Capitalism won, Us lost

Let's see if I've got this right.

To have a life in this country, you need to have a job. Forget the part-time job or the temporary job or the self-employed job or the short-term contract. It has to be a proper full-time permanent job. Without that, you'll probably find it hard to borrow the money to buy a car, let alone a house. You can probably get credit, but you probably also can't afford to pay it back and your credit rating will be a worry for you all your working life. 

If you've just left school or college or university, it's likely you have no money. You probably also have a whole lot of debt, either to your parents or to the student loans people who are just waiting till your wages go up high enough for their repayments to kick in. I mean, the student loans people are waiting, since your parents have long since given up all hope of getting any money back from you. They'll just settle for you not taking any more money off them since they are meant to be saving towards their retirement.

Of the few jobs available right now, almost none are permanent and/or full-time. So for most young people today, the future consists of short-term contracts, part-time working and wages topped up with tax credits from the tax payer. I hear about folk with PhDs, doctors, researchers, teachers, engineers - folk who have invested up to 9 years in their education from the age of 18 - being put on to 4 month contracts. They not only can't plan their future - can't get married, can't have kids - they can't even make the rent some months.

Have a look around the world. Apart from in China, North Korea and Cuba, communism is dead. Capitalism in the only game in town. And as far as I can see capitalism has failed. The 'free' market doesn't work. Even where we - the tax payers - own the means of making money - that is, the banks - we still aren't getting anything like the support we need for businesses, industry, commerce. In other words, instead of hoarding their cash, we need to get the banks investing. If you think about it, the banks have no future if they have no customers and their future customers are our young people.