Patrick.om

Husband and dad, economist, with way too many interests to list

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

Everyone is talking about Mercedes' announcement to stop all investments in Germany and close some factories. Why the surprise? Germany has done everything humanly possible to destroy its industry. Look at the list of mayor layoff announcements:

- Volkswagen 100,000
- Thyssenkrupp Steel 11,000
- Bosch 13,000
- Schaeffler 8,160
- Porsche 9,000
- BMW 8,000
- DHL / Deutsche Post 8,000
- Audi 7,500
- ZF Friedrichshafen 7,600
- Commerzbank 6,900
- Siemens 5,600
- Daimler Truck 5,000
- Lufthansa 4,000
- SAP 3,500
- Evonik 3,200
- Vodafone 2,300
- MAN 2,300
- Zalando 2,700
- Voith 2,500
- O2 Telefónica 1,100

These are only the large companies, each job cut there costs up to five more at suppliers. Germany buys some time to mask the industrial collapse with more debt and higher government spending. A country of government workers and welfare recipients will not recover to its former strength though. Most Germans do not yet understand what is coming. Prosperity is not given forever, bad left-green choices and policies have consequences.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where Fitch has reaffirmed the AAA rating w/a stable outlook, even as it sees debt topping 70% of GDP by 2029, vs ~40% for AAA peers. Markets still prize German safety: 5y default insurance costs just 12.7bps, vs 88.5bps for France; ~7 times as much. Germany’s growth model is struggling. Its credit standing is holding up.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where trade w/China has hit another grim record: a €114bn deficit in the 12 months through Sep. Some relief comes from the US: Germany’s trade surplus has rebounded to €51bn, partly offsetting the China shortfall.

[Dominic D'Agostino @DominicDAgosti2]

I've worn CGMs on and off for years. Few tools are more insightful for understanding how food affects glucose, arguably our most important metabolic biomarker.
Fascinating new @Levels preprint analyzing 62,000+ adults. Key takeaways:
-Normal A1c can miss early insulin resistance. Elevated fasting insulin was ~2× as common with average glucose ≥110 mg/dL.
-Average glucose tracks metabolic health better than A1c alone.
-Just ~7 days of CGM provides a useful baseline.
-Spike duration matters more than peak.
-Test foods repeatedly (~5x) before drawing conclusions.
Promising evidence for CGM's role in preventive health, not just diabetes management.
Great work @paul_ginart and @michaelloesche!

[Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX]

Hi. Meteorologist here.

Can you please show me the increase in heatwaves on this chart? Looks to me that they're down since 1895.

[Damien ERNST @DamienERNST1]

Crazy prices. We have a problem.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where another Dunkelflaute is sending power prices soaring. Day-ahead electricity has hit €345.64/MWh, the highest since Dec 2024, w/some evening quarter-hours >€600/MWh. As wind & solar output slumps, peak gas-fired generation is the highest since Jan. Expensive gas is filling renewable gap. https://t.co/mkmqs3kkrm

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

"I support genocide. I oppose Palestine Action"

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

ECB holds rates steady at 2.50%, setting the stage for a possible final hike in December. The dovish message: little evidence that the energy shock is feeding into wages or underlying inflation, while rising bond yields are already doing some of the ECB’s tightening. Bloomberg Economics expects one last hike, then a stop. Meanwhile, the balance sheet has shrunk to €5.93tn.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where business optimism is rising faster than reality. Ifo expectations improved for a 6th straight month to 91.6 (vs 90.0 expected), but current conditions worsened to 88.8. The headline index edged up to 90.2, still well below its long-term average. The "hope gap" widened to 2.8 points from 0.9 in Sep. Germany’s recovery looks brighter in corp forecasts than on the factory floor.

[Benjamin Bikman @BenBikmanPhD]

Muscle is lost far faster than it's built, and age makes the gap worse. When healthy older adults spent just 10 days in bed, they lost about a kilogram of lean tissue from their legs, which is more than younger adults lose in a month of bed rest. Muscle is where most of the glucose that insulin clears from the blood ends up, and that's why a short illness or hospital stay can leave an older person both weaker and more insulin resistant.

