Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/703/13658
From The Socialist newspaper, 1 February 2012
Dead end in Davos
Ian Pattison, Youth Fight for Jobs
So-called world leaders are meeting in Davos this week, and it finally seems that youth unemployment is top of the agenda.
We know the plight of being out of work, we don't need super-rich politicians to lecture us about it. In Britain youth unemployment is a daily nightmare, and it's even worse in Greece and Spain. Today more young Spaniards are out of work (51.4%), than in a job.
EU leaders have said they might use €22 billion to tackle the crisis of rising youth unemployment. What are we going to get for our money? Tory chancellor George Osborne has called on other world leaders to create jobs to tackle youth unemployment. Osborne should look a little closer to home. When Chris Grayling, Tory 'unemployment' minister, wrote to Youth Fight for Jobs following the 330 mile Jarrow March to defend his government's failed policies, he couldn't point to one job his government had created.
These out of touch capitalist politicians are quite happy to cry crocodile tears about youth unemployment from the comfort of conference centres in Davos, but it is their failed cuts agenda that is slamming the door on our futures.
If Christine Lagarde, managing director for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), wants to kick-start growth to create jobs, why is the IMF demanding vicious programme after vicious programme of swingeing privatisation in Greece, plunging the country deeper and deeper into recession?
Young people are not lazy, we want to work. But we can't wait for self-proclaimed big business elites; we have to fight to defend our futures now! It has been young working class people leading the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the mass movements in Spain and Greece and occupying Wall Street and elsewhere in the USA and across the world.
Davos leaders have no solutions to the crisis of youth unemployment, because they are tied to the capitalist system. Capitalism protects the profits of the 1%, but its time is up. Youth Fight for Jobs stands for the wealth of society being used to create jobs and meet the needs of all.
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In The Socialist 1 February 2012:
Socialist Party news and analysis
Bankers bonus scandal - Fight this profit-mad system
Trade unionists and socialists prepare for May elections
What is the point of Labour MPs?
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Don't let the racist EDL divide us
Disabled protesters demand scrapping of 'welfare' bill
Haringey takes action against academies
Coventry: Re-elect Dave Nellist
Socialist Party youth and students
NUS: name the day for student walkout
Save Derbyshire youth services!
Only one in six 'vacancies' real
Tough conditions for agency workers
South East Wales youth plan new campaigns
International socialist news and analysis
EU summit - no capitalist solutions to the spiralling eurozone crisis
Interview: the Tunisian revolution one year on
Socialist Party workplace news
Pensions battle: Unions must campaign for coordinated strike action in March
London Docklands transport workers win Olympics deal
Remploy workers fight privatisation
Jet tanker drivers continue strike action
The Socialist - readers' comments
Debate: Should socialists support the HS2 rail line?
Are the Greens a real alternative?
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