Global Analysis from the European Perspective. Preparing for the world of tomorrow




Gefira #48 Western Europe to become a Third World subcontinent

Illegal immigration into Europe continues #alwaysandeverywhere

A chi apparterrà la Germania del futuro?

Il crollo demografico dell’Italia; Dal 2080 gli Italiani saranno una minoranza nel proprio paese

Spiritual fornication

Jesus Christ was officially enthroned in Rome at the time when the Empire was on its slippery road to disintegration. The United States of America, today’s Rome, braces itself for the enthronement of Waheguru, a Sikh God. Sapienti sat.

This is not a one-time event in the Western world. What we are witnessing is a psychological change of epic dimensions. Ancient Rome was the superpower of the then world, at least the world around the Mediterranean, the world encompassing most of Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. The area controlled by Rome covered in today’s political and administrative terms: (in Europe) England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, all former Yugoslav republics, Romania, Greece, (in Northern Africa) Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, (in Asia) Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, the Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. A formidable empire.

It was an empire because it was aggressive. It was an empire because it was technologically and economically advanced. It was an empire because it believed in its mission and its exceptionalism – because it believed Romans were the chosen people – and last but not least because Romans believed in their history, in their heroes and in their gods. There were no real rivals to Rome’s power. Germanic or Slavic tribes? Iranian or Persian monarchs? Greek philosophers? Phoenician or Carthaginian merchants? They were all subjugated, vanquished or turned into servile clients of the Roman state, whether Rome was a republic or an empire.

We all know that this Rome, this empire, this superpower, this magnificent culture, efficient military machine, productive economy, functional administration, advanced technology, awe-inspiring arts and literature, all of this slowly but surely went under. Why? Rome was subverted from the inside: Rome’s power was successfully challenged by a small and alien religious sect that refused to bow to Rome’s gods and patiently and stubbornly imposed on Rome its own faith. These were – yes, you are right – Christians. The mechanism of change was simple: on the one hand Romans were losing their faith, their faith in their gods and their faith in their exceptional mission, while on the other Christians – very few at inception – clung to their faith firmly, ready to pay with their own life for it, and eager to proclaiming it whenever and wherever they could. It was a gradual religious – ideological – spiritual (take your pick) – psychological takeover. Rome collapsed because Romans stopped being Romans. Yes, there are a number of explanations why Rome fell, with economic factors usually coming to the fore, but economy is really second to the collective psyche: economy collapses when there is no spirit of entrepreneurship, when there is no work ethic, when pleasure seeking supplants the call of duty, where hedonism destroys the family. As a result, oikophobia, a psychological reversal of xenophobia, kicks in. Oikophobia means self-loathing. As such, oikophobia entails the denunciation of age-old values and an embrace of foreign cultures, with the most alien being regarded as the most attractive, as the most desirable.

The same is happening to today’s Rome, to the United States of America. The country was founded by white Christians and it continued as such for roughly two centuries. The whites were for the large part of Germanic origin (the English and Germans) while the Christians were of Protestant persuasion. It was a country of proud WASPs – White Anglo-Saxon Protestants – who excluded from among themselves Catholics (even though they were white) not to mention Blacks or Indians, Chinese or Jews, whose tiny communities made their way into the United States. The famous Ku Klux Klan was all about preserving the WASP culture, the WASP identity, the WASP exceptionalism and mission. The Irish, the Italians, the Poles as papists were looked down on although they were naturalized; Indians did not have American citizenship till 1924, while Blacks did not enjoy equal rights well into the 1960s. All this was about to change, just like in ancient Rome. There appeared factors, there emerged forces that gnawed at the the roots of American WASP identity. They gnawed at the roots and proved to be eventually successful. Americans began to lose their faith in their exceptionalism, in their mission, in their superiority, eventually and above all – in their God, in their Christian God. Other faiths have wormed their way onto American soil and have become to make inroads into American culture, subverting the dominant role of Christianity. Along the lines of the Overton window, Christian values were gradually eroded, ridiculed, relativized to eventually become void of their meaning. The change has swept across the board and engulfed even the Republican Party, which is viewed as right-wing, as the one that upholds traditional values. This party is a good example of the profound psychological change that is taking place inside the American nation.

