Contributors to this blog -- and CCPA experts -- have been warning about the negative economic and social consequences of rising inequality for decades.

Now the even the 0.0001 per cent are getting concerned. Experts polled for the Global Risks Report for this month's meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos -- one of the most elite gatherings of the powerful in the world -- selected severe income inequality as the most likely global risk to manifest in the next 10 years.

The Canadian Federation of Students, and most of the people we have spoken to, is at a loss over how the government thinks it can increase student and youth employment without direct state intervention into the economy via wage subsidies and/or direct student employment programs.

According to the OECD, if just left to the market, any increases in the minimum wage will result in an increase in the unemployment of youth and students. They suggest that without government support for youth/student/apprenticeship programs, youth unemployment will remain high and lead to a large range of long-term social ills.

As is well known, the youth unemployment rate remains high, and well above average. It stood at 14.1 per cent in November or more than double the unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent for persons aged 25 to 54, and 6.2 per cent for those aged 55 and over.

What is a little bit more surprising is that the youth unemployment rate, while down from the recession peak of over 15 per cent, has risen over the past year -- up by 0.5 percentage points -- while it has fallen -- by 0.3 per cent percentage points -- for those aged 25 and over.

Young people were hard hit by the recession, and have been mainly sitting on the sidelines during the recovery.

Dear Millennials of 2011:

"I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth."

- Rainer Maria Rilke
February 1903, Paris

This quote reminded me of our generation back in 2011 -- young and on the edge of a new world. I smile when I look back at us, vibrating with excitement, trying to shape the society that was emerging. Those days were precious. Hard. The best times of life.

And we're off ... again.

The 17th round of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change talks started up today in Durban where even the most optimistic predictions are pretty dismal. Around the globe, skepticism over the potential for the creation of a global climate accord that would ensure and enforce international action has become pervasive after the failure of the 2009 talks in Copenhagen. But progress has not simply stalled, it has been bound, gagged and lashed to the ground by the influence of the fossil fuel industry and the actions of governments like Canada who negotiate on behalf of it.