The unsustainable nonchalance of the elites
June 28, 2016Who had predicted or foreseen such a result of this British referendum? Of course, much ink was penned over the last few weeks warning of the consequences and advising caution with regards to reactions from citizens fed up with the technocrats imbued with power and the politicians hooked on it. You see, the status quo…
Brexit, now that’s democracy
June 21, 2016Brexit is not just an electoral consultation that will decide on Britain’s potential departure from the Union. The issues are far more serious – and critical for some – than the relatively by-the-by stance of a country that has never really brought Europe together. Despite what has been stigmatised by the Remain campaign, Brexit is…
Capitalism: soon to be a barbaric relic?
June 6, 2016“The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will…
Overcoming the German autocracy
May 29, 2016German households and businesses are clearly creditors and in surplus with regards to countries abroad. As for the German government, its objective is to clear its public debt and run a budget surplus. So why would it now trouble itself with the endemic deceleration of the country’s domestic investment, which has been induced directly by…
The central bank of the 21st century
May 10, 2016Central banks hold the key to our economic recovery since they can afford to create money in unlimited quantities, without ever fearing bankruptcy. While they don’t do it deliberately to relaunch growth, it is true that – in their defense – they weren’t founded to regulate public consumption. Their raison d’être has historically been to…
Uberising monetary creation
April 30, 2016How can we break free from the dominant ideology which asserts that States are capable of budgetary discipline only if they have to finance themselves via financial markets? Neoliberalism teaches us that market sanctions on lax nations will be exercised in the form of higher interest rates, meant to put spendthrifts back on the right…
Something’s got to give
April 21, 2016The secular stagnation that is infecting our economies brings with it the germs of instability and financial torment. Since interest rates and monetary creation are the only weapons still at the disposal of the only public institutions that still wield some sort of power in our modern world, their initiation with a view to relaunching…
When real estate threatens growth
April 13, 2016It’s not a coincidence if real estate prices – relatively stable up until now – suffered unhealthy volatility at the dawn of the 1990s. This phenomenon was the direct consequence of integrating the banking and financial systems together because deregulation and innovations such as securitisation intensified the flow of cross-border and transcontinental capital, thus inducing…
Choose your poison
April 7, 2016“The essence of secular stagnation: sick recoveries which die in their infancy and depressions which feed on themselves and leave a hard and seemingly immovable core of unemployment.” It is in these terms that the father of secular stagnation, Alvin Hansen, described to the American Economic Association the economic climate of 1938…which could just as…
Life beyond capitalism
March 21, 2016The economy is no longer a job supplier. This paradigm has now come to pass because, in the era of globalisation and the financialisation of our economies, growth no longer goes hand in hand with honourable and fairly paid work but for a minority. The subprime crisis came about fundamentally due to huge loans given…
The European social nightmare
March 8, 2016What European social model? Is there only one, when the Germans are more than ever obsessed with competitiveness and their trade surplus? In reality, Merkel and Schauble’s only solution in order to compete with emerging and developing countries – and therefore to preserve Germany’s market shares – consists of crushing southern European workers under an…
The preordained disappearance of cash
February 29, 2016In Sweden, the Church has had to adapt because its followers are carrying less and less cash around with them. It has therefore now become commonplace for churches in places like Stockholm to display their bank details on giant screens during Sunday services, so that church-goers can whip out their phones and make an instant…
Economic Hibernation
February 25, 2016How have we lost our bearings? And why do the right and left – in all Western countries – appear to be applying the same economic policy, with only a few cosmetic nuances in difference? Where are the contentions of old that we used to have and which would pit us against each other? It…
If only the right knew how, or the left was able to
February 19, 2016Negative interest rates appear to be incompatible with our current banking system, because it is the banking institutions which have the most difficulty making profits in an environment of negative rates. It is the very fabric of our economy that has again been shaken as our world sinks further and further into this new paradigm…
Wall Street: how to finish off this vile beast?
