Good news: the Middle East is aging
November 30, 2023In 2021, researchers Hannes Weber and Richard Cincotta theorized that countries with a median age of 25 or younger among their citizens are more prone to revolutions. Previous studies had already established a correlation between a young demographic and a higher risk of war or political violence. Data from the 1990s revealed that countries where…
The billions of the energy transition and the risks of wastage
November 20, 2023Tough times for those who thought, with naive enthusiasm, that the staggering sums poured by our states to facilitate the carbon transition would all be used wisely. What can now be referred to as green scandals have been occurring for some time, reflecting—or as a consequence of—governments engaging in a real race to spend the…
Compensate the descendants of slaves
November 5, 2023The movement is unstoppable. In the same week, King Charles expresses regrets for the British colonial violence committed in Kenya, and German President Steinmeier apologizes to Tanzania for the atrocities committed by Germans. The question is burning: will European countries now be forced to allocate a portion of their taxpayers’ funds to substantially compensate the…
American Sanctions: A Double-Edged Sword
September 24, 2023Sanctions are a lever frequently employed, certainly because it allows the rulers who use and abuse them to avoid costly armed conflicts. Sanctions represent a kind of “low-cost” warfare. Not quite, in reality, because these retaliatory measures against a state – far from harming its officials – primarily punish the most vulnerable under the yoke…
China: Revolt of the Party’s Elderly Leaders ?
September 7, 2023In Beijing, it’s the revolt of the elderly! Those who have led the Communist Party, these former leaders who presided over and orchestrated China’s rise to power until Xi’s accession, are now demanding accountability. It has recently come to light that they gathered in late August in the Hebei Province, specifically in the coastal city…
China: a shadow of itself
August 27, 2023China has become one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise and support a family. The collapse of consumption and overall living standards is wreaking havoc among young Chinese couples, who now have little motivation to start a family. Chinese fertility is declining rapidly despite the pro-natalist policy adopted by the government…
France is angry, France is hungry
July 5, 2023The flour war in 1775 sparked around 300 riots throughout France and was caused by the state’s abolition of price controls on bread, driven by Turgot’s influence. Turgot, who had elevated “laissez-faire” as an economic principle almost akin to divine law or inherent in natural laws, had not at all concerned himself with the rising…
The Strange Defeat
June 26, 2023Clearly, for Russia, it was a chronicle of an announced debacle. They invaded the largest country in Europe with barely 150,000 soldiers, while the USSR mobilized nearly a million men in 1968 to occupy a country (Czechoslovakia) that represented only one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory and a quarter of its population at that time. Stalin would…
Russia at war with OPEC
June 11, 2023It is necessary to conjugate the striking force of OPEC in the past. This group of countries that used to meet in Vienna, deciding unanimously to reduce their production and using their monopoly to drive up oil prices to the detriment of nations and continents eager to consume it, no longer impresses much. How distant…
All hostages to the imminent US default
May 21, 2023Is it time to doubt the American economy, known for its dynamism? Is its financial system still as resilient in the face of challenges? Is its democratic architecture characterized by the famous “checks and balances” still functional? Not a day goes by without a nation outside its bloc announcing a measure, at the very least…
Islamic Finance: Protects Humanity and Preserves its Morals
May 11, 2023The first “Sharia-compliant” obligation dates back to the Ottoman Empire in 1775. In 2004, Germans were the first Europeans to issue a “sukuk,” an Islamic bond that attracted investors from the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong. This instrument was specifically an “ijarah,” a vehicle that aimed to collect rents…
Europe: a sleeping beauty
April 24, 2023How not to be shocked by the near-economic disappearance of Europe? The “acceleration of the European economy” mentioned by Emmanuel Macron in China this April is a tale that no longer comforts or deceives anyone. Readers: your first electric car will most likely be Chinese, as China has now surpassed Germany as the world’s second-largest…
Is there a way towards economic serenity?
March 29, 2023All the economic parishes agree on the fact that too high debts are harmful. However, they diverge when the profile of the debtor is considered because, while the Austrian school is primarily concerned with public debts, the neo-Keynesians attach much more importance to private sector debts. The classics are indeed indifferent to the debts of…
Is our money still safe in a bank?
March 27, 2023In the CS rescue operation, the Confederation, the SNB and the regulator (Finma) took a decision with serious consequences: to sacrifice Tier 1 bonds, nicknamed “CoCo bonds” or “contingent convertible bonds”. These are hybrid securities between capital and debt, of better quality and which take precedence over equities, a sort of first mortgage. The authorities…
CS: the infernal chronology
March 22, 2023Credit Suisse fines by Year: 2022: $700 million 2021: $280 million 2018: $90 million 2017: $5.4 billion 2016: $240 million 2014: $3.7 billion 2012: $120 million 2009: $536 million 2008: $15 million 2003: $275 million 2002: $350 million Credit Suisse has been fined over 50 times for a total of $11.4 billion since…
UBS + CS = ?
