Posted originally on Sep 18, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
The average French pensioner receives a larger payout than working-aged adults. France has one of the highest replacement rate packages of any OECD nation at around 74% of average earnings. The French government spends an astounding 14% of GDP on the unsustainable pension system.
The average pension in France is around €1,626 gross per month, and pensioners earn around 2% more than the working adults propping up those pensions. The average American pensioner earns about a sixth less than working adults, UK retirees earn about a fifth less, while Australians earn around a third less than their working counterparts, according to Fortune. The amount demanded by retirees has increased proportionally over recent years, as have taxes on the working public, who now pay 8.55% of their income into the pension system.
Widespread pension reform protests took place in 2023 when we saw protesters attempt to burn down the BlackRock office in Paris after the retirement age was raised from 62 to 64. “The meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it,” a protestor told a CNN affiliate. The protest was organized and the message was clear. The Parisians are not allowing government mismanagement to change their retirement plans. They have been promised an easy retirement and paid into the system. The government has been unable to fulfill its promises and the people perceive any reforms as an unfair betrayal.
The deficit for pensions is estimated to grow to €15 billion by 2035 and then to around €30 billion a couple of years later. The European Union requires member states to maintain a budget deficit below 3% but only 17 of the 27 members have met that target. French Economy Minister Eric Lombard is eager to lower the public deficit, aiming for 5.4% of GDP in 2025, followed by 3% in 2029.
France is facing a fiscal crisis of its own making. The government has consistently failed to address the core structural issues, instead relying on higher taxes and superficial spending cuts, which only serve to undermine economic growth. The public deficit, now surpassing 5.6% of GDP, is spiraling out of control, and the government’s projections to bring it under the EU’s arbitrary 3% threshold by 2029 are nothing more than wishful thinking. History has shown that governments never truly cut spending—they merely shift the burden through taxation, stifling private sector expansion.
This is why politicians want war with Russia as a diversion. They desperately need an excuse in the face of a crumbling monetary system. No one is buying government debt. The solution is to rob the pension funds to eliminate the need to issue bonds to cover expenses. That move will only undermine confidence in the EU and result in further civil unrest. Negative interest rates have robbed savers of income since 2014, but the world refuses to move away from Keynesian economics.
France and the rest of the Western world have a growing aging population paired with a massive decline in birth rates. These nations attempted to open borders to compensate for the lack of workers, but instead, the public became saddled with more debt as they were forced to pay for the newcomers.
Nothing is more inflationary than war, and Macron is eager to send off French troops to Ukraine as he closely aligns with Brussels to spur on the next major war. Confidence will decline, capital will flee, and interest expenditures will continue to rise. France risks a debt crisis that will only accelerate the collapse of the EU’s financial system. As I’ve warned before, the trend is clear: governments refuse to reform until they are left with no choice. The question is not if, but when, France will face the reckoning of its fiscal mismanagement.
Posted originally on Sep 18, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Jair Bolsonaro will spend the rest of his life in a Brazilian prison for inciting a coup that never happened. Bolsonaro’s public humiliation ritual is far from over as the establishment is using him as an example for anyone who dares to voice a dissenting opinion. The latest ruling determined that the former president must pay R$1m ($188,435.55 USD) for insulting a hairstyle, which the courts deemed racist.
The federal court of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul examined a statement Bolsonaro made in 2021 when he insulted a black man by calling his afro a “breeding ground for cockroaches.” Insulting? Certainly. Racist? It seems to be a far stretch. The man with the afro told the courts that he did not believe it was a racist remark, and in fact, he had voted for Bolsonaro. He believed that it was a joke. I recall hearing similar sentiments about white men with long hair back in the day. People have been insulting long, “dirty” hairstyles on men for ages.
“Racial offence disguised as jocular remarks or mere jokes, linking Black power hair to insects associated with disgust and dirt, harms the honour and dignity of Black people and reinforces the stigma of inferiority of this population,” said Judge Roger Raupp Rios. The man he allegedly insulted did not feel offended. The establishment wants the people to view the remark as an insult to an entire race of people to further political division and to stifle free speech.
