Real Estate Speculation vs. The Citizen
February 10, 2025The West faces a major challenge. We do not want our society to be divided into two classes: wealthy property owners and poor tenants.” These were the words recently spoken by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Under his leadership, Spain will soon impose a 100% tax on any real estate purchased by non-resident nationals…
The exorbitant burden
February 3, 2025“We consider it unlikely that customs tariffs will be put in place. The weapon of customs tariffs will always be loaded and ready to be used, but rarely triggered. Another differentiated point of view that we have is that Trump will pursue a weak dollar policy rather than imposing customs tariffs. Tariffs are inflationary…
Trump and Arab Philosophy
February 1, 2025The White House confirmed tariffs will be implemented today: 25% on Canada, 25% on Mexico, 10% on China. Did you know that “tariff” comes from Arabic from the word تعرفة (ta‘rifa), which means a “list of prices”? Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, discusses taxation and economic policies, using terms like المكوس (al-mukūs), which refers…
Enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims
January 29, 2025The new libertarians in power in the United States are swimming in their contradictions. While they loudly advocate for unbridled liberalization in all areas, they are systematically putting in place surveillance technologies that will allow them to carry out their imperialist agenda. However, this exacerbation of American patriotism, these refrains glorifying and elevating…
War and business
January 27, 2025Last spring, I obtained confidential information that allowed me to write my article “Gaza 2035: A Clean Slate?“, which was picked up by the press in France and Switzerland. Trump has just called for the displacement of Gaza’s inhabitants to Egypt and Jordan as part of a peace plan aimed at “cleansing the Palestinian enclave,”…
The Price of Freedom
January 22, 2025The stock price of GEO Group has nearly tripled since Trump’s election. Why? GEO Group is a “private prisons” company. In 2021, Biden signed an executive order eliminating the very concept of private prisons. An order that has just been overturned by Trump. His Attorney General is Pam Bondi, who, before her appointment, openly…
Syria: Finally, the Return to Raison d’État
January 19, 2025The Syrian government has just increased customs duties on all imports from Turkey by a staggering 300%. Has Ahmad el Charaa, Damascus’ new strongman, drawn inspiration from Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened trade partners with sharp tariff hikes since taking office? Not quite. The recently installed Syrian administration is, in fact, harmonizing…
From Realpolitik to Empty Chair Politics
January 17, 2025Tensions Between Scholz and His Foreign Minister Baerbock at Breaking Point. She turned her back on him without even responding to him, and did so publicly and ostentatiously. What caused this volte-face? Scholz rejected a €3 billion aid package for Ukraine, concocted by Baerbock and Boris Pistorius, the Defense Minister. I myself attended meetings…
Argentina in the Paradise of Lawless Capitalism
January 14, 2025The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) has firmly condemned Trump’s repeated threats to forcibly target the Panama Canal. The condemnation was nearly unanimous, with just one dissenting voice—unsurprisingly, that of Argentina, led by the self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” Milei, an unwavering supporter of Trump. The Argentine president is bleeding his economy dry, having…
Lebanon: A Final Chance to Seize
January 12, 2025The Worst Economic Crisis Since the Mid-19th Century. This is what Lebanon has been enduring since 2019, suffering an extraordinary contraction of more than 60% of its GDP over four years, a currency that has lost 98% of its value, inflation rates at times nearing 200%, and a poverty rate that now affects…
These 30 Billion Syria Owes Iran That Will Never Be Paid Back
January 7, 2025Syria’s debt to Iran is estimated at $30 billion. This figure, originating from the Office of the Iranian Presidency, was leaked in August 2023. It represents the price Iran has paid since 2011 to keep Assad in power. The repayment of this massive debt is all the more unlikely given that those now in…
“The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem”, John Connally
January 4, 202580% of the dollars in circulation have been created… in the last 5 years! Such an acceleration, unprecedented in the macroeconomic history of the world’s most powerful country, raises the question: could it harm the dollar’s status as a reserve currency? In my opinion, the opposite is true—the dollar, once again, is being used…
Marcel Duchamp, a fountain of misogyny
January 2, 2025A cold examination, without being a forensic expert, clearly indicates the misogyny of Marcel Duchamp. He was, of course, a man of his time – the late 19th/early 20th century – but his disrespect for women, which more moderate critics might call irreverence, was recurring in his art. He shared this attitude with his friend…
Happy New Year, with an enriched blog!
January 2, 2025I’m kicking off 2025 with a small shift, which will also see me posting articles about art on this blog – my other great passion… alongside several others. Then, with the spring, a surprise will follow, which we’ll discuss in detail later. Happy New Year, dear reader.
