Well, the important thing is that we find a solution that can be unilaterally applied to every young person across the board, rather than encouraging them to think for themselves and choose their own path.

How about not paying military folks for their first two years?

This is all an attempt to filter out the human DNA and make more Daleks

/c'mon you had to expect that

So what you're saying is you want your entry level, and most numerous positions, to be unpaid internships? How exactly are these young people going to pay rent? Oh you'll put them up on the property? and if they suck up enough you'll give them a pittance? I don't like the way this is going at all.

I_Am_Weasel: Young people should work for free for up to two years to gain experience, youth and business leaders said at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday.

So if I can parse this incorrectly. Business leaders want youth to work for free. They'll be working in a job that can, apparently, be easily filled by someone with no experience working for free for two years. When that two years is up, they'll hire that youth on permanently instead of filling a job that can, apparently, be easily filled by someone with no experience working free for two years.

How can this plan possibly fail?

similar thing occurring in Europe for a while now, particularly in Germany and France. companies hire hundreds to thousands of interns during college (students typically get a one year break for internships) and are paid terrible wages to do real work to gain experience.

even in good years only a handful of them are ever hired. in bad years, no one gets hired after the internship ends (Germany in 2009, France now)

if it makes you feel better, European MBA students are also getting screwed over like this.

So are you allowed to panhandle in front of the corporate headquarters at night to be able to eat? How about sleeping on the park benches?

TheGreatGazoo: So are you allowed to panhandle in front of the corporate headquarters at night to be able to eat? How about sleeping on the park benches?

Your homeless existence is devaluing all those Cadillac Escalades that drive by.

Wow, I mean just wow. These supposed economic leaders are so out of touch with reality it's scary. They are literally fomenting their own global class war with insane ideas like this. While they are sitting in a wealthy resort eating exotic foods and drinking expensive wine, they pretend to give a crap and make up ridiculous solutions for real problems. Their solution to unemployment is wage free employment aka slavery for 600 million people? Like someone said in an earlier post, so these kids are supposed to take jobs for 2 years that can be easily replaced with more free labor. If Davos fell off the map with all these motherflockers in the resort, I doubt anyone would miss them.

Sheesh, at least try and call it an internship or volunteering. This guy just flat out says "Kids should work for free". Wtf is wrong with people.

Why do we even have politicians. Seriously. this is the kind of crap they constantly come up with as a solution. Yet i guarantee you not a single one of them from any country around the world would work a job for free for two full years to MAYBE be hired at minimum wage.

Pull your heads out of your asses....

This is truly bizarre, I wonder is the article leaving out something like they have to work these jobs to receive unemployment benefits or other government assistance?

Train the unemployed. There are lots of jobs out there for people that know how to do stuff.

Oh great...The corporate executives want to establish a modern day slavery system. Should this surprise us?

At least now we know what to do with the OWS protestors.

Oh yes, let's do this. I really want to eat food, prepared by unpaid people. Oh, waiter, why does all my food taste like crap?

And also, let's have unpaid healthcare workers. I'm sure that will work out fine, too.

Look. Let's just go the mandatory civil service route and get it over with. It works wonderfully for the Western nations that do it, it gives real world experience and education, it provides room/board/wages, and in almost every instance I've seen it gives the individual some pride in their nation and their actions.

/and no, civil service doesn't mean/have to mean military service. There are tons of civil service type jobs that people can do

Start with the speakers who thought this was even a permissible subject for discussion.

So, you want kids to work for free, yet provide their own gas to drive to and from work AND provide for their own meals?

This is even WORSE than slavery because the Massuh would at least be obligated to provide his slaves with food & shelter.

And free market capitalism makes another all-out push toward global fascism and corporate feudalism.

This is hyperbole - it's clearly not slavery - with slavery your 'employer' provides for your food and board.

