The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the student-led protests that engulfed Paris, Milan, Bologna and other European cities have died down; they will be back. The Globe's Eric Reguly writes that the economic conditions have not changed. Government budgets are coming under extreme pressure, and social and welfare spending will suffer. If students and families are angry today about rising prices and declining living standards, they might be doubly angry tomorrow. Young people increasingly view the economy as a zero-sum game: I lose, the rich win. In a July note, Morgan Stanley said: "For several decades, the region's nations could afford to expand welfare programs because declines in defence spending and debt costs helped to absorb the expense. Now that backdrop is changing as aging populations drive pension costs higher, interest rates increase the cost of servicing debt and geopolitical tensions require greater investment in defence." To keep welfare-state budgets intact, governments will have to borrow more, which could backfire by raising debt loads and deficits and putting credit ratings at risk. Pensions seem sacred. Something has got to give and that may be education and health care budgets.