulated in return for propping up the single currency. One can be assured that if Spain ends up in a similar position, the opinion of the public would be known the world over.

In Ireland,  the public have gone to the polls to vote in a referendum on Irish approval of the "EU fiscal pact" set out last December. Prime Minister Enda Kenny has urged the nation in a televised address to back the proposals, in order to ensure the rug isn't pulled from under their feet, and for the time being, the propaganda appears to have worked with early results indicating voters would back the fiscal pact. Of course in Ireland they also have the added security of sterling propping up some Government debt after George Osborne signed off a £7 billion bilateral loan, but this also means our loan, which is due to be repaid with interest in the future, is at risk of falling into a fiscal blackhole if the single currency collapses.

The coping mechanism that has been rolled out during the course of the last four years has been for deeper integration and mutualised responsibility, yet this flies in the face of the will of the majority of voters in the EU,  be they Germans who do not accept their share of any burden or Greeks forced out of work, unable to access medicines and even food. The public conception is that closer EU integration has weakened national economies, rather than providing the reinforcement that it was purported to achieve.

Economics is more of an art than a science, it is often argued. It involves theorising, when nobody can understand or predict what any outcome may be, however well read they may be in the field or practised and proven in managing national debts. While one side of the argument would state that breaking the single currency up would cause a lot of short term pain but enable each country to forge an idiomatic platform upon which to compete and rebuild, others would argue that disintegrating the Euro would leave huge unaccounted for wounds of debt that would plunge the global markets back into disarray, creating shockwaves more severe than those witnessed in 2008 and the first global credit crunch.

One thing is for sure. The break up of the single currency would not be good for the EU. It would undermine the entire European project and pit disenchanted countries against one another, further enhancing the risk of member states applying to leave the EU, potentially resulting in the domino affect of the entire dissolution of the entireUnion. It is argued that nowhere in any treaty is exiting the single currency accounted for, further enhancing the risk of the break up of the Euro resulting in ejection from the EU itself - by law.

June is set to be an interesing month. If Greece runs out of money before the elections, and if Brussels are resolute in their stance that a bail out would not be provided without obeisance to their conditions, we could have a humanitarian crisis on our hands.

I hope, for the sake of the people of Greece, this is not the case.

Enough is Enough

The tragedy unfolding in Greece has escalated to such a stage now that I am increasingly concerned by pan-European complicity in the austerity measures planned to save the Euro - a currency nobody wanted - which are putting so many human lives at stake.

I have talked about Greece repeatedly in this blog. It's been hard not to. It has after all been the focal point of European news for over a year.

But today's news about the suicide of a 77 year old retired chemist outside Parliament in Athens last night has to be talked about. In fact, it has to be shouted and screamed about.

This high profile case caught the public's attention and sparked further rioting in the country's capital. Petrol bombs were hurled at police and tear gas fired back.

The carefully written note was without doubt designed to strike a chord with society. In many people's eyes, the man unofficially named by the Greek press as Dimitris Christoulas, is a martyr.

The retired chemist, with a wife and a daughter, had sold his pharmacy in 1994.

He shot himself in Syntagma Square in the city centre just before 09:00. His note accused the government of cutting his pension to such an extent that life had become unbearable.

It read

"The government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state.

"And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting... I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance."

Hundreds of demonstrators turned out onto the streets outside Parliament on Wednesday evening, pinning notes to trees that read "Enough is enough" and "Who will be the next victim?"

Greece used to have the lowest suicide rate in Europe. In recent months it has soared, in Athens alone it has risen by 25%. The face of the country has changed. Shop fronts are closed up, homeless people are more evident, there's a sense of discord hanging in the air.

Early elections due in just over a month could bring about interesting results. The question is whether the results will be quashed by Brussels if they do not serve up on a platter an ideal puppet for the European Commission to manipulate in order to save their beloved single currency.

The situation in Greece is no longer about the Euro. It is no longer about free trade and rules on bendy bananas and protecting post war Europe through solidarity. It is about real people who cannot work, cannot live and cannot eat.

Almost a third of Greeks are at risk of poverty, with one in five of those unable to afford meat every other day.

Suicides increased by 18% in 2010 from the previous year, according to Reuters.