So a group focused primarily on business interest decided that the best way to save the economy was to flood it with free labor? So what, next to nothing wasn't good enough? That .00235 cent per day getting too costly?
yet they have no problem paying 5 or six people several million. Oh let me guess, their other plan to recover the economy also involved *raises index and fore finger to forhead* TAX CUTS and DE-REGULATION!!!!
am I right?


/best and brightest my hairy white ass

Hypnozombie

And during their days off, the slaves, err, interns can busy themselves with handy do-it-yourself arts and crafts to show their corporate masters:

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Guillotine

gblive: Oh great...The corporate executives want to establish a modern day slavery system. Should this surprise us?

At least now we know what to do with the OWS protestors.

What is sad is that there are Americans that think this way.

I hope they go through with this plan as it will speed the revolution which will end with the severed heads of the 1% on poles.

Tavernknight: gblive: Oh great...The corporate executives want to establish a modern day slavery system. Should this surprise us?

At least now we know what to do with the OWS protestors.

What is sad is that there are Americans that think this way.

What is even sadder is that things have gotten to the point where this thought even crosses Americans' minds on a large scale.

We've f*cked up somehow. We need to fix this.

Young people should work for free for up to two years to gain experience, youth and business leaders said at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday.

Actually, we had that when I was a kid. It was called, "the draft". It wasn't as helpful as you might think.

jjorsett: Young people should work for free for up to two years to gain experience, youth and business leaders said at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday.

Actually, we had that when I was a kid. It was called, "the draft". It wasn't as helpful as you might think.

Oh, so when Uncle Sam said "get your ass over here", you weren't paid? Not "not paid well", not paid at all?

Hey, I got an observation for you.
Many college programs require you to take an internship.
Some of these internships are paid, some are not.
In either case, you still have to pay tuition for the class credit.

In the latter case, then, the allegedly "smart" college student is PAYING TO WORK.

As someone who spent 3 years as a volunteer to get my foot in the door for a 3 year underpaid internship, I'm getting a real kick out of this..

/Being laid off next week
//I blame Fark

I wonder what their brilliant plan is for enforcing workplace guidelines on people who have no fear of losing their job?

Boss: "Hey, you can't wear shorts and a t-shirt to work. This is a professional office. You have to wear slacks and a tie."

Unpaid Youth: "I tell ya what. You can either dock my pay or go fark yourself. Which will it be?"

Boss: "You're fired!"

Unpaid Youth: "Oh no. How will I ever find another job that doesn't pay me?"

What about internships, apprenticeships, conscription etc?

There already are lost of programs that allow young people to work for very little compensation for some time to gain experience.

I businesses really need 'free labor' to survive that should just lobby their governments to supply prisoners to them.

But seriously, it is sometimes scary to realize that if businesses today were offered the chance to participate in forced labour programs like the Nazi's had not a single business would decline the chance. In fact any CEO who refused or tried to do a Schindler would face legal troubles for not doing his fiduciary duty to his shareholders

Twats. You just know they sit up at night with a boner fantasizing how great it would be if they could pocket all that cash AND have a small army of dependant little boot licking peons. They should run for President under the Republican ticket here in the States.

I do think that some kind of apprenticeship program could be a very valuable way for kids to acquire skills (which is important in a post-manufacturing economy: we just plain can't afford to make unskilled labor the backbone of commerce anymore). But unpaid? No dice. You've got to at least pay them.

Everyone wants everything for nothing now.

And if they could...

They'd want more
You pay them
And want it yesterday.


/selfishness...it knows no bounds.

next they'll say "if people are starving in Africa they should just move closer to Wal Mart"

Ishidan: jjorsett: Young people should work for free for up to two years to gain experience, youth and business leaders said at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday.

Actually, we had that when I was a kid. It was called, "the draft". It wasn't as helpful as you might think.

Oh, so when Uncle Sam said "get your ass over here", you weren't paid? Not "not paid well", not paid at all?

