What evidence substantiates the claim that employment levels in 2016 will return to 2008 levels ?

Through serial bailouts and by enabling too-big-to-fail banks and other corporations to grow ever larger, the US Government has restored the economic order that existed from 1776 until 1929 wherein each decade experienced a bubble that crashed (they called them"panics"). Economists and the banksters themselves have noted that the next crash will likely occur in the 2015-2018 timeframe. The only difference between the pre-1929 order and today is that the US Government gives unlimited baoilouts to banks and other corporations that the rest of us pay for.

It looks like Europe is now entering the wobble zone of the Long Emergency. It took longer than in the United States. China will likely be next, since its economic growth is largely a function of the consumption largesse of Europe and the United States.

The political process in Europe is also beginning to show signs of paralysis (in the U.S., we know that paralysis is the order of the day in the political arena).

To respond to Ray del Camino: there is of course no evidence substantiating the claim that employment levels in 2016 will return to 2008 levels. This is merely wishful thinking or, worse, propaganda to assuage the rising storm of societal unrest.

There will never be a returning to former employment levels or economic prosperity. EVER. The gluttonous capitalistic predatory forces that have been munching on the world for the last decades and escalating their plan to impoverish the 99% through austerity, destroying unions, decimating wages and benefits, and offshoring all decent jobs to 3rd world countries for the cheapest labor possible, is finally seeing the natural end-product of such a short-sighted scheme. None of this can be reversed. We cannot "go back" to the pre-2008 levels of employment and "prosperity" for the 99% - even leaving aside the fact that endless economic growth and ravenous consumerism is not possible. If unemployment does eventually drop to pre-2008 levels, then it will be because the 99% are taking shitty, low-wage jobs that provide no security and no benefits.

We are in a completely new world now, and it is not a good one for the billions that make up the non-Elite. Nor will it ever be. A very nasty, long long road lies ahead of all of us. And yes, that includes you elite Plutocratic shits too: who do you think will wind up being the focus of all that pent-up rage that is building all around the world?

It seems that the Great Vampire Squid has infected the entire world with Disaster Capitalism.

The answer is easy - crash the zombie banks and then tax or confiscate the personal wealth of the top executives and shareholders of these banks.

They received their high incomes by fraudulently bribing our politicians so any wealth gained from their actions is confiscatable just as houses and cars etc are taken from convicted drug dealers every single day.

Carrying it out is the hard part considering the above named predators control the various governments and militaries.
There's only so much Income and True Wealth - the more these sociopathic CEO's and their controlling powers behind the veil have the less the rest of us 99.9%ers have.

The math is the easy part.

"World Faces Years of Social Unrest as Economies Falter"

Not exactly news, or a journalistic coup. More like an obivious result of poor economic decisions. Amazing that it's used as a grabber

"David Cameron ... will stress at the G20 gathering in Cannes that countries have to press ahead with deficit reduction plans."

Austerity is the program, decided as such more than a year ago at the Toronto G20. The establishment, and all of its political parties, has nothing to offer beyond this. The attempt to blame the crisis on the workers, as seen earlier this year in Wisconsin and other places, has failed or will fail. The establishment has lost the ability to control the narrative. A major part of the planned austerity programs will be massive privatisation of public assets and infrastructure at fire sale prices. Corporate and financial interests are sitting on a huge pool of cash (several trillions) waiting for this.

The rich and the middle class move to the "country" looking for a better life. The inter cities then become slums. Now the process reverses. The new slums will be abandoned McMansions darkened by no power, stripped of plumbing, heat and air conditioning. The poor (unemployed) and homeless will be trucked out to these former luxury sub divisions, and left to their own devices, unable to get back to the city. These enclaves will become hell on earth, preyed upon by the elite, and other criminals. Welcome to the new world of possibilities, as HW Bush called it. Gives a new meaning to the phrase Gated Community.

" confiscate the personal wealth of the top executives and shareholders of these banks"

Then sterilize them, along with all the past and present Presidents who helped the Corporations gain control of the political process.
Special attention for the Bush crime family, sterilize them all.

Then there is obama, who is running all over the country talking about jobs, as he signs 3 new free trade agreements into law that will send more jobs over seas. This fancy talking fool is selling us down the river, just like the bush boys did.

The crisis is caused by the End of Growth, a topic examined and widely discussed by Post Carbon Institue and blogs like theoildrum.com and theautomaticearth, so it isn't as surprising as this news item's author wants us to believe, nor is there a formula to revive "normalcy." The Greeks are likely to vote as Icelanders did--against the lie-based austerity--and will encourage Spaniards, Portugese, Italians, et al to vote likewise and thus challenge the Bankster Terrorists. The essence of the Crisis is structural and philosophical and will not be solved without wholesale change in both--especially in North America.