When the price to pay for a political ideology is people's lives - then the international community has a duty to stand up and say

enough is enough

The Young Ones

What sort of country are we leaving for our children?

What sort of society, what sort of culture, what sort of world will they inherit?

It's a question that is often asked.
But perhaps we should be questioning what sort of children are we leaving for our world?

With some of the worst youth unemployment figures in the developed world, Europe is home to a disengaged, disenchanted and disenfranchised generation who will soon be expected to take over the mantles of their nations.

Figures for youth unemployment are largely double the incidence of adult unemployment in many European countries. The economic slowdown is hitting the young the hardest, but we are yet to truly see the scars that will be left behind. Those will only become apparent in around a decade or so.

While Generation X, the post war baby boomers, may be held accountable for the strain on economies brought by capitalism, credit and unsecured loans, Generation Y have managed to squeeze through and are largely upcoming professionals who have completed education and are well on their way to careers. It's the next generation down, dubbed Generation Z. that we should perhaps be worrying about.

There is an increasing incidence of NEETs in Generation Z - Not in Education, Employment or Training. A lost generation who are likely to be living at home, and as such are delayed in becoming fully engaged young adults who are taking an active role in society. Together with their peers, they look at everyone else around them and perceive a world that is forn the most part inaccessible to them. They feel they must carry the burden of the mistakes of their elders on their shoulders, while they are stripped of responsibility, indepence and pride.

Youth unemployment is largely the product of structural factors, where there is simply no capacity to accomodate those entering into the jobs market for the first time in the system. This is then exacerbated by the sort of austerity measures we are seeing in Southern Europe that has put youth unemployment in Spain higher than in Greece, with both running over fifty per cent for 18 to 24 year olds.

Youth unemployment across the Eurozone as a whole was 21.6 percent in February, according to the European Union's statistics office, Eurostat. That accounts for hundreds of thousands of unexploited, underused and wasted capable people who are not only contributing to society, but are starting to feel like society is not contributing anything for them.

Youth unemployment is often the first symptom of a failing economy. Service industries are hit by the reduction in available spending money and the perceived threat of joblessness, causing people to stop going out and buying, or eating in restaurants. It is well noted that service industries are one of the biggest employers for this sector of the demographic. How many of us toiled in pubs and restaurants, or shops, during our youth? Yet with so many places affected by the recession closing or having to cut back significantly, the first area affected is often staff.

Meanwhile, job cuts in other areas are seeing better qualified, better equipped, and perhaps more motivated members of Generation X and Y taking up jobs that Zedders would otherwise have access too.

On top of that, large amounts of immigration, both EU and non-EU, is providing cheaper employment for already struggling businesses who are more likely to be tempted to take on a foreigner for less money.

Youth unemployment is not just about joblessness. Various studies have shown clear links between youth unemployment and antisocial behavior, alcoholism, mental and physical illnesses and suicide. Meanwhile a large number of the protestors involved in the riots that have spread across Europe and are likely to continue and escalate well into the summer, are unemployed youths who feel disconnected from society as a whole. You only have to look at pictures from the London riots and the most recent scenes in Barcelona to see the majority of people who took to the streets feeling that their voices were not being heard, came from the younger generations who feel they are unfairly having to bear the brunt of matters they could not possibly have contributed to.

Not only that, but economists have also argued that youth unemployment creates a scarring effect that reduces the capacity to earn throughout a person's life compared with someone who did not suffer long term unemployment at an early age. Therefore the majority of those young people stuck in an unemployment rut now will be blighted by a decelerated passage of progress compared to their counterparts who are able to traverse the current economic situation relatively harm free.

So what can we do to help Generation Z?

The primary driver of employment is growth, especially for those just beginning their careers who can be taken on baord and groomed and moulded into the future workforce of an industry. But with ongoing austerity measures designed to to tackle structural problems, growth is being sacrified on the altar of a quick fix recovery.

The other solution is to take these people out of the job market by placing them into training. While they may not be earning money, many believe the best solution is occupying them with studies which will also prepare them for participation in the workforce when the better days finally do arrive.

However, with structural state deficits as they are across European nations, governments are ill placed to pour money into the further education of a group of people who have already negotiated the school system and have either chosen not to enter further education, or have come out of it to find no job at the other end as well as potentially a large amount of debt already accrued in their bank accounts.

