Three people died during the violent riots that broke out all over Europe last week, the rioters were screaming out against the loss of jobs and benefits. Their citizens are against the new austerity measures that the European government is attempting to make to reduce their deficit. The Europe Commission is trying to propose new penalties to punish member states that haven’t managed their budgets. But France wants elected politicians to decide what sanctions the highest spending countries should face, not strict accounting rules, according to Yahoo news.
According to John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, he believes this new penalty will make things worse. Europe already has 23 million unemployed citizens. The citizens should not have to save the country via salary cuts and rising taxes.
Like our economic issues in the United States, the economic disaster in Europe was set off by bankers and traders which were rescued by their government bailing them out. In addition, Monks says, “There is a great danger that the workers are going to be paying the price for reckless speculation that took place in financial markets.”
Sounds like our global economic leaders seem to think socialism is the way to success. They forget that our past tells a very different story. Although the intent to help everyone is shown, the balance of business is off. It is not the workers problem if the business owner does not know how to manage their business. Somehow the little man on the totem pole is left to clean up the mess.
I believe that there is equilibrium in every tiny detail to huge issues in our lives. We have to let the natural progression of things be. When people who are in a position to gain something, who are generally money hungry and thrive off power, start forcing things to happen in their benefit, they swing the pendulum out of control. Hence, disasters occur such as the housing market crash.
The basic education of business needs to be remembered when you are in a seat that can make a difference. Selfishness and recklessness only cause trouble. With our global economic issues, government should not be giving money bailouts to those that have not planned their business like they should have. Why does the failure of a business end up being the taxpayer’s problem? It’s not fair and doesn’t really make sense. I think maybe the government puts it back on the hard worker bees of society to handle because they know we will.
So to say that the European workers did the right thing is a stretch because violence is never the answer. But saying something to the leaders is the right thing. Americans won’t go as far as a national march, united and violent, against our government’s attempts to take over everything in this country; we’ll just vote and hope it makes a difference.
Hearing about these riots was honestly only a little shocking to me. I understand the outrage because I feel it here, in America and Utah. What is happening with our markets is sad and scares me about our future. I can vote every chance I get. Will that change anything? Maybe.
This leaves me pondering what is the most effective way for hard working citizens to stand up to the politicians and shout our case that their decisions are irresponsible, unfair and don’t make sense. We need to tell them they must strategize then execute the plan, it has to make sense and lastly don’t make the ones who are not at fault for business and financial failures responsible for other’s laziness, poor planning and careless spending. They need to go back to the foundations of business and learn from history what works, and not socialism or communism either.
With his valid points, I think Monks is on to something. My thoughts on how to make a difference and have my voice heard is to vote as much as I can, possibly start going to events and meetings so I can learn what is being proposed and try to get others involved, too. You never know whom you might run into and how your opinion could potentially change their view. It only takes one voice to speak to thousands.