February 11, 2016What is the deeper, intimate reason for financial crises? How do cracks appear and why do bubbles implode? It is always for a simple and unique reason, which is that irrational and outlandish bets undertaken by the world of finance are done so with borrowed money! In this regard, the last serious crisis – subprimes…
Oil: victim of deflation
January 30, 2016The collapse in oil prices has not brought with it the happiness that had been counted on, since economic fundamentals have not improved. As for Western consumption, its slight progress is owed more to a further drop in inflation indices than to an increase in salaries and revenues that is worthy of being called so.…
Financial crisis are painfully commonplace
January 25, 2016Blinder is no one than he who refuses to see. The main factors responsible for the torments of these last few years are still at large, when they haven’t been magnified despite declarations coming from the financial community and authorities claiming to be reassuring. According to them, systemic reforms would have in fact been made…
Saudi Arabia: black swan of 2016
January 14, 2016The Angolan kwanza collapsed by 15% in a few hours as soon as the country’s authorities effected its devaluation a few days ago. Last month it was Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, which lost a third of its value in a few hours when its national central bank decided to abandon its indexation to the American…
$ – the exorbitant burden
January 6, 2016Zimbabwe is no longer that country where prices would double basically every six hours, nor is it that nation where wheelbarrows were mainly used to transport banknotes in order to buy groceries. Having now vanquished hyperinflation, Zimbabwe is a country where today something else reigns…deflation! Whereas a few years ago its inflation rate had reached…
France: the birthplace of neoliberalism
December 30, 2015France is not just the motherland of human rights. It also played a crucial role in the inception of neoliberal thought which now starves the peoples of Europe. It has had huge responsibility in enforcing the rigorist and moralistic tyranny that today is sterilising the lifeblood of our continent. It is actually France who, in…
Luxembourg: the worm in Europe’s apple
December 20, 2015It is the backbone of European tax evasion. A financial colony. One of the most fervent representatives of the money empire at the heart of Europe. It has been a systematic saboteur of the fight against tax fraud for several decades. Luxembourg is still the leading nation for secret banking benefits, a genuinely barbaric relic…
Getting to know IS – by their tweets
December 15, 2015Islamic State is a State. So let’s not underestimate them, because it is only by getting to know them that we will be able to combat them efficiently. It is by analyzing the thousands of tweets from IS militants and supporters that researchers are now managing to get a better grasp on the caliphate and…
You don’t know it but you’re doing very well !
November 25, 2015The Venezuelan stock market has rocketed up by 200% this year and finds itself sitting atop global stock markets in terms of this exceptional performance. Is this to say that Venezuela is enjoying exceptional growth and that its positive repercussions are being felt by its people? Far from it in reality, since unemployment in Venezuela…
Apple, or capitalism with bite
November 10, 2015Apple makes money – a lot of money! In fact, Apple makes more money than any company has ever made and now finds itself, logically, with mountains of cash. As high as some 200 billion dollars, and more than the US Treasury. Of course, it’s the shareholders who are the ultimate owners of these monumental…
The exorbitant German privilege
November 4, 2015Germany has a huge demographic problem, but not necessarily the one you might suspect. While its population is indeed stable at slightly over 80 million inhabitants, it is the age of the total payroll that threatens to derail the country’s economy. This is because they are dangerously increasing the dependency ratio, that is, the proportion…
Europe: A German colony
October 24, 2015Last summer, during a telephone interview with his American counterpart, German Minister for Economic Affairs, Wolfgang Schäuble, thought he was being funny by suggesting that they should swap Puerto Rico (which has nearly gone bankrupt) for Greece! In fact, the overwhelming majority of Germans have been convinced by the narrative which claims that their hard…
Islamic State: from terrorism to economic regression
October 17, 2015The film posted online by Daech on the 1st of September last year lasts nearly an hour and appears in the style of a documentary, shows statistical data and calls upon “experts”. “The rise of the Khalifah and the Return of the Gold Dinar” explains the theological motives which are pushing Islamic State (IS) to…
The dawning of a monetary and financial cataclysm
October 5, 2015It is the abundance of cash resources which has propelled financial markets, likewise for all assets in general, since 2009. This gigantic reflation, orchestrated to the sound of 10 to 12 trillion dollars being injected into the system, has been the main and fundamental source, having authorised a global assessment, and even euphoria, since certain…
Volkswagen? Not just an exception, but the rule of modern capitalism
September 27, 2015Capitalism must become the business of everybody again because it is in the hands of a miniscule minority who have taken charge. An imperceptible shift has occurred since the beginning of the ‘80s: the power of money having passed from the hands of the captains of industry to those of high finance. Because of this,…
Islamic State’s business model
September 21, 2015Might Islamic State (IS) be on the verge of setting up its own bank? It is in fact following the footprints of other terrorist organisations by trying to equip itself with the attributes of a genuine state in order to send the message to its sympathisers outside of Syria and Iraq that it is now…
Central banks dining with the devil!
September 16, 2015One after another, every establishment which has the power to print money has joined in on the feast. In the absence of public policies dedicated to openly relaunching growth and battling unemployment, and in the presence of indecisive politicians who are not versed in economics, only central banks have had the ammunition capable of neutralising…
Checkmate for Saudi Arabia
September 12, 2015The debacle of oil prices has greatly exceeded that of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Asian crisis of 1998. And it is much more severe. At the end of this summer of 2015, OPEC is just a shadow of its former self: simply put, it has been de facto dissolved and this…
China will have to go bankrupt to survive!
