<blockquote>'I want to suggest that the biggest challenge facing mature democracies is how to restore the social contract between the generations.
But I recognise that the obstacles to doing so are daunting. Not the least of these is that the young find it quite hard to compute their own long-term economic interests.
It is surprisingly easy to win the support of young voters for policies that would ultimately make matters even worse for them, like maintaining defined benefit pensions for public employees.
If young Americans knew what was good for them, they would all be in the Tea Party.
A second problem is that today's Western democracies now play such a large part in redistributing income that politicians who argue for cutting expenditures nearly always run into the well-organised opposition of one or both of two groups: recipients of public sector pay and recipients of government benefits.'
- Prof Niall Ferguson,
Why the young should welcome austerity, 17 June 2012 (BBC Reith Lecturer 2012)</blockqoute>
Context<blockquote>
(France) - '..Socialist policies..''The hard truth is that there are no magic solutions to solving this crisis. We will all have to keep our spending in check, pay off our debts and swiftly introduce healthy reforms. This is what will kickstart growth.'
- Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte ('
The hard truth..')</blockquote>