We did that as kids...didn't seem to hurt us.

That's some glorious free market there.

They are socialists anyway, what difference would an education make?

queezyweezel: Those kids can open the books after work.

Brilliant, confine them to a life of menial labor!

Nadie_AZ: Man, we should totally do that, here.

Here's a couple of advertising campaigns (new window) to get the ball rolling.

queezyweezel: Bathia_Mapes: queezyweezel: Uhhh...I grew up working in a small printing company that my parents started. It was called "putting food on the table". I say let em work.

Did they take you out of school and deny you an education? Because that's what is happening to these children in Naples.

They taught me a trade and allowed me to provide for myself. Those kids can open the books after work. I did that for a few years too.

Maybe you can help, I'm trying to decide between the new iPad and the iPad 2.

Austerity! Make sure the banks get paid!

When the GOP rolls back the child labour laws and minimum wage over here, and reduces taxes to zero for anyone who owns a corporation, then American Job Creators will be able to provide these kinds of entry level opportunities.

/ unemployment among 12 year olds is over 90% under the Kenyan

Marcus Aurelius: GAT_00: That's some glorious free market there.

They have negative population growth. Japan has the same problem. It's poison to capitalism.

It's poison to socialism. You gotta have people pay taxes to pay for entitlements. If everyone is retired, there is no income to tax.

ParaHandy: When the GOP rolls back the child labour laws and minimum wage over here, and reduces taxes to zero for anyone who owns a corporation, then American Job Creators will be able to provide these kinds of entry level opportunities.

That's a little silly.

This is GREAT NEWS for RON PAUL

But it's Italy, they're just making pizza, how hard can that be? Tasty pizza, sprinkled with orphan's tears, mama mia, pasta fazool...

Back in medieval times, you knew a famine was bad if farmers were resorting to eating their livestock; sacrificing all the milk/wool/eggs those animals will bring them just to put food on the table now. A country where people are pulling their kids out of school and sending them off to work is much the same thing; they're mortgaging their future to make it through the present. It's the sort of thing that guarantees a multi-decade long depression.

Ahh..the joys of Free Trade Communism....lets pull kids out of school so they can work...and we do not have to pay them as much as their parents.

Gunther: Back in medieval times, you knew a famine was bad if farmers were resorting to eating their livestock; sacrificing all the milk/wool/eggs those animals will bring them just to put food on the table now. A country where people are pulling their kids out of school and sending them off to work is much the same thing; they're mortgaging their future to make it through the present. It's the sort of thing that guarantees a multi-decade long depression.

You sound old. Like, six to sixteen centuries old.

I would think Italy would have laws forbidding 12 year olds from working up to 60 hours a week. But I guess Italy is much less progressive than I envisioned. Brings back memories of my Italian born grandmother who was raised in a rural area outside of Bari before she immigrated to US around 100 years ago. Nonna lived with us for 10 years when I was a child. She would frequently tell us how hard a childhood she had. Her family was poor and her father was unable/unwilling to work, forcing her mother, herself and her siblings to work at an early age. Nonna with tears in her eyes told us that after she went to third grade, her mother took her out of school and had her work as a farm girl in the fields five days a week. She had to sleep on the ground at night with a chaperone between the boys and girls.

This however was the turn of the 20th century. Sad that over a century later child labor continues to plague us.

Good. food, rent, cable, hot water, electricity are not free.

Maybe armed with this knowledge, Italian men might leave momma's titty by 30 instead of 45

Bb-b-b-b-but it's a snowflake, not a grown man!

I've been to Italy. I would be plotting my escape from around 10 years old. I know you've seen the Coliseum, and thought it was great. Maybe even go so far as to call it the pinnacle piece of an ancient civilization You might have had an enchanted, early dinner on the Spanish Steps. How about that week in Florence,where the air had a certain magical smell to it. How does it always smell like that?! Italy still sucks for people that don't get to live your romantic platitudes.


I bet NYC could look nice, if it was a precision guided tour

Don't like it. Then quit.

Problem solved.

SevenizGud: Don't like it. Then quit.

Problem solved.

Because potential starvation in the streets isn't a factor at all.

Bathia_Mapes: Exactly. Back in those days you could make it though life with little education, but nowadays you cannot.

Yeah, because now, without at least an MBA, they take you out in the street and shoot you...if you don't starve first. Happens ALL the time.

Bathia_Mapes: Without at least the most basic education there's a good chance that these children will be stuck in dead-in, low paying jobs for the rest of their lives.

Of course, with a college education now there's a good chance you'll end up in those jobs and a mountain of debt, even for degrees in business, technology and other non-liberal arts fields.

ParaHandy: When the GOP rolls back the child labour laws and minimum wage over here, and reduces taxes to zero for anyone who owns a corporation, then American Job Creators will be able to provide these kinds of entry level opportunities.

/ unemployment among 12 year olds is over 90% under the Kenyan

These 12 year olds would be taking the jobs of hardworking American adults!

I say we deport these kids somewhere. Just until they turn 18, so they're not taking our jerbs!

Ed Willy: Of course, with a college education now there's a good chance you'll end up in those jobs and a mountain of debt, even for degrees in business, technology and other non-liberal arts fields.

College in Italy is way way way cheaper than in the US, so the debt thing isn't a worry.

Polio was good enough for me, it's good enough for kids today.

/this is what you sound like
//just because you survived something that doesn't make it necessary or desirable

Europe can't let itself become the southeast Asia it doesn't want to be!

SevenizGud: Yeah, because now, without at least an MBA, they take you out in the street and shoot you...if you don't starve first. Happens ALL the time.

Either you didn't read the article, or you got your MBA at 11. Should we call you Doogie or Douchie?

A. Nice to see that technical education is being practiced in other countries. It is stupid that ALL kids are taught a "college prep" curriculum, and that technical education is totally abandoned. An 11 year old motorcycle mechanic impresses me.
B. Italy spent the income of future generations by deficit spending. This is the natural result. This WILL happen here unless fiscal conservatism is restored in our country.
C. In a truly free education system, you should be able to get your choice INCLUDING art, technology, trades, music, science, math, and languages. One reason home school works so well is that parents are able to individualize education to the desires and needs of the student. This is a pragmatic impossibility in an institutionalized classroom. But no child left behind, designed by Democrat Teddy Kennedy, btw, has severely limited educational options for most students.