The situation isn't uniformly bleak across Europe. In Germany, young people's prospects for work have never been brighter. Yet this may also be a reflection on the higher number of young people engaged in education and vocational training.

It is essential countries like Spain and Greece need to ensure Generation Z are well rounded, fully engaged and highly skilled young adults, ready to compete in an ultra competitive global market place. However strategies to encourage youth into training schemes work best when they come with guarantees of employment at the end. However prolonging the amount of time spent in education is not the solution.

Whilst in Germany the length of a degree is similar to that in the UK, in Spain many courses take much longer. As a result, young people may be dissuaded from signing up to such a big commitment, with many degrees taking up to six years, when they are already demoralised by the society in which they live and as a result would be less likely to want to make such an investment when their prospects look bleak.

Meanwhile those attending shorter courses will likely come out the other side to see little change, and may feel even more let down by the system.

At the same time, austerity measures are seeing an increase in retirement age across Europe . It's ironic that at one end of the demographic you have people seeking work who are unable to find it, while at the toher you have people wanting to leave work but finding they must remain in employment for years to come. On top of that, regulations and directives from Brussels restricting flexibility in the workplace are preventing dynamic handling of the socio-economic situation from the bottom up. From the working time directive to the agency workers directive, legislation is costing companies billions in red tape and making it expensive to take on new staff.

It is also likely that such social regulation has also affected the expectations of Generation Z, who are becoming less willing than previous generations to perform what they deem menial tasks, or work for long hours for perceived little pay.

Meanwhile the generation in question has been brought up in a Western capitalist society where they know little other than a culture that demands recognition, luxury items and a certain lifestyle which in itself denigrades the usual forms of employment for those just starting their working lives. As a result, many 18 to 24 year olds look down their noses at employment opportunities in supermarkets or manufacturing plants. As a result, many of those jobs are taken up by migrant workers who essentially flee unemployment in their own countries, but by doing so, essentially shift the burden of jobs creation and welfare onto another country.

The cost of youth unemployment in Europe could be very high. This summer as Spain joins the ranks of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece in economic turmoil, expect to see more riots from a disgruntled public on the streets, with a large proportion of protesters hailing from the 18-24 year old age bracket.

For every young person out of education and out of work, not only is an individual's capability wasted, but also their spirit. It is high time Brussels sought to rescind restrictive regulation that places a stranglehold on enterprise and curtail uncontrolled and exacerbatory free movement of people, if only to give the youth of today a chance while the going is tough.

Meanwhile as adults and as parents, it is our job as a society to keep the fire in their bellies alive, and thank or lucky stars when we have a solid income and a stable job.

If Britain Were Greece

Just watched an excellent comparitive piece on the BBC Website
If Britain were Greece.

The journalist has assimilated the facts and statistics of Greece's swinging austerity measures imposed by the Troika of the EU, IMF and ECB into a British context.

Here's a summary below:

Unemployment would have hit 7 million

Half of all young would be out of work

Minimum wage would be cut from £6.08 per hour to £4.74 per hour, or for under 18s, be reduced from £4.98 to £3.39 per hour.

100,000 public sector workers would be waiting redundancy with their salaries meanwhile cut by 40%

1 million public sector workers would be sacked by 2015

All public sector workers salaries would not just be frozen but cut sharply

VAT would go up 24%

Solidarity levy would account for 5% of income

Alcohol and tobacco prices would be increased by 1/3

Diesel and petrol would rise to around £2 per litre, meaning it would cost £120 to fill the tank of family saloon

State and public sector pensions above £800 a month would be cut by 20%

Anyone with a pension above that rate would see it cut by no less than 40%

The equivalent increase in retirement age would see many Brits working well into their 70s

All state benefits would be slashed and strictly means-tested

Defence budget would be slashed by a fifth, meaning the loss of many personel and the likely merge of the army, navy and air force

NHS spending would be cut bu a sixth, leading to tens of thousands of job losses for medical staff

There would also be the closure of numerous schools, meaning thousands of teachers unemployed.

The outlook for Greece is ghastly and is certainly not set to improve any time soon. And all to protect the common currency project that props up the European Union.

Horrifying, isn't it?