Donald Trump claims to be a Christian, a protestant Christian. His third (and current wife) Melania (of Slovenian descent) was baptized a Catholic. So far so good. Yet, Donald Trump’s daughter married a Jew and converted to Judaism with the full approval of her father. She describes the conversion as the most exciting and beautiful adventure of her life. That’s how much Donald Trump and his family care about their Christian faith.

Donald Trump has selected his future vice president – J D Vance. What do we know about him in terms of his beliefs? We know that a few years earlier J D Vance converted to Catholicism, the faith old-time WASPs would have frowned upon to say the least. Still, it is a faith of the white man, still it is Christian, still it is a specifically European creed. So much, so good. J D Vance, however, has a Hindu wife, Usha Chilukuri. Their wedding ceremony included Christian and Hindu rites.

The encroachment of Hinduism on American culture does not stop here. Former (and maybe future) President Donald Trump and J D Vance have been attending political rallies in the run-up to the November 5, 2024 presidential election, and these rallies are enriched with… a Sikh blessing delivered by a republican politician, Harmeet Dhillon, who using such opportunities invokes Waheguru – Wonderful God (in Sikhism) – with all the (at least nominally Christian) WASPs obediently listening and letting the alien enchantments sink in. Such a ceremony wouldn’t have taken place in a genuinely Christian Europe a few centuries back when people were burnt at the stake for much less. Today…

Harmet Dhillon (above) invokes a foreign god while Americans (below)

fornicate with him the way ancient Israelites sometimes did 

Today a Muslim is mayor of London and of many other cities in the Western world (are there Christian mayors in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or Turkey, or, or, or?) while for a couple of years we’ve had a Hindu Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You need only to answer the question if such things were thinkable even fifty years back.

Today the Catholic Pope willingly embraces foreign gods, be it at a ceremony in Canada, where underwent a religious rite conducted by an Indian shaman, or straight in the Vatican Gardens or in Saint Peter’s Basilica, where the Pope worshipped an Amazon goddess. A shocking sight to all preceding Christians, with barely anybody from among though faithful raising their eyebrows nowadays. Yet, Jorge Bergoglio only walks in the footsteps of the lay and mostly atheist Europeans who – like it happened in Davos – willingly embraced foreign spirits enthused into them by an Indian female shaman.

Psychology decides everything. Religion is a manifestation of collective psychology. Ideology is a manifestation of collective psychology. The Soviet Union fell not because it was conquered nor even because its economy was – as it is said – ineffective. Cuban or North Korean economies are said to be even worse and the two small countries are still alive and kicking. The Soviet Union – an atomic superpower and the state that was a successful rival of America in outer space – fell because its communist elites stopped believing in communism. So long as they believed in it – rightly or wrongly, it does not matter – that long they were self-assured and bellicose. They did not tolerate any other ideology on their turf – be it capitalism or Christianity. Why? Because they believed in the righteousness of communism and the backwardness and harmfulness of any other ideology. Christians did the same when they were (dominant) Christians: they did not tolerate any other religion on their turf. Tolerance was not practised. When did tolerance begin to be practised? Ah, yes, at the moment when Christians began doubting the righteousnesses and the exclusiveness and the exceptionalism of their faith. Once they let themselves be told that all faiths are more or less equally valid, they began a slippery slope of towards the end of their existence. It did not happen overnight, of course. Just as Rome was not built in a day, so Rome was not annihilated in a day. Christianity, communism – take whatever collective psyche you please – takes time to rot. But once the process sets in, it is unstoppable and leads straight to a total collapse.

