In a TED talk in Greece, Michael Ignatieff spoke about the current Greek financial crisis in a lecture titled If I were 25 and Greek. His insightful words tore through the auditorium as he addressed the current job market (where unemployment stands at 55% for 25 year olds), and Greek identity. The lecture, while specific to Greece’s current economic climate, is applicable to most, if not all, unemployed twenty-somethings with degree-heavy resumes.

Ignatieff proposed solutions to the financial crisis as he explained:

“Every serious country has to learn the rules of democratic sovereignty. What is it that countries have to do in order to maintain democratic sovereignty in the global market? The rules are: Don’t pay yourself more than you earn, don’t borrow more than you can repay, pay your damn taxes and don’t lie to yourself. Right? Four rules that if the political system adopts and accepts, and there is an acceptance accross the political spectrum of those four rules there isn’t much you can’t do.”

He concluded with, “I’m here and you’re in this room because you sense that Greece needs a ‘we’- a new ‘we.’ A ‘we’ of conviction and patriotism that understands that there are no individual solutions left and the old collective solutions don’t work, and there has to be a new ‘we.'”

Watch the full TED talk above and follow Mr. Ignatieff on twitter here: @M_Ignatieff.

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Claudia McNeilly is an editorial intern at the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter at @claudiamcneilly

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