With unemployment growing dangerously in Europe and youth unemployment in particular (with something like 50% rates in Spain and Greece already) all Mario Draghi can say about it at his press conference is that the labour markets must be reformed. That is, they must be made more “flexible”, because it is the inflexibility of the labour market that is responsible for the young remaining out of work.

Okay. Yes! He has it! Fire all the middle aged workers who are already earning too much anyway and hire the young at pittance level salaries! There you are! Problem solved! All that is required is the abolition of labour rights altogether, so you can just sack anyone at will (without severance pay that is), and then hire anyone who will work for a piece of bread say.

But if you sack the middle aged work force in order to hire the young, at a slashed salary and no security at all, what happens to the middle aged workers? Won’t they be unemployed? Well. Yes. But you will have solved the youth unemployment problem. Won’t you?

There you are “structural reforms”! Another example of what the troika mean by that. Brilliant!

Oh, and when asked about the anger of the people suffering under the yolk of austerity, he is reported to have answered that he understands the anger but condemns any acts of violence in protest at the situation.

Well of course! The people mustn’t be violent for heavens’ sake! They mustn’t protest either really. But if they should dare to do so, they must not be allowed to be violent! No! They must bear the violence the assorted troikas and EU directives are inflicting on them, but dear me, they have no right to be violent. No right at all. Don’t they know that by now? They have no rights left at all!

Yes Signor Draghi, but might not that be precisely what makes his victims turn to violence? Anyway, this “I can kick you as much as I like but you mustn’t kick me back!” attitude is not very realistic. And it never has worked before in history either.