Accelerating National Debt-Not Just US Problem

Personal Finance / Macroeconomic Trends & Risks

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (5)

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

No. of Recommendations: 2

politico.eu - Francois bayrou france bombshell puts debt sustainability back on the agenda
Not just a French problem.
Rather, it was the clearest and most pressing evidence yet that an aging and increasingly impotent Europe is heading for bankruptcy unless it embraces major change: digitization, decarbonization and defense all need to be financed, against a backdrop of demographic decline. But it has little or no room for maneuver, due to two more ‘D’s — debt and deficits.
France isn’t alone in its predicament.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer was forced by a backbench revolt of his own MPs to abandon welfare cuts he deemed necessary.<?I>

dw.com - Trillion impact what easing debt brake means for germany
Germany’s Basic Law, the country’s constitution, stipulates that the state may only spend as much money as it takes in.

For expenditures necessary for the country’s defense, the debt brake will be virtually nullified.

euroweeklynews.com - Germanys debt tsunami heads for spain and the eurozone
Germany is about to flood Europe with debt, and Spain might be the first to feel it. Over the next four years, Berlin plans to issue up to 850 billion in bonds, marking one of the most aggressive borrowing sprees in EU history.

More German debt means more competition in the bond markets, and for countries like Spain and Italy, that could result in higher borrowing costs or new yield pressure, creating a fresh headache for the ECB.

nytimes.com - France government collapse economy
On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is expected to fall for the second time in just nine months after a confidence vote in Parliament.

outsize government spending and falling tax receipts strained finances.

government spending, long the highest in Europe, for a reason: Much of it goes toward financing a generous social welfare system. Last year, an eye-popping 57 percent of the nation’s economic output was channeled into financing hospitals, medicines, education, family reproduction, culture and defense, not to mention generous pension and unemployment benefits.

Part of the overspending comes from the unexpected twin shocks of the Covid pandemic and a European energy crisis unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Just as problematic are the tax cuts that Mr. Macron has given to businesses and to the rich. Tax receipts have fallen to 51 percent of gross domestic product from 54 percent since Mr. Macron took office in 2017 with promises to boost France’s competitiveness and lure foreign investment. He made generous employment tax breaks permanent and curbed a national wealth tax, earning praise from investors — and the nickname “president of the rich” from his detractors.

The result has been more borrowing and higher debt.

France is a too-big-to-fail economy and is not about to go bankrupt.

That said, “things are bad,” said Bruno Cavalier, chief economist at Oddo bank in Paris.

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

Print the post Share: X · FacebookFB · LinkedInLI · WhatsAppWApp · Email

Members reply directly to tjscott0 here — and replies get answered. Reading is free; so is joining the conversation. Join Shrewd'm »

This community has written 4,454 posts about Macroeconomic Trends & Risks. The article-length ones it recommended most:

AI Tarpits · 36 recs · 2026

End of an era - profit slowdown · 36 recs · 2023

Control Panel: Trend changes in 2026 · 34 recs · 2026

From the Oregon Bay Area (a blogger) · 33 recs · 2025

Lerner Symmetry Theorem · 32 recs · 2025

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (5)

Prev | Next

Announcements

Macroeconomic Trends & Risks FAQ

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.