Again, the man did not file charges against Bolsonaro for the poorly worded joke. Public prosecutors and the public defender’s office took it upon themselves to persecute Bolsonaro for that statement and two separate remarks made during a 2021 live stream with supporters in front of the presidential palace. Prosecutors were initially seeking a R$10m fine for perceived “recreational racism.”
The Brazilian government was also ordered by the court to pay R$1m since Bolsonaro was in office at the time. The attack on free speech is global. The establishment is warning the public that they may not speak freely without severe punishment. Something said years ago could be used against you in courts today. Bolsonaro is a 70-year-old man and will likely die in prison for a crime he did not commit. The establishment behind big government is stronger than most could imagine.
Posted originally on Sep 15, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Albania has adopted the world’s first AI “minister” in an attempt to combat corruption. Diella, the female-voiced AI entity, will be a “member of the Cabinet who is not present physically but has been created virtually,” Prime Minister Edi Rama stated, adding that the robot would ensure that “public tenders will be 100% free of corruption” since current government employees cannot be trusted.
Microsoft helped to assemble Dinella—red flag number one. The robot will receive access to 1 million digital documents, including sensitive government information. The advancements in AI are ingenious but not sentient. Dinella has been programmed and, therefore, is prone to biases.
The irony is that in turning to artificial intelligence, the people are acknowledging that human government has completely failed. I have said before that many have proposed replacing judges, regulators, and even politicians with AI, as if a machine will somehow be impartial. The problem, of course, is not the hardware but the software. Who writes the code? Who programs the “ethics”? If government controls the AI, then it is nothing more than an automated extension of the same corruption. AI becomes a weaponized bureaucracy, enforcing whatever the ruling elite rules.
Rama’s Socialist Party has its eyes set on European Union membership, believing it can rid its nation of corruption ahead of negotiations in 2027. It is unclear if lawmakers will have the ability to vote on Diella’s post as minister, or whether the public will have an opportunity to vote for AI-driven politicians.
Society has fallen to the point that robots are trusted more than human beings. Do people believe that a robot can properly represent them or lead? “[The] Prime Minister’s buffoonery cannot be turned into legal acts of the Albanian state,” said Gazmend Bardhi, parliamentary group leader of the Democrats.
AI is only as honest as its programmer, and if Microsoft is involved, I have little hope of Dinella’s moral coding. Appointing a robot as minister is an extremely desperate move by the Albanian government to restore public trust. This is not a technological milestone but a glaring warning of lost confidence in a failing political system.
Posted originally on Sep 15, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Business flees when it feels it is unwanted, and the Labour Party has created an environment that repels capital. A wave of pharmaceutical companies are pulling out of the United Kingdom due to a climate that has become “uninvestable.”
AstraZeneca has become one of the latest companies to pull back on investments due to excessive regulation and taxation. “We constantly reassess the investment needs of our company and can confirm our expansion in Cambridge is paused. We have no further comment to make,” a spokesperson said. The company decided to pause a 200 million pound ($271.26 million) investment in Cambridge that was slated to created 1,000 new jobs. The company first terminated a 450 million pound investment in northern England back in January, citing a lack of support from the UK government.
Merck Pharmaceuticals terminated a £1bn (US$1.35bn) research and development project in London and called the UK “uninvestable.” The drugmaker plans to abandon its London Bioscience Innovation Centre and the Francis Crick Institute by the end of the year due to the lack of investment in the life science industry and the overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines by successive UK governments.”
“Simply put, the UK is not internationally competitive,” a Merck spokesperson stated.
The NHS tightly regulates drug prices, yet spends only 9% of its budget on medicines compared to other OECD nations that spend between 14-20%. Only 37% of new drugs are fully reimbursed for their licensed use, whereas the figure is 90% in Germany and likely higher in the US. The government expects businesses to pay them a large portion of their revenue. Drugmakers face a 23.5% levy on new drugs as of 2025. Why would a pharmaceutical company research and develop new products in a nation that demands nearly a quarter of the profits?
Foreign investment in life sciences is down 58% since 2017 across the UK. Comparatively, investment in research and development (R&D) fell 1.9% on a global basis. Tight price controls, high government levies, and regulatory red tape have caused multi-billion-dollar investments to flee. Drugmakers are beginning to pour investments into the US instead, where they receive generous incentives and lower taxes.
