Sunday, March 19, 2006

The War On Youth: First Shots Across The Bow

Did you see the stylish kids in the riot?
We were shovelled up like muck
Then set the night on fire
Wombles bleed truncheons and shields
--Libertines

The western war on youth comes to blows:
France: PM 'set to stand firm'
24 injured, 167 arrested in Paris; Government calls for 'dialogue'

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- The French government looked set on Sunday to resist demands, backed by mass protests by students and trade unions, to withdraw a law that cuts job security for young workers.

[...]

Under the law aimed at cutting youth unemployment, employers will be able to fire workers under 26 without giving a reason at any time during a two-year trial period. Opponents say that will create a generation of disposable workers with no security.

The West has a rapidly ageing population that has resulted in a majoritarian bias towards the elderly (who are also the most likely to vote) and laws and policies that basically skew against the young - a group increasingly dwarfed population-wise by the old....

For example, take OAS or CPP..programs designed to protect the elderly from poverty in old age, originally...which is a good idea naturally. But, since the inception of CPP/OAS, the elderly have increasingly become the most wealthy portion of the population with tax laws skewed towards their comfort. Of any market economy on earth, the over-60 set will own more than two-thirds of the stock market.

In most cases on earth, old age pensions have become a massive transfer of wealth from the young and poor to the old and rich. In France, the anti-youth policies are heightened by the growing (Algerian) arab youth population that results in anti-youth and racist biases.

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I fully expect Canada to follow the French example. And I expect an ageing tv news watching population to be subjected to ever more excited news media over-hyping youth violence even as crime rates drop to 30-year lows in an effort to demonize and increasingly well-behaved youth population.

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