🇩🇪 Germany's Stuttgart 21 rail project just got pushed back to 2031, 2 years past the last revised target and a full 12 years late on its original 2019 opening.
The newest delay: over 1,000 km of cables laid wrong, most of which now have to be ripped out and replaced.
Costs have ballooned from €4.5 billion to €11.3 billion, all of which Deutsche Bahn has to eat alone.
This is the country that used to set the European standard for efficiency. Now it's Stuttgart 21 and the Berlin airport that took 14 years to open.
Source: Welt / Writer: Julie
For the first time ever, the U.S. is spending more on interest payments ($1.23T) than on national defense ($1.16T).
The cost of past debt now exceeds the cost of protecting the nation.
The bill for decades of borrowing has come due.
Good Morning from Germany, which is increasingly turning into a state-driven economy.
A new chart from the Ifo Institute shows that since 2015 only govt consumption has grown (now 25% above 2015 level), while private-sector investment has fallen back to the levels of a decade ago.
It’s a worrying shift in the structure of the economy; one that points to even weaker growth in the long run. (Chart via @ThePioneerDe)
Germany is the only major country with no growth this decade. They urgently need structural reforms and deregulation, yet the lefts in the government just scream for more taxes and debt.
With the lefts in coalition German decline will continue. Is there any hope for change?
Even three and a half decades after German reunification one can still see the deep damage caused by socialism. Apart from Berlin with its start-up scene former East Germany is basically still an economic desert. If the Germans were not able to make socialism work, who will?
Heute ist Steuerzahlergedenktag. Deutschland ist Steuer- und Abgabenvizeweltmeister nach Belgien. Belgier haben aber viel mehr Vermögen pro Kopf als wir. Repost, wenn Steuern endlich sinken sollten. #Steuern#Finx
🇩🇪 Germany shut down nuclear.
🇫🇷 France kept nuclear.
Now:
🇩🇪 Germany buys nuclear from France.
🇫🇷 France has some of the lowest emissions in Europe.
🇫🇷 FRANCE: 38g CO₂/kWh 🟢
🇩🇪 GERMANY: 411g CO₂/kWh 🔴
Nuclear isn't the problem.
Bad energy policy is.
Could it be that the world is not only de-globalizing but also de-dollarizing? Is a new secular regime emerging, in which the dollar ceases to be the dominant reserve currency? We used to have the gold standard, and that was followed by the Bretton Woods regime, in which the dollar was tied to gold and other currencies were pegged to the dollar. When that ended, we got the “Bretton Woods II” era, in which the US sent their dollars abroad (to buy oil and consumer goods), which were then recycled into our Treasuries, equities, companies, and real estate.
Are we transitioning to another regime, in which Bretton Woods II is replaced by a more insular world where regional trading blocs replace the labor-arbitraged globalized system of the past few decades? That does seem to be part of the Administration’s goal, so perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss it too quickly. It would explain the price action in not only the dollar but also gold and even the Mag 7.
These are existential questions that could affect our investment approach for years to come. I will try to peel this onion next week.