Interesting Links for 17-05-2014

[andrewducker]

• Algorithm appointed board director
  (tags: computers algorithms technology investment business thefuture )
• How Writing for the TV Show “Community” Cured Me
  (tags: writing tv DanHarmon viaTheFerrett )
• Forced viewings of Frozen begin
  (tags: movies Disney funny )
• ‘The Problem With Music’ has been solved by the internet.
  (tags: viafanf internet music )

Comments

[bart_calendar]

The youth unemployment rate caused by austerity politics is really, dangerous and really going to bite people in the ass eventually.

Here in France it's over 25 percent and in Spain you get over 50 percent. That pretty much represents a lost generation. And, it's going to lead to a lot of angry young people with a ton of time on their hands and a complete lack of hope.

That's the kind of stuff that will lead to Franco 2 down the line in Spain. And it's the type of thing that is boosting Mmme. Le Pen at the moment in France. We've seen how this plays out in Europe before.

What's mind boggling to me is that if, instead of austerity, the EU Central bank caused a gradual and planned devaluization of the Euro to around dollar parity (which is what the EU economy projections were based on when the Euro was introduced) you'd suddenly create a lot of jobs for young people and make it easier for countries to pay down debt and increase exports.

The only reason as far as I can tell that that's not happening is that the Germans still remember what it was like when their currency devalued after World War 1 - which is a real false equivalence, because resetting a currency to it's projected rather than inflated value has nothing to do with hyper inflation caused by unfair war reparations.

[andrewducker]

Yup, this level of unemployement, without real support for the unemployed, is utterly toxic.

[bart_calendar]

What's really weird is that Germany is saying "well our unemployment is low, so it's not that bad a thing."

This, to me, shows a real ignorance of history, because their own history shows what happens when you let one Euro country economically collapse and don't do anything about it.

[danieldwilliam]

There’s a question about labour mobility here for me.

If unemployment is low in Germany but very, very high in Spain etc why aren’t we seeing more people moving from Spain to Germany?

[bart_calendar]

Because most Spanish people learned French, Portuguese and English in school because at the time they seemed more useful languages than German.

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah - I was wondering if the language barrier was the main or only difference or if there was something else going on.

[bart_calendar]

It's mostly language. Nobody really studies German, because if you speak one romance language it's much easier to learn a second one than it is to learn a germanic based language.

[andrewducker]

Work migration is always an interesting one to me.

Moving for a well-paying job seems generally worthwhile. You're losing a bunch of friends, but gaining a better life (presumably).

But for lower-paying work the risks are much higher - you can't be certain your job will last long, and you're leaving behind your support network.

If the Universal Credit system in the UK works alright then that will help a lot. But I don't know what the situation is with migrant workers across the EU. Would you move from Spain to Germany if it would take three months to get benefits if the job fell through, and you'd be denied housing benefit?

[danieldwilliam]

To answer your very pertinent question; no I probably wouldn’t and I’m not sure I could recommend it to say, Bluebird.

Putting myself in BB’s position, if her studies fell through and she ended up unemployed, trying to find some sort of minimum wage job whilst she sorted herself out for the longer term, I don’t see that taking myself off to Germany, where I don’t speak the language and have no friends is a good bet when I can reasonably expect to be able to go and live with my dad, my granddad or my aunt. I’ll have a roof over my head and food to eat.

[andrewducker]

I'm not likely to either. And I suspect that most people feel the same way even inside the UK.

If we want people to migrate for work then it needs to be something that's a lot less risky for them. Sadly, we seem to be making it harder.

[danieldwilliam]

Everyone gets one free, one-way bus ticket from anywhere in the EU to anywhere else in the EU once a year?

If it all goes wrong you can at least get home.

Free language MOOC's.

[gonzo21]

And particularly when you add into the mix that environment c hange is going to start hitting over the next 10 years, and basic food prices are going to skyrocket.

They'll be angry, unemployed, doomed, *and* hungry.

[skington]

Let's not forget robots taking jobs that won't be replaced, which in the long term will be great, but will really hurt in the medium term.

[gonzo21]

Good point.

And if you combine that with the threat of developing emergant AI that self-improves itself. The Terminator scenario doesn't look that unrealistic. Why wouldn't machines decide we were inefficient and no longer required?

[danieldwilliam]

Traditionally we’d just poke them with a great big xenophobic stick until they were properly riled up, arm them and then throw them at someone else’s unemployed young people.

[quirkytizzy]

Same here in America. You have millions of young people graduating from college with tens of thousands of dollars of debt (or more) with no jobs and no ability to remove that debt. People are angry.

I really wonder how it will play out in the next 20 years.