By Les Dunaway

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past weeks, you’re aware of events across the world involving massive crowds of people – one of whom has toppled the 30+ year dictatorship of Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak in Egypt.

What you may not know is as Paul Harvey said “The rest of the story”. These people in the streets are, largely, young and represent a global problem that must be addressed of the world economy is to be healthy.A number of good articles have been written recently.  Peter Coy, in the cover story for Bloomberg Businessweek for Feb 2nd, takes an in-depth at the problem “The Youth Enemployment Bomb“.  In the Sunday Nation from Kenya, “The ticking time-bomb of jobless youth” Esmond Shahonya discusses it further. Perhaps the most telling item is in this report from Britian’s Sky News which reports that “25% of the unemployed youth come from families where no one has ever worked” – that is, the natural outcome of the welfare state.In “Youth jobless crisis could have lasting impact” Money.com’s Chavon Sutton looks at the US situation. One telling point Unemployment spells early in a young person’s work life can have lasting negative effects on future earnings, productivity and employment opportunities.

The “sub-prime crisis”, better named the “government meddling in the private sector crisis” has resulted in a situation where young inexperienced workers are competing for a reduced number of jobs against experienced workers who must work because their retirement savings were destroyed. Further, demographics tell us that a major economic sector, housing, will not recover for many years, if ever.

And, just to put the cherry on the sundae, in the US only 1 in 5 high school students graduates from college. The US now ranks 12th in degreed people.

This is a world-wide problem. I suggest that Americans wake up and demand that our children receive the education they will need to compete in the years ahead.