Consider the parallels: ancient Roman temples were turned into churches, today’s Christian churches across Europe are being turned into mosques; erstwhile communists turned to capitalists. Five hundred years ago Columbus went on a journey to explore the unknown world on a ship that was named Santa Maria; when nominally Christian America was sending man to the moon, the spacecraft bore the name of the pagan god Apollo. Icons of the change in the collective psyche.

Think back to history and remember the role of women in the change of the collective psyche. Not the feminists of all shades. These are making coffins for their own civilization. Think about all those Hindu and Jewish and Muslim wives of white, nominally Christian men. It is through women, through wives and mothers – not husband-less and mostly childless feminists – that civilizations change, that the collective psyche undergoes a change, that children and grandchildren are raised in a different cultural code. Who was it in the Roman Empire that brought about the change? Empress Helen, Saint Helen, mother to Emperor Constantine. She first became Christian, her son followed suit. Remember Princess Olga, Saint Olga of ancient Rus’? She first let herself be baptized; though her son remained pagan, her grandson – Vladimir – accepted Christianity and along with him the whole of Rus’. It was because of that that he went down in history as Vladimir the Great. The same story repeated itself across many European nations. Wives, mothers, grandmothers induced the collective psychological change of epic dimensions.

Watch the video coverage showing the rallies during the time when the participants receive the “blessing” from Waheguru. Let us reiterate it: for the most part the participants are Christians, yet they accept another god’s blessing, they – as the Bible puts it in the strongest of terms – fornicate with another god, they transgress the very first commandment: Thou shalt not have other gods before me. You may be an atheist or religiously indifferent and yet what is stated above is not a religious statement. It is a statement of life. You either stick to a creed – conviction – identity – or else you drift freely to be tossed about by troubled waters or be suppressed by those who firmly stick to their creed – conviction – or identity. Donald Trump, J D Vance, Jorge Bergoglio, the participants of the World Economic Forum and all their followers have surrendered their identity, their uniqueness to foreign gods, hence they are all as good as conquered, subjugated, obliterated.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is an observant Muslim, Great Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer is neither an observant Christian, nor a Christian in any sense of the word. His wife, however, and mother of his children (remember the role of wives and mothers) is religiously Jewish. The crosses of St George (England), St Andrew (Scotland), and St Patrick (Ireland) that make up the Union Jack, the national flag of the United Kingdom, are becoming or have already become empty symbols of the once Christian realm. The same can be said about the whole of the West. The West is undergoing a profound psychological change: its indigenous populations have lost the faith of their ancestors, its imported populations stick to the faith of their forefathers. Biological reality coupled with or compounded by the huge collective psychological change will inevitably entail the final and irreversible collapse of the civilization of the white man. White feminists are hellbent on hammering the final nail in the coffin of their own world. Their very few daughters (few, because feminists refuse to multiply) will be forced to fornicate with dominant males of different faiths and different biology. The feminists numerous granddaughters (numerous, because dominant non-white males are going to have a lot of offspring) will barely resemble their feminist grandmothers. That’s what fornication with foreign gods translates into in practical terms. Let us say it again: it is not a religious statement when you warn a nation not to have other gods before the one that is theirs.

The Chosen People had their God and that God dictated to them as the first commandment: do not fornicate with other gods. Every time they fornicated with other gods, they were severely punished. Scripture says that God punished the Chosen People. You do not need to be a believer: they were punished by themselves once they cut themselves off from their roots. That’s a provable psychological and historical phenomenon. It applies to all nations. You either drive on the left or the right side of the road. No diversity of rules is admissible because it is not feasible without causing a tremendous catastrophe. Allowing for having two gods is but a transition period before the old God is removed altogether and the new one is enthroned. It has never been otherwise, it will never be otherwise. Is America going to be Made Great Again with the help of Waheguru? Please…

