When I'll go there the next time I'll do my part: I'll drink the old town of Düsseldorf dry! That's growth

Germany’s Pension Ponzi on the Brink If you’ve ever wanted to witness the slow-motion collapse of a Ponzi scheme, you might want to keep an eye on Germany’s public pension system. Rhetorically and politically sugar-coated as a “pay-as-you-go” system — where today’s workers finance the retirement of yesterday’s — this bureaucratic redistribution leviathan is utterly dependent on an ever-growing pool of contributors. Problem is: Germany is aging, shrinking, and losing its industrial base. Just in time for this demographic crunch — declining birth rates, increasing life expectancy, and longer pension payout durations — policymakers have decided to torch what’s left of the country’s industrial foundation in a green frenzy. Year after year, around €70 billion in value creation is being sent up the chimney, while more than half a million jobs have disappeared in recent years. That’s half a million fewer contributors to the pension Ponzi. Tax Payer´s Money To Maintain The Illusion To keep the locomotive rolling — even as it barrels in the wrong direction — the federal government now plugs the pension system’s gaping cash hole with roughly €123 billion annually from the general budget. In other words: workers pay a second time, in the form of taxes, to support the same unsustainable system they already fund through record-high payroll deductions. With a government spending ratio now exceeding 50% of GDP, Germany has erected a full-scale hyperstate. Attached to its bloated bureaucracy are ever-growing administrative tentacles: layers of social insurance agencies and subsidized institutions now serving as the domestic enforcement arm of Brussels’ self-destructive Green Deal. The coming deep economic depression, which has been foreshadowed by three years of quasi-permanent recession, will test just how resilient — and solvent — the savings and wealth accumulation of past generations truly are. It may be their prudence that softens the blow of the present generation’s green delirium. Trapped in the Logic of a Ponzi Scheme and Keynesian Voodoo Economics Entirely captive to the logic of Ponzi finance and Keynesian voodoo economics, Germany’s new federal government now plans its grand escape from all woes. With a debt hammer of one trillion euros over the coming years, it aims to wipe away every problem while putting the economy back on track. Broadly speaking, the money is supposed to raise the defense budget to 5% of GDP, as demanded by the latest NATO summit, pour into the country’s crumbling infrastructure, and plug countless holes in the overstrained welfare apparatus. We don’t need to go into detail here to recall that such stimulus-fueled bonfires leave behind nothing but more debt and inflation, misallocating printed capital into sectors with little or no real demand. It would suffice if politicians had even a passing familiarity with recent economic history — they’d realize they are once again slamming their heads against the very same wall as in decades past. Socialists Debate Higher Contribution Meanwhile, the SPD — junior coalition partner to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU-led government — is currently debating raising the pension contribution ceiling by €500 to €8,050 monthly salary. This increase would translate to an additional yearly burden of over €1,116 for anyone earning that amount. In other words, those who already carry the lion’s share of the country’s fiscal load as the last remaining productive pillars of society would be hit with yet another surcharge. The welfare state and social peace, they argue, are worth this sacrifice. The coalition partner CDU’s reaction was not long in coming. There was unanimous rejection of the SPD proposal to once again burden the country’s top earners. Wolfgang Steiger, Secretary General of the CDU’s Economic Council, stated: “We strictly oppose the move to raise the contribution ceiling in statutory health insurance. It would further increase the cost of labor.” That sounds good at first and has its merits. After all, it’s about time fiscal policy wielded the Milei chainsaw instead of continuing with the socialist cornucopia. Yet recent history has shown us that the CDU flips positions faster than expected. It is, not least, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s fault that trust in his party has hit rock bottom. After multiple broken campaign promises — like cutting the electricity tax or securing the country’s external borders once and for all — no one believes his party anymore. After all, the community, acting as a global social welfare office, also needs to provide compensatory payments across other social insurance branches — which, thanks to successful recruitment efforts related to illegal migration, are facing significant special financing needs. Germany is the Victim of Its Own Success Two successful postwar generations built the capital and economic foundation on which the neo-socialist aberration could flourish — manifesting itself in an overgrown welfare system. At the root of the problem lies not only the crushing tax and contribution burden in Germany but also its stagnating productivity, which together make rapid private capital formation nearly impossible for large parts of the population. Even though politicians occasionally flirt with the idea of introducing elements of a capital-funded pension system, such proposals are a suicide mission in light of the sheer weight of the public pay-as-you-go system. Germans hold almost exclusively cash-based savings, which makes them highly vulnerable whenever the state — in concert with the ECB — fires up the inflation engine. On top of that, they remain deeply risk-averse investors, culturally and historically allergic to equity markets or private pension schemes. Powerful Voting Block The pension insurance provides the perfect case study. With over 21 million pension recipients, every reform attempt at the expense of this group faces a homogeneous voting block. Germany could raise the retirement age, which it is attempting to do to 67 years. It could reduce benefits, which it does not. Pensions are tied to inflation and productivity growth in the economy. Politicians could reject the green-socialist agenda and return to the economic rationality of the free market to expand the contributor base and attract investment. They do not. The bureaucracy — the political front organization — is simply too powerful. Regulation is its product, and additional welfare recipients are its customers. The path of least resistance will be taken: further increasing contribution rates for the productive pillars. Federal subsidies from the tax pool will supplement this to ease the pressure. But due to demographic development and the destructive economic policies in the EU, especially in Germany, the Ponzi scheme is steering toward an abyss. #germany #eu #fiatponzi

