Category: balance sheet reduction

The Free Ride of the Creditors

August 10, 2026 0

  The global trading system does not penalise surpluses. A country can durably suppress domestic demand — restrained wages, high savings, tight fiscal policy — to maximise manufacturing competitiveness. The surplus costs it nothing: deficit partners absorb the adjustment through debt, deindustrialisation and pressure on employment. Keynes foresaw this at Bretton Woods in 1944: his clearing…

By Michel Santi