Posted originally on Sep 15, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for allegedly plotting a coup to overturn the presidential election. Politicians who defy the new world order are silenced through assassination or imprisonment. This has become a worldwide phenomenon, from Germany to Brazil, as politicians who rebuke the globalist agenda are receiving massive support from the people, and eliminating opposition is the only way for current regimes to remain in power.
The Brazilian people independently denied the results of the 2022 election and stormed government buildings on January 8, 2022, a week after Lula was inaugurated. The Federal Police uncovered a draft of a coup announcement at the home of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres. After months of detainment, Torres maintained that the document, which he received from a private citizen, was taken out of context and held no legal validity. The plans outlined in the document never occurred, but the establishment maintains that Bolsonaro is a threat to Brazilian democracy.
As our computer warned, there would be intense, politically motivated civil unrest worldwide in November 2022. Ahead of the election, Brazil’s leftist opposition Workers’ Party (PT) Marcelo Arruda was enjoying his birthday celebration in the city of Foz de Iguacu, Parana, when he was shot dead. The vote of 49.1%-50.9% was the closest Brazilian presidential election in history since 1985 and marked Bolsonaro’s first political defeat. Bolsonaro supporters held mass protests across the nation to protest Lula’s victory and blocked hundreds of major roadways. Bolsonaro first sided with the protestors, saying they felt “indignation and a sense of injustice.”
The intense backlash from across the globe caused Bolsonaro to change course. “I know you are upset… Me too. But we have to keep our heads straight,” Bolsonaro said in a video posted online. “I will make an appeal to you: clear the highways.” Bolsonaro confirmed with Brazil’s Supreme Court that he would willingly hand over power to Lula. “I have always played within the four lines of the constitution,” he said, without declaring defeat. Bolsonaro is already barred from running for office until 2030. The establishment wants to ensure that he is never up for reelection.
The Brazilian Supreme Court rules in a 4-5 vote to convict Bolsonaro on all five charges, carrying a sentence of 27 years and 3 months in prison. There is no concrete evidence against Bolsonaro. There was no coup. No election was overturned and Bolsonaro did not attempt to take power after his defeat. Bolsonaro has evaded assassination in the past. Lula was desperate to find a reason to prevent Bolsonaro from running for office before the probationary period ended, and the Brazilian courts acted as weapons of the state.
The Brazilian government did not deter unrest; rather, they ensured it.
Posted originally on CTH on September 14, 2025 | Sundance
Many people were thrilled with the nomination and eventual confirmation of Kash Patel to be Director of the FBI. However, with decades of researching the political weaponization of the FBI and against the known capabilities of the nominee, we were not part of the thrilled group.
The non-pretenders looked at the challenge, contrast the scope of work against the skillset of the person selected to confront the institutional corruption, and warned people there was more reason to be apprehensive than optimistic.
Do you remember us outlining how the various FBI field offices would be keeping Patel/Bongino tied up with busy work, and stuff to go on TV about.
That said, we don’t want him to fail, but Director Patel has walked himself into a gauntlet of consequence that will be difficult to exit given his lack of discernment – evidenced in the events surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The people in control of FBI field operations (not Kash), set up their agency head by informing the boss a suspect was in custody.
After eating dinner at Rao’s, an embarrassed Kash Patel was then forced to retract his public statement, walking back his message that a suspect was in custody at 7:59 pm, a little over 1.5 hours later.
The FBI field operatives smiled. Egg applied as expected, it worked brilliantly.
Kash Patel couldn’t then turn to those who set him up with too much anger, because their defense was, “we were questioning a suspect, we didn’t tell you to go public with it – and as it turned out the suspect was cleared.”
It was a brilliant maneuver, likely intended to undermine his authority and position. It worked perfectly.
Did you see Kash Patel’s face the next day when he eventually did arrive in Utah and didn’t say a word at the microphone?
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National media and DC political opposition now runs with the “incompetent” narrative, albeit rightly deserved but for other bigger matters, and the leadership structure of the FBI is weakened.