Trump and the Loudmouths
December 20, 2024Trump threatens heavy tariff sanctions if the European Union does not buy more oil. Yet, European imports from the U.S. have only been increasing: they have been rising substantially and consistently, year after year. Conclusion: Trump makes loud demands that are entirely realistic, as it will be easy for…
Pitiful Germany
December 17, 2024Germany is now heading toward early elections. Chancellor Scholz has lost the confidence vote in Parliament, signaling the end of the coalition that had already collapsed on November 6. The main issue? In short, the budget, and especially the famous “debt brake” that was enshrined in the German constitution under Merkel. The federal budget…
Man is not a Too Big To Fail
December 3, 2024There is only one economy that truly endures. This economy never falters, and it doesn’t chase growth at any cost. It has functioned for billions of years, long before the emergence of humankind. It is Earth. Its components—its “agents,” to borrow a trendy term—are the oceans and the forests. Its currency is oxygen and…
Currency is the Perfect and Easy Weapon Against Trade Wars
November 23, 2024In 2018, as part of their trade war, the U.S. imposed an average tariff of 12.5% on imports from China. The direct consequence? The yuan gradually declined by a similar proportion. Now, consider the U.S. imposing tariffs on imports from the Eurozone. For the European Union, the best defense would be inaction. Why? Because…
Germany in an Existential Crisis
November 20, 2024“We Germans look towards Moscow and Warsaw. Paris and London are cities of the past,” a German acquaintance confided to me only three years ago. It was still the golden age for a country convinced that globalization, so beneficial to its industry, would last forever. Angela Merkel, hailed as the “indispensable European” by The…
Europe: How Many Divisions?
November 17, 2024The China-centred map really changes the way you think about the world: The Pacific and US-China relations are at the centre of the world, and Europe becomes a minor peninsula of the Eurasian continent. In 1971, Kissinger asked Zhou Enlai whether he thought the French Revolution of 1789 was good. Zhou replied, “It is…
US Trade Deficit: A Need for Nuance
November 11, 2024On the surface, the shocking $1 trillion annual trade deficit in the U.S. suggests that foreign companies completely dominate trade. However, a significant part of this deficit actually comes from American companies manufacturing abroad to re-sell in the U.S. market. Therefore, a trade war would be far less painful—and partly won—if American workers enjoyed a…
Unemployment weakens a government; inflation kills it
November 8, 2024How many charts had we – economists and analysts, myself included – presented to show that the American economy’s health outpaced that of Europe? And how many official inflation indicators had we copied and pasted, proving, quarter after quarter, that price pressures were slowly but surely easing? Why, then, did American media, which prides…
«It’s the economy stupid !»
November 6, 2024Graph of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction with the U.S. Economy, and Explanation of Trump’s Victory
Europe: A Mere Union of Interests
November 2, 2024A telling graphic shows the extensive trade between many European nations and Russia, routed through Kyrgyzstan. Europe has chosen to prioritize trade relations with Russia over fully committing to help Ukraine confront Putin’s aggression. This choice has further tarnished our reputation and jeopardized our credibility. It reveals a truth I have denounced for…
In the face of Trump, the last barriers are crumbling
October 27, 2024During his first presidential campaign in 2016, Trump continually subjected certain major media outlets to public condemnation. His primary targets were CNN, which he labeled as “fake news” and “garbage”, as well as the Washington Post, which he called a “disgrace to journalism”. After Trump’s victory, the Post positioned itself as a staunch guardian…
The Debt: Great Absentee of the American Electoral Campaign
October 20, 2024To solve a problem, you must first acknowledge its existence. The American debt, which has reached $35,769,084,471,524 in October 2024, does not concern either of the current U.S. presidential candidates. In fact, the word “debt” has not been mentioned even once in the debate between them. It is also absent from the official…
Who still trusts China?
October 14, 2024The Financial Times, through the writing of Eleanor Olcott, its China correspondent, is currently at the center of numerous controversies for publishing a chart showing that the number of start-ups in the country plummeted from 51,302 in 2018 to just 1,202 in 2023! Beyond the heated debate among experts contesting the FT’s sources, it…
Great Britain, a Poor Nation
October 7, 2024Great Britain will be outpaced by Poland by the end of this decade. Once the wealthiest country in Europe for a century, Great Britain’s trajectory has been on a downward slope since the end of World War II. Aside from a brief recovery during the 1980s, at the beginning of the Tony Blair era…
Sanctions: The United States’ ‘Low-Cost’ War
September 28, 2024Between diplomacy and war, sanctions have become the centerpiece of the American arsenal, a fundamental lever in the service of U.S. foreign policy. By cutting off access to the Western economy, sanctions dismantle industries, devastate personal fortunes, and disrupt—often exacerbate—the political imbalances of targeted regimes. All without endangering a single American soldier’s life. …
Unfathomable
September 26, 2024The US public debt stands at 35.3 trillion dollars, or 35,300,000,000,000. If interest rates returned to 0, and the debt was repaid at a rate of one million per hour, it would take until the year 6047, or 4,023 years, to pay it off. The magnitudes are staggering: today we talk about trillions, whereas…
China is at war
September 19, 2024This year, it is exporting 6 million cars to around one hundred countries. As the world’s leading vehicle exporter, its average price is $19,000, lower than that of the United States and Europe. Meanwhile, its Western competitors have no strategy, are swimming in confusion, and are overwhelmed by China’s offensive.
Is Russia bankrupt ?
