Posted originally on Feb 24, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
French Economy Minister Eric Lombard is eager to lower the public deficit with an aim of 5.4% of GDP in 2025 followed by 3% into 2029. The European Union requires member states to maintain a budget deficit below 3% but only 17 of the 27 members have met that target. France is the largest European economy failing to maintain this goal as they grapple with ever-rising government debt.
“We are going to work with all the political parties … to discuss, to talk with us. We are going, also, to work with the unions, with the employers, in order to reach a consensus on the main policies that are key for the country, and policies on which we can make adjustments that will allow us to spend less in 2026,” Lombard said, later admitting that politics have had a “negative impact on growth.”
The economy experienced a 0.1% contraction during Q4. The Bank of France expects the economy to grow by 0.1% to 0.2% in Q1 of this year, while the IMF predicts the economy will rise by 0.8% for the year.
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.
The reality is that France, like much of Europe, is caught in a vicious cycle of excessive government intervention, anti-business policies, and high taxation, all of which discourage capital formation. Pension funds are vanishing. Political instability and declining tax revenues have exacerbated the deficit, yet the solution proposed is always the same—more taxes, more regulations, and empty promises of austerity.
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 Feb 24, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birxhas come out to say that “the science” has “done wrong in public health.” Vaccine hesitancy rates have been rising since it was exposed that the mRNA vaccine did more harm than good. Birx has admitted that the COVID vaccine was never meant to be a preventative measure.
“The science” should not have forced the general population to take an experimental vaccination, Dr. Birx admits. The vaccine was initially designed, allegedly, to protect people “at risk for severe disease” and/or those over 65 with comorbidities. Even then, the vaccine did not protect any segment of the population from transmission and infection. So the most vulnerable in the population were not only still exposed to COVID-19, but they were then at risk for developing potentially fatal side effects brought on by the vaccine itself.
A December poll by Pew Research found that 60% of Americans would not take another booster vaccine. Every dataset shows vaccine hesitancy rates rising, but Dr. Birx believes that overall vaccination rates have fallen by 50%.
“The childhood vaccines, like many of the diseases, you get it once, you don’t get it again,” she explained. “And this is getting the children to have that disease without getting the deadly consequences. That is not what the COVID vaccine was designed to do. It wasn’t designed to prevent infection, and if you look at the vaccine hesitancy rates, they’ve doubled since COVID.
The public was aggressively told that the vaccine was the ONLY way to survive the pandemic. We WERE told that the vaccine would prevent infection and anyone who declined was putting the entire public at risk. Then the truth behind the Wuhan lab leak was exposed. Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that there was no science behind social distancing, masking, and lockdowns. Public trust in the government has completely shattered.
There has been a resurgence in diseases like the measles as parents are understandably hesitant to vaccinate their children. I, for one, will no longer take the annual flu vaccination. It has never prevented anyone from contracting the flu, but they say, “Oh, don’t worry. The flu would have been worse if you didn’t take the vaccine.” Countless doctors have told me that I was wise for refusing the COVID jab since they have seen countless patients come in with side effects.
Posted originally on Feb 23, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, Congratulations. Socrates was correct once again. Scholz’s unpopular Social Democrat government has the worst performance since World War II. Merz won, and Afd doubled its support, coming in second. If this was America, Merz’s less than 29% would have been a joke. Here, he will rule Germany and stupidly vow no coalition with AfD. He has not got the memo as you say that the people are shifting.
Thank you for Socrates. This is the only forecaster that is not biased.
Hans
REPLY: Yes, Friedrich Merz’s conservative opposition leader, what would not be even a headline in the United States. When you have so many parties fighting, you get very ineffective governments. That many Italians have told me keeps politicians arguing against each other and leaving the people alone. Indeed, as our computer projected, the Alternative for Germany nearly doubled its support, putting in the strongest showing for an alleged “far-right party” that had been against wholesale immigration since World War II.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded defeat for his left-leaning Social Democrats. He said it was “a bitter election result.” Perhaps he should listen to the people rather than to Kaus Schwab. Marxism does not work. It has destroyed every economy it has ever been deployed because it is outright against human nature.
Merz vowed to move quickly to put together a coalition government but has vowed not to make a coalition with AfD all because the press has labeled them far-right, asking to be Nazis. Any coalition Merz created without AfD will only doom Germany to a continuation of the never-ending economic stagnation of Europe’s biggest economy thanks to Russian sanctions and the stupid net-zero climate change policies. Merz had pushed hard in recent weeks for a stricter approach, but with opposition to NATO against peace with Russia in order to remain relevant, will Merz fall in line with the EU war objectives?