Nobel Peace Prize for Viktor Orbán

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has recently made a peace trip to Kiev and Moscow. The West reacted with howls of outrage. How could he! One does not go to an incarnation of Hitler to talk about peace! One ought to induce Ukrainians, then Poles and Lithuanians along with Latvians and Estonians, to go to war with Russia so that the West can benefit from it! Viktor Orbán is no fool, however. He is a sovereign leader, a rarity in the Western world. Of sovereign leaders in the whole of the European continent there are but four: Vladimir Putin, Alexandr Lukashenko – but these are outside the Western world – and Robert Fico along with Viktor Orbán, who run two very small countries of the Western club. All the rest are stooges of Brussels, which in turn is Washington’s stooge.

In a normal world – and we hope in the not so distant future to have back a normal world – someone like Viktor Orbán might be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In recent days he did what ought to have been done long ago: he visited the warring parties, he listened to their arguments, and tried to act as a go-between. Those who run the European Union are mad at him because they – with their mouths full of humanitarian values – are goading Ukrainians to lose their lives, limbs and property in order to spite Putin and in order that the Ukrainian possessions of BlackRock and other companies might be preserved. Yet, Viktor Orbán, true humanist and political realist, followed the dictates of his mind and conscience, and did what is right: he tried to bring peace. That step raised howls from the EU gang. The EU commissioners know it better.

What a paradox! The EU commissioners just cannot shut down the European borders in order not to let in millions of immigrants because their hearts bleed at the sight or just rumour of the alleged immigrants’ plight in their countries of origin, but they can indifferently receive news of tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed and maimed, and they just don’t care two hoots about the evident suffering of millions. That’s humanitarianism made by the European Union, a political circus necessarily run partly by women who happen to be more belligerent than men (talk of the fair sex’s human instincts that are supposedly trumping men’s).

Viktor Orbán, as already said, is his own man. He is no one’s lackey and he has the courage to stand up to the liberal West. It was in April this year (2024) that Viktor Orbán delivered an opening speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference that took place in Budapest, Hungary. In this speech the Hungarian Prime Minister laid down all that he believes in. His words, if heard by the commissioners, would certainly have ruffled their feathers. Hungary remains – as Viktor Orbán says – a conservative island that has miraculously survived and defies the “liberal tide, Brussels thunderstorm, and the Washington hurricane.”

The liberal tide, the Brussels storm, the Washington hurricane, indeed! The Hungarian Prime minister remains highly critical of what is happening with the Western world. He believes that central and eastern Europeans having been vaccinated by communism are not going to fall prey to the madness that has the continent – especially its Western part and the United States – in its firm grip. Those who run the project named the European Union will stop at nothing, continues the Prime Minister, while common people feel threatened by ever new ideas being rolled out by Brussels. “Have we arrived at liberalism yet, or will things get even worse?” paraphrases the Hungarian Prime Minister a joke that he and his compatriots used to repeat when they lived under communist rule, a joke in which the word communism is now to be replaced by the word liberalism.

The Prime Minister’s speech reveals the five-step mechanism with which the Western world is governed and people are controlled. Step one: reformulate norms (or notions, or the meaning of words). Step two: spread the inverted norms (new normal) by state institutions. Step three: brand those who do not comply with the new norms or dare to stick to the old ones as security risk. Step four: use the media and the NGOs to pummel non-conformers with an avalanche of attacks, accusations, and inconveniences, all of which will eventually lead to step five: the state institutions will find themselves obliged to investigate the case of non-conformers. “This is what they do to Hungary in Brussels,” says Viktor Orbán, “and this is what they do to conservatives in progressive liberal European capitals.”

In the light of other parts of the same speech we can better understand what drove the Hungarian Prime Minister to have talks with Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin: Viktor Orbán does not subscribe to the viewpoint of the Western liberal elites, the elites that “divide the world into democracies and autocracies, and claim that their role is a crusade against autocracies.” The elites that will make war to export democracy. The result is that “this world order has produced leaders who are unfit to lead, who are not up to the task, who make mistake after mistake, and who are ultimately racing towards their own doom. They say that there must be a hegemon, an ideological ascendancy, under whom and under which everyone must fall in line. And if this happens, they say, then peace will arrive at home and peace will arrive in the world.” What an apt analysis!