Draftees were paid a sub-subsistance "wage", just as these "work for free" workers would have to be in reality, the claim that they would work free notwithstanding. Your living expenses like food, shelter, medical care, and clothing obviously would have to be provided just as it was for draftees, so the minuscule pay would be for a few incidentals.

jjorsett: Your living expenses like food, shelter, medical care, and clothing obviously would have to be provided just as it was for draftees, so the minuscule pay would be for a few incidentals.
And thus is the difference between real logic-as was seen in his day-and today's logic.
There's a reason why several wags have already said in this thread "the difference between this and slavery is that in slavery your room and board is paid for": when today's bosses say "I want it for FREE", that's what they mean.
No, STOP. You're about to say "that doesn't make any sense".
That's what we're trying to say.
Where would food and shelter come from? Uh, the kid's parents, of course.

Obviously slavery is wrong. I mean, who wants black people living in their homes? But the kids are there already anyway, might as well do something constructive.

Bonzo_1116: Tavernknight: gblive: Oh great...The corporate executives want to establish a modern day slavery system. Should this surprise us?

At least now we know what to do with the OWS protestors.

What is sad is that there are Americans that think this way.

What is even sadder is that things have gotten to the point where this thought even crosses Americans' minds on a large scale.

We've f*cked up somehow. We need to fix this.

I think there are a least two people on this thread who need some help in recognizing sarcasm. Does Fark need to implement a big blinking sarcasm tag on comment threads?

bhcompy: Look. Let's just go the mandatory civil service route and get it over with. It works wonderfully for the Western nations that do it, it gives real world experience and education, it provides room/board/wages, and in almost every instance I've seen it gives the individual some pride in their nation and their actions.

/and no, civil service doesn't mean/have to mean military service. There are tons of civil service type jobs that people can do

I'm all for allowing junior/senior high school and recent high schoolers to do some civil service, with some added benefits. Being biased, sure, I say the military is an option that many should look into, but there should be other options as well. Say someone does 2 years of work in a police dispatch, or as an EMT, or volunteer firefighter, or other form of civil service... Allow them to get their Associate's Degree at the local community college, tuition free, or if they did a completely outstanding job and have great referrals from the town, get their bachelors at the state university. But, make sure there are some jobs that can be good for people who may be physically handicapped (helping out with dispatch might be a good one), or some help with paperwork in the judicial system. It will let the kids who can't afford to go to college get some good work experience, help create that sense of purpose and build a relationship with their community, build up their resume, pay for the first couple years of college, and get them off the streets and out of their parents houses for a while. The program should only be available to late high schoolers and recent graduates, keep in mind... not someone who is 20 and has managed to spend the first couple years after h.s. just floating around in their parents house.

Of course, it would be a purely volunteer basis, but still, I think it is worth looking into. If many states can afford to give free tuition to a freshly-signed up 18 year old Guardsman or Reservist when they haven't fulfilled hardly any of their contract, surely it can be afforded to others who have done something.

Its not really slavery that is being advocated. That is outright ownership of the individual. Instead this is more of a indentured servitude idea where the youth have a period of time where they work for free in exchanged for the training and experience granted. At least get the terminology right about the horrible idea.

But seriously, it is sometimes scary to realize that if businesses today were offered the chance to participate in forced labour programs like the Nazi's had not a single business would decline the chance. In fact any CEO who refused or tried to do a Schindler would face legal troubles for not doing his fiduciary duty to his shareholders

You dont even know how bad it can be. The Swiss knew exactly what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, gypsies etc and not a single of the farkers tried to do a thing about it. I personally think every bank in Switzerland should be razed to the ground with the executives in it and every Jew or Gypsey etc should be able to piss on the ashes.

Just my opinion though

We can call it the "Triangular Work Schedule," or the "Pacific-Atlantic Triangular Trade zone." Alternately, we can call it a "Peculiar Work Arrangement,." as in a "peculiar institution."