[Benjamin Bikman @BenBikmanPhD]

The idea that heart disease is simply a cholesterol problem has never fit the data well. In a registry of more than 136,000 hospitalizations for coronary disease, nearly half of patients had an LDL under 100 mg/dL on admission. This new NIH work points to the artery wall and the immune cells inside it, and that's where insulin matters, because chronically high insulin and glucose damage the vessel lining and drive inflammation. LDL is one number, but a person's insulin is the one I'd want to know first.

[Lukas Ekwueme @ekwufinance]

Germany keeps winning...

- Unemployment is surging
- Energy prices are surging
- Inflation is surging
- Deindustrialization is accelerating
- Social cohesion is falling apart

Meanwhile, Germany is preparing for a war with Russia that it cannot hope to win, and hardly anyone in Germany is willing to fight.

How many more ingredients do you need before social unrest turns into political violence?

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where the primary deficit (deficit before interest payments) is among the Eurozone’s largest: The OECD projects 3.1% for 2027, a stark reversal from pre-pandemic surpluses as the budget is deep in the red. That helps explain why JPMorgan puts the fiscal adjustment needed to stabilise Germany’s debt ratio at 3.4% of GDP, vs just 1% for Italy. BUT: France faces an even bigger adjustment: 4.9% of GDP to put debt on a sustainable path.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where the govt is hosting its first investment summit in Berlin, taking a page from France’s “Choose France” playbook. Since end-2019, real capital investment has FALLEN 6.9%, while govt consumption has RISEN 15.2%. GDP is up just 1.9% over the same period, through Q2 2026. More state consumption, less investment in future growth. Quite a backdrop for “Invest in Germany.”

[Dr Shawn Baker 🥩 @SBakerMD]

Maggie the Rancher just flexed on every diet guru telling you meat will kill you.
At 85 years old, Maggie White is still working 14-hour days on her Alberta cattle ranch — often in sub-zero temperatures — and she looks like she could outwork half the people half her age. She’s been a lifelong carnivore for more than 65 years. Meat and water. That’s it. No kale. No seed oils. No “balanced plate” lectures from people who’ve never castrated a bull in a blizzard.

Born in 1941, she left veterinary school, moved west, and built a life raising cattle. While the rest of the world was being told red meat causes heart disease and aging, Maggie just kept eating the food that made sense to her body and kept working the land. She still runs her herd, still does the physical work, and still looks decades younger than her actual age. When most people her age are managing pill organizers, she’s managing cattle.

This isn’t theory. This is a woman who dropped the modern food guidelines before most of them existed and never looked back. Hard physical work + ancestral food = function that refuses to quit. She doesn’t need a study to tell her what she can already feel in her arms, her joints, and her ability to still get the job done every single day.
The same institutions that spent decades warning us away from meat now have to explain people like Maggie. The ones who ignored the advice, ate the animals they raised, and stayed strong while everyone else got softer, sicker, and more medicated. Ranchers like her have been living the experiment the rest of us are only now catching up to.

Maggie doesn’t flex for likes. She flexes because the work still needs doing and her body still answers the call. That’s the real flex — not looking young for your age, but remaining capable of the life you actually want to live.
Eat the meat. Do the work. Stay dangerous. 🥩

[Patrick.om @PatrickVB0001]

@heimbergecon Belgium is running a massive STRUCTURAL fiscal DEFICIT, indicating a structural expansionary fiscal policy. This graph is completely mixed up !

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where industrial production unexpectedly rose 2% MoM in Aug, largely thx to a construction surge. Manufacturing gained just 0.6%, held back by carmakers’ summer shutdowns and weaker chemicals output. Full order books and public infrastructure spending offer hope. But the bigger picture: output is still ~8% below its 2021 avg. Stabilisation, w/a long road to recovery.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

The Euro fell to its weakest level since May 2025 as reports that Spanish govt officials are preparing for an early election added to investor concerns over political and fiscal risks across the region. https://t.co/SwCHrX2CcF

[Adrian Soto-Mota @AdrianSotoMota]

‼️⚠️NEW PAPER⚠️‼️ @AJPCardo:
https://t.co/uDCO4Gagw8

1-year of telehealth care centered on a ketogenic diet (with liberal saturated fat intake), in 90 adults with ⬆️BMI.

LDL-C didn't change & 10-year CVDrisk ⬇️ 28%.

TLDR?
Real🌎 data showing a keto diet ⬇️CVDrisk over 1 year