Viktor Orbán believes in the future of a different world, a world “in which the state protects its citizens; one in which migration is not organized, but borders are defended; one in which founding a family is highly prized, and the family is protected as an important institution of the nation […] a sovereigntist world […] free of ideology.” This new world must come and will come because the alternative – liberal hegemony – is nightmarish, because “liberal hegemony has made the world a worse place. It has created war where there could have been peace. It has brought chaos where there was order. It has tried to break up our countries and our families, and to wipe our nations off the face of the earth.” Sadly, continues Viktor Orbán, “the disciples of that old world are still sitting in Brussels.”

As of now it appears that his is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Yet, who can tell? Was there anyone in 1988 who knew that in three years there would be no Soviet Union?

Babies pierced with pitchforks

There was a time when Poland was officially an ally of the communist Soviet Union. There was a time when Polish communists with the help of their Soviet comrades took over Poland and established themselves as rulers of the country. The Polish nation throughout its history had barely had Russians – irrespective of whether they were white or red – in high esteem. The Polish nation certainly despised the red variety of Russians even more intensely as the latter proved to be culturally rather not sophisticated. On top of this, Soviet Russians – or Bolsheviks – were busy suppressing some of the elements of Polish culture and they churned out primitive propaganda, one of the tenets of which was to convince the Polish nation that Russia, and especially Soviet Russia, had always been well disposed to the Polish people. True, there were individuals among the Polish nation who were ready to rise to the Soviet bait, and there were some who could be politically neutralized. Those who were prone to collaborate with the new masters thought that after the Second World War Poland had no choice and was doomed to stick to Moscow. Realpolitik. There was, however something, that was a thorn in the conscience of even ardent pro-Soviet Polish communists. This something was an event collectively known in Polish history as the Katyn Massacre. What was that?

When in 1939 Poland was attacked by Germany, by the German Third Reich, within two weeks of the beginning of the hostilities Poland’s eastern territories were invaded by the Soviet Union, which step by the way had been agreed with Germany in the run-up to the war. In autumn of 1939 the Polish territory ended up been occupied by Germany and Soviet Russia in a rough proportion of fifty-fifty. Both occupiers were hellbent on subduing the Polish nation and both saw it fit to first of all do away with the Polish elites: with teachers, doctors, priests, writers, engineers, military officers and the like. Both occupiers understood that a beheaded nation – the intellectuals were regarded as the nation’s head or mind – was much easier to control. They both – Germany and Russia – started to eliminate the intelligentsia in one way or another, with mass executions taking place on a regular basis.

After the war had come to its end, the German crimes were systematically exposed and condemned: Germany was a defeated nation, and there were many trials of German administrators or officers responsible for war crimes, not only in Poland but anywhere in Europe. Though guilty Germans were tried for their reprehensible deeds, the guilty Soviets were not. Why? That’s simple. After Germany had attacked the USSR, Soviet Russia became Poland’s (and the West’s) greatest ally and as such its image could not be dragged through the mire in the eyes of the Polish nation by exposing Russia’s exterminating operations executed against Poles. Yet, the Poles knew that Russians had been as cruel in their dealings with the Polish nation as Germans had, carrying out deportations, imprisonments and mass executions of not only the Polish intelligentsia but vast swathes of other social classes. The Katyn Forest (in the neighbourhood of Smolensk) – just one of the many places where such mass executions were performed – became an icon in the collective memory of the Polish nation. After 1945 every Pole in Poland could openly condemn the Germans for what they had done during the war, none could say anything against the Soviet Union. The nation was forced to live in a kind of schizophrenia: though both Germans and Soviets were the nation’s henchmen, the latter were to be viewed as friends and allies: as morally impeccable friends and allies. No mention of the Katyn Massacre found its way into history textbooks, no discussion about it was allowed even among historians. The nation’s mouth was gagged.

