All That Is Needed Is a Match

In total, 20.5 percent of young people between 15 and 24 are seeking work in the 27 states of the European Union. At the same time, these numbers conceal large differences in unemployment levels for individual European nations.

In Spain, where the social-democratc government led by Jose Luis Zapatero has introduced a series of punitive austerity programmes at the behest of the banks and the IMF, youth unemployment has doubled since 2008 and now stands at 46 percent. In second place in the European rankings is Greece, the first country to be bailed out by the European Union and to install austerity measures, with a rate of 40 percent. In third place is Italy (28 percent), followed by Portugal and Ireland (27 percent) and France (23 percent).
~ from Record Levels of Unemployment for Europe’s Youth by Stefan Steinberg ~

The rioters in London and elsewhere in the UK predominantly were unemployed youth who have seen the services they depend on further weakened or eliminated. When any nation pushes its young people into a corner and all they have is idle time on their hands, pent up anger, frustration and disillusionment often boils out in a violent catharsis.

How could anyone expect otherwise? When you have nowhere to go, nothing to do, no money to buy much of anything and there are no jobs to be had, something has to give. What tends to give is the reason NOT to cause mayhem.

Could we see the same scenario play out in the US one day soon? It is difficult to see how it won't happen when you look at the employment outlook for American youth. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in last summer's Employment and Unemployment Among Youth Summary,

In July 2010, 4.4 million youth were unemployed, essentially the same as in July 2009. The youth unemployment rate edged up over the year to 19.1 percent in July 2010, the highest July rate on record for the series, which began in 1948. In recent years, higher youth unemployment reflects the weak job market. Among major demographic groups, the unemployment rates for young men (20.5 percent), blacks (33.4 percent), and Asians (21.6 percent) continued to trend up from a year earlier; the jobless rates for young women (17.5 percent), whites (16.2 percent), and Hispanics (22.1 percent) were virtually unchanged.

Since the overall employment picture is about as bleak this year as last year -- it will surely get worse -- AND our federal government is on the fast-track to gutting much of the social safety net, we are ensuring there will be a lot of dry tinder in communities across the country.

All it will take is one specific event -- a police shooting or something of that nature -- to spark the tinder of American youth and young adult disenchantment. My guess is that it will start to burn in one community or region and then, before we know it, it will become a wildfire, consuming communities from coast to coast.

And how will our leaders respond? With force...and even more austerity! It will be like trying to douse a fire with gasoline!