Germany is the most populous country in the 27-nation European Union and a leading member of NATO. It has been Ukraine’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the U.S. Therein lies the problem. Scholtz promised Zelensky he would be his biggest supporter. Ukraine only takes. I never give up anything. The Ukraine government is the most corrupt government runs it in the world, and they are like a merchant who takes your money and declares all sales are final and have no returns.
Based on exit polls and partial counting, the projections put support for Merz’s Union bloc came in at around 28.5% and the anti-immigration AfD at about 20.5% — roughly double its result from 2021. Scholz’s Social Democrats collapsed to just over 16%, which was an all-time historic low even under the 20.5% from 2017. The Greens came in at an appalling just over 12%.
Merz made a huge mistake because of the press and dismissed the idea that voters wanted a coalition with AfD. “We have fundamentally different views, for example on foreign policy, on security policy, in many other areas, regarding Europe, the euro, NATO,” he said. Mertz has ignored the vote and he is just doing as directed by the EU and NATO. This does not speak well for Germany’s’s changing directions.
I do not see Mertz changing Germany’s economic direction. He must reject the EU and NATO and listen to the German people.
Posted originally on Feb 22, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
The German elections are tomorrow, and the polls are touting the failed government of Schultz as the winner. Germany will hold a snap national election on Sunday, February 23, after the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition. Currently, the CDU/CSU leads in our polling according to the LEFT-controlled German Press with an aggregate of 9 points over the AfD. They always pretend that the LEFT is somehow centered and that whatever we earn really belongs to the state, and they decide how much we are allowed to retain. The Swiss numbered accounts really took place because Hitler made it illegal to have an account outside the country. Capital had fled because the SPD government confiscated 10% of everyone’s bank accounts and handed them a bond in December 1922, which led to hyperinflation. People got whatever wealth they had out of Germany after that trick.
After Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, the press, which had labeled the AfD the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), gained 3.7 points. The SPD, the current leaders in the national parliament since the average person votes for labels only, has lost 12.3 points since the last federal election and is currently in third place. Germany has no centrist parties other than the AfD, which has stood against migration and war. Scholz’s pretend center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the opposition conservatives, an alliance of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Covid had a significant impact in Germany. Even our staff there fled the country and moved to our Dubai office over mandatory vaccines for children. The AfD first entered Germany’s national parliament eight years ago on the back of discontent with the arrival of large numbers of migrants thanks to Merkel flooding Europe with no public vote nor any EU-wide concensus. It was all about her image, and she undermined Europe as a whole. So now the press calls anyone against migration the far-right. European politicians live in denial. BREXIT took place because the British did not want this flood of immigrants who had no intention of blending into European culture but demanded their own culture dominate. Parts in Sweden saw them declaring Shia Law prevailed – not European. But disagree with the leftists who REFUSE to acknowledge any mistake, and you are a far-right Nazi.
The Afd party has proven that this discontent over the mass flood of non-Christian immigrants, where some have even burned churches, has tapped into common sense. The LEFT press has covered up the rape of girls in Europe by the migrants. As in the USA, the press saw no problem with transgender men competing in women’s sports, setting all the records. Germany’s move away from fossil fuels, restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and support for Ukraine’s orchestrated war against Russia and the prospects of World War III are somehow all far-right. The status quo in politics will be the downfall and destruction of Europe. The Greens have supported war against Russia to end their fossil fuel production. Even the World Socialist website has stated that the “Greens are among the most aggressive warmongers. ” So, risk nuclear war to save the planet? The failure of the AfD to win a majority will doom Germany to World War III.
Also running are the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP), the far-left Linke, and the leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), who are all at risk of missing the 5% threshold to make it into parliament, according to opinion polls. Yet the real problem is the audacity of the EU to overturn the Romanian election and say they might do the same if the AfD wins. Europe is turning not just against free speech but very authoritarian, and it is the LEFT that has become the war party.
Our model has already elected two Yearly sell signals on the German Bunds. The current government is not just pro-war; it is undermining its own economy. The German election has shrunk by 3% thanks to the Green policy and the sanctions it imposed on Russia, undermining its industrial complex and resulting in rising unemployment and protests in the auto industry. Since COVID, the economic growth of the German economy has been steadily declining.
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