Sure enough people knew the truth and the truth spread by word of mouth, not to be suppressed by anybody. The more it was officially denounced, the greater currency among the nation it enjoyed.

When in 1989 communism in Poland collapsed and the country opened up to the so-called Western freedom of speech, the literature – popular and scholarly – about the Katyn Massacre became suddenly available to anybody who cared to familiarize himself with it, and, of course, this historical fact found its way straight into school textbooks. Numerous monuments were erected and commemorative plaques placed on the walls of important buildings to make a point, to show that the nation remembered, and to pay homage to those who had been murdered.

Monument to the Katyn Massacre, Wrocław /VRATS-wahff/, south-western Poland.

Why are we giving account of this story? Because much has changed and it looks as if little has changed. Now, more than thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and seventy years after the end of the Second World War (more than seventy years since the Katyn Massacre) the same old story seems to repeat itself. Now Poland has found a new friend and ally in the east. Yes, this friend’s name is Ukraine. Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union, so naturally Ukrainians were also a part of the Soviet repressive system, but never mind that. Ukrainians could easily be exonerated as acting under the Russian yoke. The point is, however, that Ukrainians themselves executed yet another Katyn Massacre against Poles (or, to be precise, a long series of such massacres) quite independently of their being subordinated to the Soviets. When in 1941 the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, they relatively soon took possession of Ukraine, and being involved in the bloody conflict further to the east, they did not have either time or resources to fully control Ukraine. Ukrainians saw a chance for themselves in the fact that Soviet Russia was being defeated. Ukrainians seeking to have their own state, allied themselves with the Germans and began to lay corner stones for their statehood, starting with ethnic cleansing. They targeted Poles and performed more or less regular bloodbaths in the territories that had ethnically mixed populations as located between Poland proper and Ukraine proper. The year 1943 was especially cruel: it is 11 July of that year, when in Huta Pieniacka /HOO-tah pyen-YAHTZ-kah/ in Volhynia the bloodiest massacre took place, and it is this particular date that was selected as the remembrance day for the whole series of events that are collectively known as the Volhynia Massacre.

The Polish nation was, thus, ethnically cleansed twice: by the Soviets (of which the majority were Russians, but also Ukrainians and Jews) and by the Ukrainians. The two iconic names and dates are Katyn (1940) and Volhynia (1943), with both being just symbols of series of extermination operations. In the period between 1945 and 1989, when socialist Poland was an ally of the Soviet Union (which means of Russia and Ukraine, the two largest Soviet republics) the Katyn Massacres were officially recognized as a German or Western anti-Soviet propaganda, while the Volhynia massacres were recognized as such. Why? Whence this difference in attitude? Simply, the image of the Soviet Union, the communist paradise for all humanity, could not be stained, while that of Ukrainian nationalists could. You see, it was not the Ukrainian communists who murdered the poles: it was Ukrainian nationalists. As a result, in post-war Poland films were made and books published about Ukrainian cruelty, though all this was significantly limited, not to be impolite towards Ukrainian communist comrades. The Volhynia events only received full coverage in the media, the popular culture (movies, books) and the universities after 1989. The Western-like freedom of speech, you know. Do I sound sarcastic? Yes, because I mean to.

The moment Ukraine found itself at war with Russia, Ukraine became Poland’s most important and friendly ally. As such, Ukraine could not be reminded of its past and so the Polish authorities duly began to suppress or limit or discourage anything that might keep the memory of Ukrainian atrocities alive in the Polish mind. Such policy began even years before the eruption of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Warsaw’s political instincts have always been anti-Russian, which meant that the Polish authorities – by the way: of all political petty persuasions – naturally looked to Kiev as allies against Moscow. The memory of the Volhynia Massacre became as inconvenient to the non-communist Polish authorities as the memory of the Katyn Massacre was inconvenient to the communist Polish authorities. While – as mentioned above – a number of monuments were erected to commemorate Katyn after the period of socialist Poland, few have been put up to commemorate Volhynia, and even these few that have been put up received no or little government blessing. Isn’t it Orwellian!