March 19, 2023We live in a great time when Credit Suisse is about to be sold to UBS at 1 billion, when its market capitalization exceeded 90 billion in 2007! In 2022 alone, CS’s stock has collapsed by 75%. This is the period of wild sales because 1 billion would be paid by…
Systemic crisis: the fish always rots from the head
March 8, 2023The stars align. The potential for severe turbulence that will affect both the financial system and the budgetary stability of many States has never been so high. There are far too many indicators that warn of extreme fragility because the addition of corporate, household and government debt continues to worsen. While all of…
Strategy of pain
February 26, 2023Eurozone supercore inflation is at 6.0% and is by no means peaking. In Japan, inflation increased by 4.4% in January compared to January 2022: strongest annual inflationary surge since 1981! In the USA, inflation was at 7% for January, and revised upwards for the 4th quarter of 2022. Very disturbing, these figures show that…
End game
February 12, 2023The gold standard was a system where the currency of a country was linked to gold and which could materialize either by defining a certain quantity of metal in exchange for the American dollar, or indirectly through currencies having a fixed parity against the greenback. As early as 1944 with Bretton Woods, only central…
USA
February 7, 2023US growth under its various Presidents The % of US Republican officials who believe their country gives too much to Ukraine is steadily increasing
Make the plane greener ?
January 30, 2023The loyalty programs of aviation companies (frequent flyer program) are 40 years old. They were first created in 1979 by the now defunct Texas International Airlines. Eager to give impetus to its stagnant clientele and to give luster to its brand, the solution advocated – and followed little by little by others – was…
This China which now exports inflation !
January 18, 2023While it has been THE fundamental source of deflation for the past 20 years, China will now export inflation. This country locked up for 2 years nearly 19% of the universal population that were prevented from consuming. This 1.4 billion individual now liberated will rush to buy, go out, live… with the global inflationary…
The EV, symbol of a shift in world power?
January 16, 2023Sales of electric cars are exploding on a global scale. Last year saw an increase of 60% compared to 2021 with nearly 11 million vehicles put into circulation. It’s simple: EV now account for 13.2% of all global sales, having thus tripled in 2 years since 2020. Germany, Great Britain, France and China are…
The financial crisis will not happen
January 5, 2023This phenomenon occurs quite rarely, always in the event of liquidity crises, i.e. in times of great financial stress such as in 2008 or at the start of the Covid crisis. It translates into a gluttonous appetite for the US dollar sought after by the entire planet because it is sorely lacking. It is…
Governance Quo Vadis ?
December 29, 2022In China, for 3 years now the propagandist machine has been calling the West a liar and incompetent in the face of its management of Covid, literally demonizing Western vaccines described as counterproductive. You have to understand why China has opened up suddenly in recent days by removing all coercive health measures. It was…
A US dilemma ?
December 26, 2022The United States is not wrong to support Ukraine because a Russian defeat is in their interest. However, the American and Ukrainian objectives do not quite coincide because the USA has achieved theirs while the Ukrainians have not yet. Therefore, the former are eager to bring Russia back to the negotiating table when the…
Recession better than inflation ?
December 17, 2022346 interest rate hikes have taken place to date around the world, an absolute record since the 1980s ! The only weapon to counter inflation is for the key rate of a central bank to exceed the rate of inflation by around 150 basis points, knowing that this rate must be maintained at these…
German Subprimes
December 16, 2022Real estate storm to come in Germany where residential construction is plunging at the same rate as mortgage applications.
State of the world
December 15, 2022Breakdown of GDP in the world: Interesting to compare with the breakdown of populations around the world:
The militaro-industrial complex is everywhere
December 13, 2022The United States spend 860 billion $/year on their armaments but… are not the biggest spenders in relation to their GDP!
Superower …
December 3, 2022Europe will never manage to impose itself whit a currency that barely accounts for 30% in world trade and transactions, when the $, on the other hand, crushes the whole of the top of its 88%! Europe may struggle, but the extraterritoriality of US law is here to stay.
Is China still credible ?
November 28, 2022Even better than Mao, surpassing Lenin, Xi Jinping methodically is building a cult around himself over the years. Often preaching with mysticism, surrounded by unconditional Marxist doctrines, he benefits from the aura of the master that China never ceased to glorify since the end of the 1970s. Describing Marx as the ” Greatest thinker…
Interwinded
November 21, 2022China-USA: their respective inflation is moving in phase as this graph clearly shows. These two countries are therefore interdependent, despite their political postures.