Common Dreams enables a true exchange of thought. The posts regarding
Nigel Morris' article are an example. Consider some posts of useful ideas.
* Gloomy prediction of the International Labour Organization -- not until 2016
could employment return to 2008 levels.
* Raydelcamino's idea of a sequence of crashes that may be due to re-express
itself in the 2015-2018 time frame, and of no substantial prospect of sufficient
re-employment of workers by 2016.
* GwNorth's interpretation of our present system (Capitalism) as something
based upon growth and consumption, and of Capitalism as dead end system.
* Finally, mtdon's econometric notion, that there's only a limited amount of
"True Wealth". [I reckon the present amount of True Wealth is not enough to
maintain both Capitalism's "inequitable distribution of wealth", and the general
workforce's necessary income for sustenance.]

Guess what? Something that was already happening pre-2008 came to a
culmination of its happening in 2008. Something was lost in 2008, like the air
going out of a punctured balloon. I think what was lost was not True Wealth,
but "manufactured wealth". We sometimes speak of the "financial industry".
If it is an industry, then what does it make? Well, it makes money -- or, better
said, it manufactures wealth. During the housing bubble the financial industry
had been piling leveraging upon leveraging, all of it erected (ultimately) upon
mortgage-loans granted to human-beings' purchasing homes. [But the homes'
value did not in any way equal the leveraged, "manufactured wealth".] When
the variable repayment rates did, in fact, vary [perhaps they doubled], many of
the homeowners walked away. Then the tower of "manufactured wealth"
collapsed. Perhaps trillions of play money vanished. I wonder, are we seeing
the same happening in Greece? Have the big banks' original loans to Greece
been leveraged, securitized, and resold?

It all seems to me to have been a mad rush by big banks etc. to create money
and then "live large" off the resulting profits ... UNTIL THE CRASH. As one of
the old French King Louies said: "After me the deluge." We've been had.
Like thieves, the upper 1% have lived like kings and have left a big deficit in
[international] accountancy. Presumably, if international commerce is to continue,
some reparations will have to be paid. Who pays? That's a question with big
and perhaps arcane repercussions. Such as: What is the real substance of
money? After all, the Federal Reserve System just "prints" whatever money
is "needed" in the U.S. But, as nearly as I can understand the system, the U.S.
Treasury borrows the Federal Reserves' printed money, and pays (them?)
interest. [Correct me if I'm mistaken here.] Furthermore, the money we pay
in taxes goes toward paying the interest on the federal debt. Doesn't it all
all seem like a carnival "shell" game. Under what "shell" corporation does the
so-called money end up? It's all so complicated (deliberately made so?) that
a normal man can't figure it out. But be sure of one thing: The plan is to make
us, the 99%, pay. WE'RE BEING HAD! GET MAD!

"World Faces Years of Social Unrest as Economies Falter"

Fancy that! - Although it's been obvious to any half-perceptive observer for years, it's now said out loud - even at the G-20 meeting, and reported in the mainstream media.

If only it had said "...as economies and ecology falter", with a connection made between the two human-influenced, overarching living-systems. Economy's a subset of ecology, and that needs full recognition in economy the soonest - and preferably retro-effectively.

With officially over 7 billion people on earth depending on finite resources, quibbling over an outdated economy model based on growth is a madniss of mass-psyhcosis.

The "economy" - as capitalism now is called - can't work well again: it's dependent on eternal growth in a finite world of resources!

What we can do, is shift resources around within the finite limits and see that as "growth"/improvement on various indicators - like "general welfare", peacefulness, health, equality, life-satisfaction, empathy (solidarity/brotherhood), freedom-feeling, and other human- plus harmony of planet-benefitting indices.

What we can NOT do, is "restore" capitalist growth. The air is depleted as storage-place for CO2 - and other pollutants - and earth is depleted as storage-place for humans. Now get used to it. NOW!

Then - after posting - I read through the other posts. - Glad to see we're so agreed on this, folks.

"Another world" is happening. Whether for the better is up to us. We're the ones we're waiting for.

A good idea is to react to all kinds of unfactual nonsense we see and hear every day. - Be a kill-joy in all those "cosy" contexts of humans pretending the future's as bright as in the 1960'ies - or whenever urealistic optimism opposed to known facts reign.