September 6, 2015The severe damage that China is currently suffering is not necessarily what it may appear to be. It’s actually these “zombie” companies that are degrading the economic fabric of the nation; they are the failing businesses that the Chinese government is nevertheless keeping alive on artificial respirators. The easy money and low prices which have…
Picasso: the price of everything
August 31, 2015People instinctively like record breakers: fastest man, tallest building or longest winning streak. Records provide us with a frame of reference and a benchmark by which to judge what has gone before as well as what lies ahead. Records, we are often told, are there to be broken: they can inspire greater performances and…
Real estate, growth’s parasite
May 29, 2015The meager European economic growth – often described as anemic – stems from a savings glut. Economic stagnation becomes secular from the moment the money stops flowing, that is, once the investor keeps his precious cash in his bank account and that bank is no longer able to recycle it towards productive sectors of the…
In Europe, growth is a curse!
May 19, 2015Let us be inspired by the British example where, against all expectations, David Cameron was re-elected Prime Minister. He had previously imposed on UK’s citizens and economy a pitiless austerity. But, a few months before the election he authorized a recovery in economic growth. Had he not done so, he would not have been re-elected!…
Work is an outdated value!
May 14, 2015Humans have always had to work to support themselves. However, in its current form, work is a very recent concept in the course of human history. Until the advent of the tradable joint stock company (Dutch East India Company) towards the end of the Renaissance in 1602, human beings had indeed worked for themselves. Creative…
The pernicious effects of corporate bonuses
May 14, 2015The cash bonuses, stock options, pensions and mega salaries received by corporate executives are clearly a wealth transfer mechanism. In this regard, the Euro 300,000 annual pension to be paid to Philippe Varin, departing CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroën, pales in comparison to the remuneration of the great American bosses. Does Nicholas Woodman, GoPro founder,…
To save the rich, relieve the poor!
April 29, 2015A debate rages on, mostly in the United States, regarding the secular stagnation of our economies. This secular stagnation is due, in my opinion, to the extraordinary productivity of capitalism. The very low, zero-boundary or even negative interest rates are simply the consequence of capital’s very efficient productivity. As for unemployment, it is itself a…
What is money in 2015?
April 28, 2015Money is only a means of payment. Moreover, any vehicle generally accepted as payment for goods and services is by definition comparable to money. This broader definition of money allows us to find several other means of payment in circulation and in use in our societies and economies. Indeed, bank notes and electronic transactions passing…
The real estate standard
April 28, 2015At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. government seriously considered nationalizing a large chunk of the American banking system. Instead, what it did was take effective control of the massive U.S. mortgage market. Without Federal guarantees and full government support, the U.S. real estate market (already under critical pressure from the subprime…
Negative rates? No, a revolution in attitudes!
April 24, 2015How should we live in a world where interest rates are negative? It is a genuine paradigm shift that tells us to prepare for global deflation. While the U.S. will be spared, our Europe is sinking into economic stagnation, an ice age likely to be secular in nature. Switzerland and Denmark are leading the way…
There is life outside of work
April 24, 2015The time when Voltaire stated in Candide that “Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need” is over. Today, it is no longer appropriate to work regardless of the cost. In other words, less work could improve our living conditions and could undoubtedly improve the way we do work. The belief that…
Too late to fight against inequality!
April 24, 2015Do not be fooled by deflation. It is the decades-old general decline in wages, which inevitably leads to the lowering of consumer prices. And consumer prices will be made to adjust to the deterioration of our standard of living. Deflation is only the natural result of our shrinking purchasing power. Prices collapse for an obvious…
Innovation will save Switzerland!
April 24, 2015Europe and Switzerland are in full deflation, aggregate demand is at best anemic and only the emergence of a single or multiple asset bubbles is likely to revive their economies. Retail prices decline as consumers, who no longer have the means to maintain their current living standard, refuse to listen to the “credit sirens” and…
Europe faces its old demons
March 23, 2015The European government elites are sinking into denial. Their frightened posture against public deficits and preference for strict financial orthodoxy is a reflection of an age-old tendency for self-destruction. However, the current version of this tendency is about to lead them to a nasty state of affairs. I am referring to the ascension of extreme-right…
There is no German miracle
March 14, 2015German politicians live and evolve in a parallel universe. Their trade surpluses, their fiscal and restrictive fiscal policies and their anemic domestic investment are all compelling evidence of the “economic autism” of their government elites. Those political leaders incessantly affirm in public the validity of these surpluses as if trying to convince themselves that these…