Inflation is everywhere
November 18, 2022Even Japan, country of Quantitative Easing, of negative interest rates, of a acutely aging population, is enduring inflation on all fronts. So let’s expect an acceleration in the pace of interest rate hikes globally, despite all the falsely reassuring messages from financial markets that are absolutely not far-sighted…as usual.
Crypto crédibles et crédules?
November 14, 2022N’est-il pas ironique que ces crypto monnaies, dont la raison d’être fut à l’origine de proposer un système alternatif aux banques et à l’argent, soient aujourd’hui prises la main dans le sac pour commettre les mêmes abus et malversations que le système qu’elles n’ont cessé de dénoncer? Je me souviens de la crise bancaire…
Demographic regression
November 13, 2022The abolition of the one-child policy in China was not followed by a boom in the birth rate. Quite the contrary, in fact, because this graph shows that this country is close to demographic regression which will be its misfortune in the decades to come, and which will force it to drastically review its…
Euthanasia of the rentiers ?
November 12, 2022Hope is that inflation has peaked but…inflation is the solution. After a long period in which the opposite has been true, perhaps it is the easiest and maybe even fairest way forward. If we’re to get rid of the massive piles of debt our economies piled up, then we need inflation and nominal growth…
Truss debacle: markets turned whistleblowers
November 3, 2022“We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world” was an emblematic declaration by Ronald Reagan who shared throughout his Presidency with Margaret Thatcher fundamentally individualistic obsessions where the State represented the absolute threat against freedom and against property. And, in fact, their advent – of Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States – provided these…
The Chinese Mess
October 23, 2022No one dares to claim anymore that China will soon become the world’s largest economy. From Goldman Sachs which announced fifteen years ago that it would be number 1 in 2026, to Nomura which predicted it for 2028, to JP Morgan which saw it by 2031… The question with the experts was not so…
America’s superpower
October 6, 2022The Dollar is becoming scarce, because the whole world wants and lacks it. This problem – recurring since the 1960s – of scarcity of the American currency constitutes an incredible headache for the countries indebted in this currency when the latter is brought to appreciate because their debts and their interests become more expensive…
Great Britain : dissolution of an empire
September 26, 2022Between 1765 and 1938, Britain stole $ 45 trillion from India, according to calculations by historian Utsa Patnaik. The colonizing power was able to impose an absolute monopoly on the trade of the subcontinent through the intermediary of the East India Company whose attributions consisted in buying their goods from the Indians with their…
Black Wednesday, 30 years ago: A British humiliation
September 19, 2022September 16, 1992 marks the 30th anniversary of the ejection of the Pound Sterling from the European Monetary System (EMS), described as a “disastrous day” by then Prime Minister John Major, who never recovered politically. . Then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had persuaded 7 years earlier his boss a hardly enthusiastic Margaret Thatcher,…
Checkmate for Russia?
September 10, 2022The oil price cap decided a few days ago by the G7 is an original, unprecedented measure to be taken very seriously. The member countries of this exclusive club will therefore refuse to buy its oil from Russia at a price that will exceed a certain level which will be fixed later. Surely Russia…
I want you to panic
September 1, 2022Canada is a breadbasket: it is the 4th largest exporter of grains and vegetables in the world. This country also has one of the most efficient harvesting techniques available. However, its food stalls will no longer be as well stocked, and this in the near future, because the federal government has just decreed a…
Greece not playing along
August 31, 2022Russian oil is mainly transported by Greek cargo ships (here in blue). Greece is taking a huge risk in aiding the violation of sanctions in this way. Isn’t our European Union harmonious?
German strategy
August 30, 2022Very interesting this substantial decline in road traffic in favor of rail in Germany from the moment the universal train ticket at 9 euros was instituted. That’s right: travelling/moving around becomes accessible again to those who couldn’t afford it.
Putin and the european chaos
August 21, 2022They were all grossly wrong, those who predicted a collapse in Russian oil production. Putin effectively defied all forecasts because, with 10.8 million barrels/day (mb/d) pumped last July, Russian oil production is almost at the level of 11 mb/d last January, i.e. before the war. In fact, it has been three months since this…
Germany: a country undone
August 5, 2022The energy crisis is upsetting the balance of power in Europe, as we finally have realised that Germany is indeed quite fallible. The country’s moral authority was constantly being unleashed upon Mario Draghi during his time as president of the ECB because of his active monetary policy. Germany’s arrogance went as far as proposing…