The institutional elements in control pulled off a great hit. Well played FBI bad guys. Well played.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Director Patel will shift his position and recognize the scale of opposition inside the institution he keeps praising. [Although I doubt his ego will allow him to reset.]
Kash Patel has essentially neutered himself by falling prey to the most transparently obvious ploy of the intel operatives within the institution.
Now, the media has a narrative to enhance, and Director Patel is scheduled to be questioned in the Senate later this week. What comes next will be entirely the result of his own self harm.
Those Machiavellian FBI guys are cruel.
Every adverse operative within the FBI will be back channeling specific investigative information to the Democrat inquisitors in advance, so questions can be specifically formatted.
Whether he can see it or not, FBI Director Kash Patel is being set up by his own agency in collaboration with the Senate guards in DC.
Unfortunately, Kash Patel is now in a defensive mode trying to promote his image over the past 24-hours by retweeting positive articles about him as written by the sources he uses to deliver information, John Solomon (Tick-Tock) and Brooke Singman (Fox).
It’s all quite transparent, and simultaneously a hot mess. “The more he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted the spoons.”
I’m not sure if President Trump can see it unfolding, or if President Trump is simply trying to support his FBI director and simultaneously avoid collateral embarrassment. Either way, given the fortunate situation where the father of the assassin secured his son and turned him into police, President Trump is supporting the successful outcome.
There is a sense of familiarity, a feeling similar to NSA Director Mike Waltz, about it:
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Understand and accept this with great seriousness, there are no honorable “rank and file” inside this organization. Every member of the FBI is a participant in the weaponization of power and government. The members are jackboots recruited from ideological college campuses for exactly the purpose of supporting a Stasi-like police state.
Through the past several years, we have discovered how the FBI worked inside Twitter, Facebook and social media to control information, remove content and manipulate opinion on behalf of the U.S. government – all activity political. We have also learned the FBI took active measures to suppress information about the Hunter Biden laptop and control any negative consequences for the Biden regime – again, political.
These are not disputed realities.
The U.S. Dept of Justice and FBI are now political institutions that have abandoned their originating mission in order to become the domestic equivalent of the Soviet-era FSB. Their joint targeting mechanisms have been redesigned to support the interests of corrupt DC politicians, specifically the interests of DC.
Tangentially related: (1) What’s the status of the DC pipe bomber case? And (2) are the 40 FBI agents who worked on the Mueller investigation, still employed?
Posted originally on CTH on September 13, 2025 | Sundance
As much as things change, for some reason they stay the same.
The British media, including the Daily Mail [SEE HERE] deny the crowds attending the Tommy Robinson “Unite The Kingdom” rally today in London, England. From transparently observable videos, the scale of the crowd is easily over a million, yet the media claim only 110,000 attended. The gaslighting is extreme. WATCH:
The U.K. media focus on what was apparently a predetermined skirmish as the authorities permitted the massive crowd to end up facing a group of around 5,000 counter-protesters. [SEE HERE] Once again using the label “far right” and “extremist” to define any group of British citizens who stand in opposition to the globalist immigration influx.
It really is amazing how the media in Great Britain refuse to acknowledge the scale of nationalist sentiment that has been growing for the past decade. Instead, both the British government and the British media collaborate to dismiss the majority as a fringe element of racist far-right nationalists.
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Anti-immigration and/or demanding sovereign control over the country, is equivocated with racism and extremist viewpoints. It is quite remarkable to watch unfold, and simultaneously it is something the majority of Americans can well relate to.
Tommy Robinson is leading a demand for a complete change in British government and there are many who support him despite the divisive labels applied by those who control government and media.
The nationalist group is organizing and fighting hard to regain control; however, the opposition elements control all of the power points within the government and media apparatus. This has created a powder-keg inside the country that continues to destabilize as immigrant groups carry out horrendous crimes against the British people.
Today was an effort similar to the Polish Solidarity Movement, simply to get the nation to realize the scope of the citizens who hold similar views. The first element in changing direction is to get British citizens to recognize the scale of their unified assembly. As this is ongoing, the government and media are determined to stop it.
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