With its public debt ratio of 63%, Germany might still have the chance to escape the debt spiral if it were to introduce radical reforms now, such as the dismantling of its sprawling state and social system. The country would have to reduce its public spending ratio from 50% to below 30% and gradually reintroduce the rules of the free market economy. In short, it would have to radically reject Brussels' eco-socialism. It is ethically irresponsible for the Green Fritz, together with 'debt Lars', to put together a coalition of losers and now lead the country into this very debt trap. It is kowtowing to the central body in Brussels to keep the highly indebted eurozone alive with fresh credit at the expense of the Germans. #eu #merz #germany #debtcrisis

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I am not a fan of Bitcoin ETFs and only recommend holding BTC in self custody and cold storage. But the fact that Blackrock earns more with its Bitcoin ETF than with its S&P ETF shows which direction institutional capital has taken. The severe shocks in the traditional financial markets the over-indebted states the uncertainty in the bond market will measure the role of Bitcoin as a credit collateral and investment form without third party risk in a way that we can hardly estimate at this moment. #bitcoin

The US dollar on a dive. The low DXY will facilitate the refinancing of the dollar-indebted world and thus stabilize the dollar. The end of the dollar as a reserve currency is not in sight. #usd

Summer Season – Season of the Apocalyptic Cultists Summer is here—and with it, the degenerate climate brigades. Heat triggers them: panic-mongering hysterics, usually employed by state-funded institutions, state weather channels, or statist media pros. They're the annoying background noise of this beautiful season, lurking like ticks in tall grass, waiting to ruin your picnic in the park. Add to that the meteorological Picassos, forever painting the forecast in volcanic hues—the wet dream of postmodern apocalypse fetishists. A personal confession: I got rid of my TV a long time ago. But thanks to X and a few media platforms, I still keep up with the hysteria. Turns out, ditching the screen was one of my best decisions—an effective way to dodge the shrapnel of degenerate manipulators and profiteers feeding off the widespread intellectual rot. And yet, I can hardly believe that half the population still hasn’t built up immunity to this madness. The zeal with which they attempt to guilt us—as consumers and producers—for warm temperatures, dressed up in ridiculous climate jargon, reveals one thing: they know we’ve entered the final stage, the injury time of their dream—an all-encompassing control regime built around CO₂ emissions and climate regulation. But the final, decisive goal will be scored by the rational ones. The enlightened. The people who live ethically, who genuinely care about nature, yet clearly see that the climate panic is nothing but a narrative gateway into totalitarian control. When that goal hits the net, the parasites won’t be able to handle the celebration. #eu #climatescam #freedom

A quick final thought on the NATO summit. Does anyone here in Europe really believe that Donald Trump is stupid enough to fall for this ridiculous shitshow? Does anyone really believe that even one country is able to divert 5% of its GDP to defense spending while budgets are collapsing, the social crisis is worsening and the recession is deepening? The fact that these political figures have crawled around Trump only shows how urgently the Europeans, and the EU is almost identical to NATO, now need the Americans to keep their projects going (think of Project Ukraine). With the best will in the world, I can't imagine that Donald Trump would let these people get away with such a ridiculous announcement and such promises. But they are acting according to the familiar pattern and according to the motto: we'll get through the few years of Trump somehow. Then we'll install our people again. That won't work this time. #nato #trump #eu