Repy to twototango:
If you really want to consider the injustice, think about the origins and elevation of
corporations in the United States. (I reckon all big banks etc. are corporations.)
Corporations ain't in the constitution, which is supposed to be the final authority
as to what is legal in this country. The founding fathers did not even contemplate
that things like corporations would arise. To them, a man's possessions were his
own, AS A HUMAN BEING. The founders' original intent certainly did not include
any notion of corporations as people, and absolutely did not even admit the
possibility that corporations could possess the rights granted to people in the
Bill of Rights. But [so says the Supreme Court] that's what we have to deal with
today. And we have corporations' running-up huge indebtedness via secretive
and decptive dealing that we human beings will be expected to pay off. The Court
-- over the years -- just "made-up" corporations' powers, and let us become
liable to pay their bills. Look into a little history of the Supreme Court and you'll
see the center of the [governmental] power structure. As to whether there is any possible remediation of our bad situation, I don't know and don't venture to guess.
But I see that any attempted remediation that would leave the presently comprised
Supreme Court unchanged would just be "struck down" as "unconstitutional" as
the justices would see it. And guess what? Short of new constitutional convention
there is no remedy for the power centered in the court.

Time to get out your Keynes textbook from the dusty shelf of history Cameron, or end up with a grim future; possibly even a revolution.

"World Faces Years of Social Unrest as Economies Falter"

Not for the 01%, their wealth is assured and protected. So if you wish a job during this period, be willing to serve and protect the 01%. Don't get too comfortable they can always outsource your job.

So what are we supposed to do? Give up and die? I refuse to believe we're on the edge of doom and gloom. Without hope what else do we have? There has to be a better tomorrow. For too long too many people did not vote or care to be involved This is the result of lack of interest.

It's not called "social unrest" when people quietly starve or do without medical care, when schools become warehouses and opportunities for testing companies, when the elderly are abandoned and infants die of treatable illnesses. But the "unrest" stays locked behind closed doors and the grief and destruction of human life is hidden, is kept private. It is massive unrest within the human body and soul nonetheless.

Thank goodness that what has been happening behind closed doors is now being expressed by people gathering together peacefully in the streets. It is time to take the shame factor out of being poor or unemployed or worried every day about keeping a job and paying for heating, food etc. .

The 99% is moving, and if you want to use scary words like "unrest", be my guest.

Mad Max movies were documentaries.

Mr Cameron yesterday approved the construction of power plants at Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire, and Thorpe Marsh, South Yorkshire, creating 1,000 construction jobs. end quote........

great, 1000 jobs to install more power plants to cause disruption to nature....................

We have the infrastructures for many hundreds of thousands of jobs. They're called schools, hospitals, and fire stations for starters. Many hundreds of thousands of teachers have been canned and not just lately. They have been canning school personnel and chopping hours since the Shrub. Then, in Obama's term, that process was sped up. Before the nineties, people were talking about hiring many thousands of additional teachers as classroom size has been considered to be too big for decades. Figure that one teacher with 30 students can spend 2 minutes on each student per hour. This is not good for the teacher or the students. Students needing extra attention or services insure many students will get zero attention during a class.

Further, we have banks who are running the Welfare and Unemployment programs and outsourcing intake jobs to their phone banks in India. Something is seriously wrong here when we put Americans on Welfare, then outsource even the jobs used to deal with the unemployed, and then tell Welfare recipients they are a drain on society and control them , etc. This is simply sick. It is an egregious slap in the face and the example our own government is setting is complete contempt for its people. Not only are these jobs unavailable for the people here, but the taxpayer is double dipped. Meaning, they pay the welfare for the unemployed and underemployed people and then pay the Indian in India a paycheck. Even "triple dipped" when you consider the Indian pays no taxes to the US on this income. Then we have politicians wanting to cut Welfare because of the cost.

"What used to be *our*" government is being slowly taken over by banks who are now skimming these programs for profit. The OnePercent profit from unemployment in dozens of ways. People have actually written books about it. This, while standing around and calling themselves job makers and demanding tax cuts. The hypocrisy is so contemptible there are no words in the English language to come close to this multilevel hypocrisy.

We need to OWS until we have Perp walks, kill Citizen's United, Stop Lobbying, end these for profit wars and wars for Israel on our dime, and take our government back from the OnePercent.

These are "the grim social effects" of nothing more than astounding wealth imbalance via state-corporatism, and yet another attempt to conquer the world.

(They were supposed to wait until the world was conquered before taking all the loot...)

"Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.
For a time in the world some force themselves ahead
And some are left behind,
For a time in the world some make a great noise
And some are held silent,
For a time in the world some are puffed fat
And some are kept hungry,
For a time in the world some push aboard
And some are tipped out:
At no time in the world will a man who is sane
Over-reach himself,
Over-spend himself,
Over-rate himself."

LaoTzu #29 600 BC