It is on the initiative of a small local community that a monument to the Volhynia Massacre has been erected and is going to be unveiled this July in south-eastern Poland. Take a very close look at it, and bear in mind that he Polish baby on a Ukrainian pitchfork that you will see in the centre of the monument is no artistic figurative vision. You see, the Soviets, or Russians if you will, were much more humane at Katyn: they would shoot their victims at the back of the head. Ukrainians would thrust pitchforks into the bodies of their victims, they would crucify them and burn them alive; they would not refrain from cutting open pregnant women’s wombs. Russians made an apology for the Katyn Massacre, Ukrainians made none for the Volhynia Massacre, and still the former are Poland’s mortal enemies while the latter are Poland’s dear friends.

Fragment of the monument commemorating the Volhynia Massacre to be unveiled on 14 July 2024 in Domostaw, south-eastern Poland, on the local community’s initiative. Watch the two-minute video footage of the monument.

The Netherlands and Germany between inflation and recession

For public finances to be healthy, the economy must be sick

The fiscal conservatism of Germany and the Netherlands clearly limits the growth potential of both countries. The 45% of economists and think tanks active in the AIECE research network consider the current monetary policy in the eurozone to be too restrictive, while only 25% consider it to be correct. In particular, the respondents pointed to the governments of Germany and the Netherlands as those that are only insufficiently supporting their economies. The budget deficit of these two countries will amount to 1.6% of GDP this year for the former and 2% of GDP for the latter. By way of comparison, the figure for Italy is expected to be 4.4% and for France 5.3%. At the same time, many countries are struggling with much higher inflation than those between the Rhine and Oder, for example. It’s like between an anvil and a hammer: either you spend less money on stimulating businesses, leading to a slowdown in the economy and ultimately to recession in the country (Germany, Netherlands), or you increase public debt and the budget deficit through excessive spending, pumping money into the economy, which brings inflation with it (Italy, France).

In 2023, it paid off to pursue an expansionary fiscal policy that avoided a recession. In terms of GDP, higher government spending in Italy and France replaced falling demand, leading to positive growth rates. Countries that cooled their fiscal policy achieved lower growth rates and in some cases paid for this with a recession (see the Netherlands, where GDP fell by 0.3% year-on-year according to the latest figures). Denmark stands out from this pattern, as it achieved growth of almost 2% despite its restrictive fiscal policy. However, it is worth noting that economic growth was boosted by the huge success of Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of weight loss drugs. Without the pharmaceutical industry, GDP would probably only have grown slightly.

At the same time, it should be noted that the higher inflation in countries with a more expansive fiscal policy is due to the fact that government spending has had to react to cost shocks. For example, countries that are more susceptible to supply shocks due to a higher share of food and energy in the basket of goods have taken more comprehensive and longer-lasting shielding measures for ordinary consumers. However, the reversal of these measures is slow, which is also slowing down the disinflation process.

A new threat to inflation is the escalation of wage demands in the major EU economies. Figures from the European Central Bank (ECB) indicate that growth in collectively agreed wages was stable at just under 3% in the fourth quarter. At the same time, these figures are published with a considerable time lag and show a rather outdated picture that ignores the ongoing negotiations between employers and employees. A completely different picture emerges from the internet search data, where questions about pay rises are reaching historic highs in almost all major EU economies. For example, Dutch internet users are now twice as likely to search for terms relating to pay rises than in 2016-2019, i.e. before the pandemic. In such an environment, rapid disinflation is highly unlikely.