Defiant and Unteachable: The ECB Is Trapped EU-Europeans are a peculiar bunch. Despite repeated failures with centralist economic planning, they cling stubbornly—like children to a bowl of candy—to their ambition of transferring the most vital sectors of the economy into the hands of Brussels’ bureaucratic caste. Unpopular industries like automotive, chemicals, or aviation are smashed with a regulatory sledgehammer. The heart of the economy—the energy sector—is placed under direct state guardianship. The so-called Green Deal, a Keynesian-style centrally planned substitute economy, is meant to replace traditional energy sources. The results are predictable: deindustrialization and a massive exodus of investment to non-European countries. Always involved in this process: the European Central Bank. It’s expected to grease the wheels of Brussels’ colossal subsidy machine with artificially cheap credit. The fact that the ECB, after its eighth rate cut in record time, has once again pushed its key interest rate down to 2%—deep into negative real territory—doesn’t trouble the central planners in the Frankfurt Tower. ECB board member Joachim Nagel even claimed today that the “neutral rate” had been reached. In a sense, he’s right: after years of zero interest policy, the Eurozone economy has grown so dependent on cheap credit—sometimes outright subsidies—that it can no longer function or service its debt under conditions of real positive interest rates. That’s what economists call a “zombie economy.” The wave of bankruptcies, such as the recent collapse of battery cell manufacturer Northvolt, is the logical outcome of centrally planned industrial policy. Worse still for the central planners in Frankfurt and Brussels: their transatlantic counterpart, the Federal Reserve, is proving far more determined and resilient. It continues to hold its rates at 4.5%, embracing a real positive return on capital to allow market corrections to unfold. In the U.S., short-term pain is seen as the price of long-term health. Europe, by contrast, has grown addicted to its subsidy habit. It is ensnared in a hyper-statist welfare model, doing everything it can to defer both economic and social pain. How long that can go on is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain: tensions are rising across the markets. The day is drawing near when these pressures will erupt in a seismic shock—and the tectonic plates of the economy will violently shift into a new configuration.

Please, people, don't buy real estate with debt in Europe. It's a capital grave. #btc #demographics #realestate

Oil Price in a Tailspin – And With It, the Global Economy? Neither trade wars, nor threats to blockade global shipping bottlenecks, nor even hot wars seem capable of jolting oil prices out of their catatonic slumber. Forget “Drill, baby, drill” – U.S. shale needs higher prices to justify capital expenditure. Yes, the twelve-day conflict between Israel and Iran briefly pushed prices up by as much as 15%, but the rally quickly fizzled. Brent now wobbles well below the $67 per barrel mark. Dead calm, little motion. In the U.S., the rig count has dropped to just 432 – the lowest level since autumn 2021 and down 11% from last year. The message is loud and clear: prices are too low. Meanwhile, OPEC+ has announced an output increase and delivers now 411,000 barrels per day. At the same time, U.S. producers are shutting down rigs because prices no longer cover costs. So what’s keeping prices this low? A sluggish global economy? A flood of supply? Derivatives speculation? Likely a mix of all three. But one thing is certain: the weakening world economy, shrinking trade flows between the U.S. and China amid tariff tensions, and declining maritime traffic are increasingly mirrored in oil markets. The price tells the story. #oil #usa #opec

The latest escalations on a geopolitical level should now make the last person realize the importance of #Bitcoin. Those who are spatially immobile will see it as a last chance to save themselves economically. BTC is an expression of maximum individual sovereignty.

Canada Retreats on Digital Tax—Trump’s Tariff Whip Hits Its Mark That was fast. Just days after announcing a punitive digital tax aimed squarely at U.S. tech giants—and being promptly met with a tariff whip from Donald Trump—Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has tucked tail and pulled the plan. What we’re witnessing in Ottawa resembles the chaos in Brussels: a globalist outpost in full panic mode, lurching without strategy, caught off guard by geopolitical gravity. These erratic moves betray the same confusion spreading across the Western managerial class: they have no idea how to respond to America’s looming reshuffle of global trade. And more than that—they still don’t know what to do with the unruly figure of Donald Trump. His tariffs are real. As real as the quiet protectionism long practiced by the EU and Canada. Suddenly, the world isn't operating according to the neat prescriptions of the Eurocrat’s socialist playbook, where Brussels reigns without dissent. Still, nothing changes in Europe. Faced with the coming trade talks, the continent doesn’t budge an inch. Except for provocations—like Germany’s own Canada-style digital tax proposal targeting U.S. firms—there’s little but strategic inertia. Heads are buried in the sand. They’re running down the clock. Carney’s tax gambit was a second probe—a second attempt to goad Trump into a misstep. But Trump held the line. He knows exactly what he’s facing: a cartel of power that has never learned to lose. A bloc accustomed to issuing demands while giving no ground. The very hard nut Trump always said he would crack. Whether they like it or not, America is preparing to smash the protectionist cartel with sweeping tax reform, deregulation, and a fully national trade doctrine. And Trump will make sure realism returns to the world stage. He’ll expose the Europeans for what they are: protectionists dependent on trade and imported energy—still clinging to a postcolonial defiance, unwilling to accept that the world has turned. #usa #canada #eu #wef