Over the past year, I had the opportunity to point-out the sky-high and still-rising Youth Unemployment as being the biggest issue the “developped world” has to face, and in particular in Europe… remember the warning: watch the next elections…
Well, it has definitely evolved and is now seen by all as THE issue. Likely the spin-doctors of politics in many places have now noticed through their contuinuous polling that the biggest concern of voters is… unemployment, and especially that of the youth.
One point of really good news is to see that some of the major Corporations (in Europe) are coming up with plans and commitments to play a larger role by creating jobs and developping better skills in the workforce; and that is spontaneous, without any arm-twisting or claims for counterparties… very good news indeed!
Gemany will take-in apprentices from Spain, and of course Brussels will come up with some “plan”. Interestingly, no details about that plan yet, except that it already has a committed amount, EUR 7-8 billion, though over the next three years.
Arguably that is petty cash compared to the size of the problem and throwing money down such a deep hole will not help but maybe soothe the pain a (very small) bit.
Other proof that it is Priority #1? President Obama visits Berlin and in his speech raises (Youth) Unemployment as the biggest issue to tackle… no doubt that the NSA must have been scrutinizing this blog and briefed President Obama accordingly (yeah, right!). No less than the Pope raised it as well in Rio during the World Youth Day 2013… Difficult to put the point higher on the world’s agenda!!
So again: watch the next elections and the rhetoric of the various candidates….
The better news (see previous blogs again) is that there seems to be a strong will to tackle fiscal-loopholes. The press has been bending backwards to talk about holding structures in some remote islands and all the bad behaviors people imagine… In fact, holding structures to optimize money-flows AFTER taxes have been paid are fully legitimate and do ensure some fairness in taxation.
What is to be looked at is the fiscal set-ups that are abusive by enabling to not pay fair taxes where the profits are really made; between Intellectual Property set-ups, Management Services contracts and other tricks, this has been very much abused over the past decades and will need to be addressed to restore fiscal fairness; and in the end make profits fairly taxed in the community that makes those profits possible… that is how the game should be played!
So only good news on this front: Unemployment is the number one concern and fiscal abuses are being tackled to restore income of States that make profits possible…
Of course, I am assuming that it will happen and that the forces pulling in the wrong direction will be overcome… and the latter are not exactly negligeable!!!
Simon Q.