The Worldwide Recession & Austerity has led to Global Unemployment & Civil Unrest

The United States isn't the only nation dealing with chronic unemployment - the rest of the world is too! A new report by the World Bank says that the global economy needs to create 200 million jobs to recover from the worldwide recession and reach full employment. Twenty-seven million jobs were lost around the world when the economy went in the tank in 2008 - and subsequent job growth hasn't been nearly strong enough to keep up with the 40 million new people who enter the workforce every single year.

Austerity measures in several European nations from Greece to Spain to the U.K. have crippled economies and mobilized working people into the streets. Major demonstrations in Denmark and the Czech Republic were held over the week to protest against austerity too. And in France - austerity may just end up costing the President his job.

One way to create jobs is to unleash a green revolution around the world to cut carbon emissions and use energy more efficiently. Now only if we can get the oil barons out of the way to get started.

-Thom

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MY THOUGHTS:

Many economists have stated that austerity measures are the wrong way to recover from the Great Recession.  When you withdraw huge amounts of capital from the public sector, which also trickles into the private sector, and don't infuse more capital into the private sector directly through infrastructure and other employment producing plans, you exacerbate the core problem with the economy, low demand for goods and services.


Secondly, as Thom has pointed out, one can't think about creating legacy jobs we enjoyed in prior decades, those are not available anymore. Automation and robotics have replaced the need for humans in those jobs.  What is needed to generate the demand for human labor, at least initially, are the Green Energy, Green Transportation and Green Building that will require huge amounts of labor to infuse it into the economies and to bring to market products much faster than current pace. 

Such things as solar-cell technologies, electric transportation, more energy efficient products, such as LED lighting, etc. The faster they are brought to market and more competition in the production of them, the lower the cost per unit for the consumer. This in turn increases the acceptance and adaptation of these new technologies.


Continuing to look at fossil fuel extraction as the bases for jobs and economic growth is very short sighted and only drains current limited reserves for any future generation to have access to. What do they do for the molecular components only found in fossil fuels for medicine, plastics, lubrication, special gaseous fuels all needed for industrial output?  If we don't conserve what remains of the reserves, there will be nothing left in a single century for future generations.


The time is now to jump start the Green Revolution and get people back to work and to shift our economies to renewable, lower cost energy and building material. That is the best hope for the present and future.