I recently heard the famous quotation “the future isn’t what it used to be” used at a university commencement ceremony in the UK.
The speaker, a graduating student delivering the valedictory address, said that as pleased as she and her colleagues had been with their studies and academic achievements, they were more afraid than ever of what awaited them outside the university.
Economies were in havoc due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and trade wars were resuming in full force. Measures to combat climate change were unlikely to be kind on the job market. The fears of the speaker, of African origin, were well founded, and millions of her fellow graduates share them. But sympathy and understanding are not the way to make the problems go away. What is needed is a new approach to investment and growth, an approach integrally linked to generating decent jobs.