Unemployment has worsened, to more than 36 percent.

50 percent of youth below the age of 25 are unemployed

Poverty has escalated to 54.3 percent of the people.

26 million live on “below a U.S. dollar a day.”

50 percent of kids drop out of school “before the age of 12.”

“This is what breeds a cycle of poverty among the working class,” said Vavi, with the rhetorical question: “Why did we make these sacrifices against apartheid, if this is the result?”

...the lesson is clear. An economic crisis can jolt a fundamentally pro-capitalist (or mostly pro-capitalist) nation that had lost its way back onto the straight and narrow. But there is no guarantee of recovery when the culture has descended into infantile anti-capitalism, dysfunctional statism, and an antagonism toward entrepreneurial dynamism and self-reliance. For these a crisis may not herald recovery but instead a longer, deeper national decline. Only a culture shift resulting from the spread of sound ideas can make Greece (and other countries) a fertile ground to accept real solutions. The need to spread the good news of liberty and free markets is clearly as urgent as ever.