Every year on August 12, the United Nations celebrates International Youth Day.World Economic Forum
It’s a chance to recognize the potential of young people to change the world for the better, and to highlight the challenges and problems they face.
Last week, Eurostat released it updated data covering people who are at risk of monetary poverty. In the press release/news page (February 26, 2018) – Almost half the unemployed at risk of monetary poverty in the EU – we learn that 48.7 per cent of unemployed persons in the EU “were at risk of poverty” in 2016, even “after social transfers” were taken into account. The situation has deteriorated significantly since 2005 as a result of the impacts of the GFC and the policy response taken by the European Commission and the Member States (under the EC’s thumb). While the usual suspects perform badly on these indicators (Spain, Greece, Italy), a stark result is that 70.8 per cent of German unemployed persons are at risk of poverty. This proportion has jumped from 40.9 per cent in 2005 (a 29.9 percentage point shift). So, even in the strongest Eurozone economy, the policy frameworks are delivering terrible outcomes. Increasing divergence and inequality and rising social exclusion are the most striking characteristics of the 13 years of European Union history since 2005. It doesn’t look like a policy bloc that any sensible nation should aspire to be part off (or remain within).A vast swath of the developed world is slipping toward Third World status as a result of policy decisions.
The transition to market economy and democracy in the Russian Federation in the early 1990s dramatically increased mortality and shortened life expectancy. The steep upsurge in mortality and the decline in life expectancy in Russia are the largest ever recorded anywhere in peacetime in the absence of catastrophes such as war, plague or famine.
During 1987-1994, the Russian mortality rate increased by 60%, from 1.0% to 1.6%, while life expectancy went down from 70 to 64 years. Although life expectancy declined from 1987, when Mikhail Gorbachev was still in charge, its fall was sharpest during 1991-1994, i.e., during Boris Yeltsin’s early years.
In fact, mortality increased to levels never observed during the 1950s to the 1980s, i.e., for at least four decades. Even in the last years of Stalin’s rule (1950-1953), mortality rates were nearly half what they were in the first half of the 1990s.Yet, the Yeltsin period is represented as the "golden years" of Russia in the US, and the US elite is doing its best to return "the good old days" to Russia when "cowboy capitalism" ruled under the tutelage of the Harvard boyz, whose guiding principle was, "Let the market sort it out."
Economic output fell by 45% during 1989-1998, while negative social indicators, such as the crime rate, murder rate, suicide rate and income inequalities, rose sharply as well, but even these alone cannot adequately explain the unprecedented mortality spike.
Does anyone sincerely believe that the West (the Whites) will peacefully hand over world leadership to the non-white global majority, led by the BRICS, whom they coerced into joining the world society they made, while they had a virtual monopoly of capital, industry, markets and transport and had mastered genocide by remote means? Or that the United States would relinquish its empire without a fight, when it holds so many of the world’s winning cards listed above?Human Economy Blog
According to new polling by right-wing political consultant Frank Luntz, Americans 18 to 26 are extremely liberal — so liberal that “the hostility of young Americans to the underpinnings of the American economy and the American government” should “frighten every business and political leader” and “excite activists for Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Clinton activists.”
Luntz’s poll found that young Americans are optimistic about both the country’s future and their own: 61% say the best days of the United States are still ahead of us rather than behind us, and 88% are somewhat, very or extremely optimistic about their economic prospects. But they have concerns, too. Their biggest, in order, are “corruption,” “greed” and “inequality.”…The Intercept
Bernie Sanders’ victory over Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primaries pointed to the overwhelming support Sanders has among young women—Sanders garnered 53 percent of the female vote overall, compared with Clinton’s 46 percent. Among women under 45, Sanders received 69 percent of votes; among women under 30, he got 82 percent.Holy cow, Batman!
China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing all couples to have two children for the first time since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than three decades ago.
The announcement followed a four-day Communist party summit in Beijing where China’s top leaders debated financial reforms and how to maintain growth at a time of heightened concerns about the economy.
China will “fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population”, the party said in a statement published by Xinhua, the official news agency. “The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population.”The Guardian
The real problem for China is far more entrenched: the country’s demographics have been a ticking timebomb for decades. The one-child policy meant that at some point in the future, the country would have an aging population that could not be replaced in the workforce.China doesn't handle immigration well culturally. So enter the robots and outsourcing to the emerging economies, especially of Asia, which has the added advantage of pulling more developing nations' economies into China's orbit of influence. China is likely to utilize Latin American and Africa, too, at least eventually.
Unfortunately these demographic headwinds are now in full gear now and they are hitting China at the worst possible time. The size of China’s working population is set to begin declining.
Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population
The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 …Pew Research CenterThese are among the global religious trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research Center. The projections take into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in conversion.....
- The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
- Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
- The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.
- In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.
- India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
- In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.
- Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.