September 14, 2024Russia has raised its key interest rate to 19%. With inflation and an economy at war, a 19% rate would be -and is- a clear sign of failure for any country.
Japanification of China: The Proof
September 14, 2024Following my recent analysis of what I’ve termed the “Japanification of China,” a crucial milestone has just been reached. For the first time in global economic history, the long-term yield of Chinese Treasury bonds has fallen below that of Japan’s. This is a worrying sign for the Chinese economy, as it indicates that…
European divergences
September 11, 2024Germans work one-third less than in 1970 Prosperity in Switzerland is based on hard work. 2112 hours a year and 20 days of vacation a year. Poland is nothing short of economic wonder. Standard of living in Poland overtaking Spain & Italy within just one generation is simply amazing. One of…
Who spend more: Democrats or Republicans?
September 6, 2024Contrary to popular belief that Democrats are spendthrifts, Republicans, who advocate for fiscal discipline, are actually responsible for a federal deficit (relative to GDP) that is 8.5% higher than when the administration is Democratic. Clinton was the last president to consistently generate budget surpluses.
When the United States Awakens…
September 5, 2024Xi has just committed to supporting 33 African countries with $50 billion over the next 3 years. This historic event is noteworthy for its rarity: the American superpower is allowing itself to weaken and remains passive while China is actively strengthening its influence in Africa. China now holds a dominant position on the continent.…
All Quiet on the Eastern Front…
September 2, 2024Germany’s right-wing party AfD is much stronger in East Germany than in West Germany. The AfD’s vote share in the East is one third of all voters. The shock therapy implemented by previous governments does not seem to have worked… A little reminder : https://michelsanti.fr/en/germany/german-prosperity-a-nightmare-for-40-of-its-citizens
Japanification of China
August 29, 2024Extended periods of deflation, economic stagnation, a declining real estate market, financial pressure and stress impacting households, businesses, and the state. All signals suggesting credible parallels between today’s China and Japan in the 1990s. China risks becoming an aging and heavily indebted country before it becomes a wealthy nation. The Japanese population only…
Black Monday: who is to blame ?
August 5, 2024Collapse of the Japanese Stock Market on August 5, 2024: A 12.4% Drop in a Single Session – The Worst Since the Infamous “Black Monday” of 1987! I see multiple reasons for this: Low Liquidity: The traditionally low liquidity in financial markets during the summer months. Weak Governance: The poor governance by Japanese authorities.…
Contextualizing Venezuela
July 30, 2024In 1989, Venezuela had the same GDP per capita as South Korea. Today, it is 8 times lower. We used to serve Caracas with the Concorde. This immense country had a great future: oil, tourism, agriculture… In 1980, the USA had the same GDP per capita as France. Today, it is twice…
The wars of the Middle East
July 24, 2024“Towards the complicated East, I flew with simple ideas”, Charles de Gaulle.
Tribute to Biden
July 22, 2024The combination of his plans—the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Bill—and the activism of his central bank has made him the President who has most transformed the US economy since Roosevelt. The United States has experienced an 8.6% GDP growth since 2019, compared to 0.3% for Germany.
Substantial emptiness, radical tolerance
July 15, 2024This phrase from sociologist Ulrich Beck seems perfectly suited to what we are experiencing today. Extremes have become commonplace, even among those once considered reasonable, who now eagerly jump on the bandwagon of excesses. The “extreme center” itself has been extensively theorized. In a world where moderates are disappearing, democratic practice now systematically…
The return of sick man of Europe
July 13, 2024In an environment where the German economy is extraordinarily energy-intensive, while the dogmatic policies of the Greens dramatically penalize all economic actors, company bankruptcies are reaching record and frightening levels in a Germany that is literally on the path to deindustrialization. Merkel will have many accounts to settle with History.
Collapse of inflation in the United States
July 11, 2024We must pay tribute to the brilliance of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman, Powell.
The Moral Duty of France
July 2, 2024Keynesianism is considered an intellectual blight, its followers viewed as members of a sect seeking the confiscation of property by a necessarily sprawling State. This is a regrettable stance because there was a time when society accepted state intervention to regulate the fundamentals—and often the excesses—of economic actors. Do we prefer to sacrifice our…
Tomorrow, we shall be all japanese
June 30, 2024The Yen is plummeting because Japan is forced to maintain very low interest rates to cheaply finance its debt, which amounts to 250% of its GDP. Allowing Japanese rates to rise would trigger a major crisis with global repercussions. Therefore, the substantial loss in Yen’s value is merely a relief valve, the price to…
Live shipwreck
June 28, 2024Graphical representation of the audience’s verdict from yesterday’s Trump vs. Biden debate, showing who sank like a stone. And it comes from the New York Times!
The ECB: Both a Solution and a Problem for European National Policies
June 24, 2024The European Union is repeating the same mistakes the United States made during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. Europe needs fiscal stimuli and budget deficits. Unemployment and the decline in purchasing power are not the result of “budgetary indiscipline,” but rather stem directly from weak demand. This lesson from the…