	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 03-Feb-05
Europe is stunned by dramatic rise in German unemployment

Web Log - February, 2005

Europe is stunned by dramatic rise in German unemployment

With high employment throughout euroland, the EU is making a major change in economic direction.

Germany received a harsh reminder of its Nazi past with the announcement that the January jobless rate was 12.1%, the highest since 1933. That's when severe financial hardship caused the German people to blame their troubles on France, England, America and the Jews. leading to the rise of Hitler.

I've frequently written on this web site about how American businesses have become increasingly bureaucratic and inefficient since the 1930s Great Depression, and how this situation will only be corrected by a new Great Depression.

What I haven't frequently mentioned is that Europe is on the same generational timeline as America, and is facing exactly the same reality. In fact, European businesses are even more inefficient than America's, thanks to onerous business regulations throughout Europe that mandate large benefits and long vacations. In some cases, they even make it illegal for a citizen to choose to work beyond the normal work day.

But now with the unemployment rate at 8.9% for all of euroland, and excpected to increase still further, alarm bells are going off in the Brussels headquarters of the European Union.

The shocked EU politicians have now announced the abandonment of the "Lisbon strategy" of 2000, which set the goal of the making the EU the "most dynamic economy in the world," ahead of America's. They will immediately work to pass new laws to cut back on regulations and other red tape that affects business.

Unfortunately, no such legislative program can affect the results of the generational changes taking place. As aging businesses in America and Europe become increasingly bureaucratic and inefficient, they're making products that don't interest younger generations at high prices, or sometimes at any price. This change will continue to force prices down, and turn inflation into deflation.

The reason that America and Europe are both moving in this direction at the same time is because we're at a unique time in history, about 60 years after the end of World War II, when every country is experiencing the same generational change at the same time: The people in the generation that lived through the Great Depression and then fought in WW II are all disappearing (retiring or dying) all at once, and are being replaced by the people in the generation born after WW II.

Although German authorities today downplayed the connection between today's unemployment rate increase and the discontents of the Nazi era, the fact is that severe economic problems are historically one of the main generators of public attitudes leading to war. Just as Germans blamed the Jews in WW II, Europeans today are increasingly blaming Muslim immigrants for today's economic problems.

Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a new major European war, just as there have been European wars for a millennium or more at regular intervals. (03-Feb-05) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 03-Feb-05 Europe is stunned by dramatic rise in German unemployment

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 03-Feb-05
Europe is stunned by dramatic rise in German unemployment