Ekwu News

The West is in decline. I track the data, policy failures, and consequences

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

Europe’s “sustainable protein” dream just collapsed

To save the climate, the EU envisioned us eating insects.

After pouring millions in subsidies into that project, they realized that no one wants to eat ze bugs.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU-UK economic model increasingly resembles feudalism.

Higher tax progressivity reduces economic growth
and income significantly.

Coincidentally, the EU and the UK have:

- The highest tax progressivity among developed nations
- The highest energy costs
- The highest regulatory burden

This is not a growth model.
It’s an extraction model.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU transitioned away from fossil fuels to wood... and calls it progress.

- 50% of the EU’s “renewable” energy = burning wood
- 85% of “renewable heating” is based on wood

The EU has created an entire industry around logging forests.

- 9Mt of wood are shipped annually from the US to the EU
- The EU pays ~€16B per year in subsidies to burn this wood

The irony:

Burning wood releases more CO2 per unit of energy than coal, even before accounting for transportation.

The energy transition has nothing to do with CO2 or the environment.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The UK is leading... but in the wrong direction.

- Highest industrial electricity prices
- Highest borrowing costs in the developed world
- Fastest deindustrialization among developed economies

Great Britain once led the Industrial Revolution.
Today, it leads in dismantling its industrial base.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The West is a declining empire.

The safest countries in the world today are emerging markets.

Meanwhile, the West is falling behind:

- Crime rising
- Production leaving
- Costs exploding

You can’t lead the world if you can’t provide security
or build competitively.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The UK welfare system is broken.

Since 2021:

- No-work requirements have surged 4×
- They now represent ~70% of working-age welfare recipients
- Searching for work has plunged ~40%
- While employment levels have stayed flat

The UK is in perpetual decline.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

Europe’s decline is structural.

- Insolvencies are hitting decade highs across Western Europe.
- Electricity prices are the highest in the developed world.
- Regulation is heavier than anywhere else.

That combination doesn’t produce innovation or growth...
It produces capital flight and deindustrialization.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

High unemployment rates

- Spain: ~11%
- France: ~8%
- Italy: ~6%

When hiring is taxed this heavily,
jobs don’t disappear by accident.

They’re priced out.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The cost of employment in the EU is far higher than people realize.

For every €1 of net pay a worker takes home:

- France: employers pay ~€2.4
- Italy: ~€2.3
- Spain: ~€2.0

The logical conclusion are...

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU wants to turn private savings into investments... France shows how it’s done.

- More than 50M French citizens use Livret A savings accounts
- Interest is tax-free & was used to finance social housing... not anymore
- 40% of those funds (~€220B) are now expected to be used as collateral for defense spending

Retirees are in for a rough surprise.

Expect more creative ways for the EU to gain access to private savings.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

France is killing itself via deficit spending

- Germany: ~2.8%
- EU: ~3.1%
- UK: ~3.8%
- France: 5.8%

Of all countries, Greece, which triggered the last EU debt crisis, is the only country with a budget surplus.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

EU: YouTube to restrict fitness content

- Fitness videos will show up less often.
- “Ideal body” content gets deprioritized.
- Watching similar videos triggers limits.

In short, fitness is bad for teen mental health

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU threatening the US with sanctions over Greenland is ridiculous

- They import 16% of oil from the US
- 45% of gas

The EU committed economic suicide by denying Russian gas, thereby increasing its dependence on US LNG.

Now the EU is threatening the US.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

NetZero = zero economic progress

- After 2 decades of failed NetZero policies
- The highest industrial electricity prices
- The highest rate of deindustrialization

The Bank of England says the quiet part out loud:

NetZero is killing growth

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

Renewables don’t work without subsidies

A BP-backed wind farm is being abandoned due to missing taxpayer support.

Imagine an industry so profitable and superior that once you cancel the subsidies, the whole business case falls apart.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The jokes write themselves

UK taxpayers may have to fund an emergency plan in case aliens might trigger a financial crisis.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

Germany forced Lexus to turn off the parking heating in Lexus cars, just in time for the cold snap

- Over 100K vehicles are disabled
- 70% of new EVs and ICEs have remote control
- Not just restricted to heating, but almost all functions

For example, if the EU decided to fight Russia directly, people who are not keen to die in that war could be restricted from moving their cars.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The UK welfare system is broken.

Since 2021:

- No-work requirements have surged 4×
- They now represent ~70% of working-age welfare recipients
- Searching for work has plunged ~40%
- While employment levels have stayed flat

The UK is in perpetual decline.

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU can't win against Russia

The EU and UK are confidently about fighting Russia
while deindustrializing their economies at a record pace.

Wars are won by those who:

- Control cheap, abundant energy
- Have access to raw materials
- Can scale military production quickly

The EU lacks all three.

Countries used to go to war to secure oil supplies:

Japan launched the attack on Pearl Harbor
after the US embargoed its oil supplies.

Today the EU is giving up its oil supplies voluntarily via the energy transition

But it pushes for war nonetheless

[Ekwu News @ImportantNewGuy]

The EU is regulating itself out of existence.

After decades, the ECB has acknowledged that internal trade barriers are more damaging than the unrealistically high tariffs imposed by Trump.

- 67% equivalent tariffs on goods
- 95% equivalent tariffs on services

The EU is simply a bad place to do business.