The 3rd Principle

THE GOOD PARENT

This principle focus on economic aspects. In countries like Italy, Japan, Greece, the youth are victims of the lack of compliance with this principle in the past. Here are listed some elements opposed to this principle :

• Excessive public debt: many countries are excessively indebted. This means less possibilities for the government in expanding its expenditures to solve social problems and enhance the economic growth. If in the past the politicians of these countries had been thought about the future consequences, they would have reduced their expanding policies and expenditures. Who became rich with the past policies continue to be rich today, but poor people cannot emerge during the strict policies that follow a period of great debt emission. In conclusion the gross government debt is the most important variable in measuring the alignment of a country to the “good father principle”.

• Youth unemployment : an economic system with an high unemployment rate makes it difficult for the youth to start a family. Statistics denote that the age of marriage and of the first child is becoming higher and higher.

• Temporary employment and low salaries for the youth: Youth unemployment together with temporary employment make the life difficult for the youth; the international competition asks companies quality and expertise, but these skills are often absent in the full time employees; the result is that companies (public and private) look to temporary employees in order to rise efficiency and quality levels of their products/services. Moreover, temporary employees incomes as well as new recruited youth’s ones are very low, not allowing them to start a family; it is absurd to think that in the same company there are employees that gain 4 or 5 times more than new recruited employees and, even worse, that there are ancient people that receive pensions 10 times higher then a new recruited young person.

• Obstacles to economic activities: apart from unemployment problems, a young man or woman can have a dream to start his/her own business, but if the system has several obstacles, these dreams disappear; the youth have less chances to introduce themselves in the economic system and to achieve their dreams.

• Corruption and absence of meritocracy: a corrupted, unpolished and no-meritocratic system doesn’t help the youth in implementing their ideas; they have few possibilities to enter the economic system.

• Low investment in education: a country that does not invest very much in education in order to create an advanced and egalitarian education system reduces the possibilities to have youth with the knowledge necessary to a successful implementation of their ideas.

These six points bring to a great reflection. The brain drain is not a question of ensuring the youth the possibility to become rich, but, at least, giving them the possibilities to start a family. Without this possibility a young man with a temporary job or a new recruited one will be demoralized and will probably change country or at least not give his maximum efforts for the growth of his country. What we need is an equalization of wages (and also between wages and pensions). It is fair that who concurs to the company output receives a basic salary not too distinct from that of an older colleague. This will also bring a reduction in the amount of temporary jobs as, in this way, the company labor cost will fall down. "The good parent principle takes money from the old rich people to give it to the poor younger people".

The variables we use to measure the country compliance with the good parent principle are:

• Gross Government Debt (% of GDP);
• Youth unemployment rate;
• Public expenditure in education (% of GDP and %);
• Doing business index (by the World Bank and International finance corporation);
• Index of economic freedom (by the Heritage Foundation)
• Corruption perception index (CPI; by Transparency International);