Quelle: Google Trends | Gehaltserhöhung = salary increase, Lohnerhöhung = wage increase, Loonsverhoging = wage increase, Salarisverhoging = salary increase, Augmenter = Increase, Aumento = increase

To summarize, the impact of fiscal policy in 2023 has proven to be quite intuitive and textbook, although it is worth noting that the consequences of some fiscal tools will also show up over a longer period than just a few quarters (e.g. investment, education spending, etc.). Countries that pursued expansionary fiscal policies had to accept higher inflation but managed to avoid recession, while governments that focused on central bank support had to accept recession/weaker growth but achieved lower inflation rates at the end of the year.

The political vacuum in France and the Netherlands

To what extent is Marine Le Pen a sincere right-wing, nationalist politician, and to what extent is she simply a conformist who, in her quest for power, step by step, is betraying her ideals? After all, she has long supported the programs of left-wing parties that promote gay marriage, she has begun to acknowledge the leading role of the EU, etc. She has long since abandoned or changed her most radical demands, including the demand for deportation of immigrants. And just because she is still associated with yesterday’s hard line, she promoted young Jordan Bardella; consequently, he became the new face of the National Rally/Rassemblement National movement and a candidate in the elections. The rift between their statements is immediately noticeable: when Le Pen advocates, for example, a reduction in military support for Ukraine, Bardella says that the country must not be overrun by Russia.

Betrayal of one’s own ideals comes at a high cost, as today’s events – July 08, 2024 – attest: the party of the left-turning Le Pen fared much worse than expected in the second round of elections. Bardelli’s new National Front will not come to power, but it may benefit in the long run, since the real goal is the presidency. Now the old/new Front will not be burdened with the cost of holding office and will be able to say for two years that its political opponents defied the will of the French people and “stole” the victory from the right.

What will the Rassemblement National do about the immigration problem if it ever really takes power? Perhaps it will limit itself to deporting foreign criminals (there are estimated to be tens of thousands of them), but it will never prohibit people with dual passports from holding important positions, for example, in diplomacy. That would require constitutional changes and a long march through the institutions, for which the party is far too weak. Polls among the French show that they favor limited migration in Europe and are rather negative about immigrants from outside the continent. Le Pen and her team could capitalize on this sentiment to finally stem the tide of immigration. The hope for such a future appears clearly distant today….

In France, as in the Netherlands, it is the left-liberal media that shapes minds, and these media do not tolerate any other views, and while they talk about tolerance, they prefer to stifle the entire right-wing scene, and – of course – its notorious leader. Gefira, too, has had problems publishing some of her texts in the Netherlands because of her honesty and views. The lying press, as the Germans call it, is a major obstacle in the path of the Rassemblement National to real power. People in France, the Netherlands and Germany blindly believe the media, which are believed to be of high quality, which thus function as leaders of the people. Sad, but true.

The situation in the Netherlands resembles that in France. Gert Wilders also had to find a replacement – someone to represent him in the government – and soften his views: otherwise there would have been no four-party coalition (PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB). The policy of the new government has been formulated a “manifesto” under the title “Hope, courage and pride.” Pathetic slogans like those of Macron. Mock change is the order of the day. Almost nothing is left of the right-wing ideals: the green revolution is still being promoted, taxes are being cut, labor rights are being strengthened, new housing is being built. Housing, of course, for new immigrants, whose influx is to be limited (which promise is this?). Gert Wilders no longer wants to separate the Netherlands from the EU; he just wants to “change the union from within.” That’s why he and his coalition will fail in the next elections, just like Le Pen, because in politics, only courage and consistency count. Those who do not understand this lose. The courage expressed in the manifesto of the new Dutch government is a lie. The new government will be as inept as Mark Rutte’s previous one. 14 years in power and what? What has been realized from the leftist ideals? Mr. Rutte, what do you say, for example, about the issue of women’s equality? The countries with the lowest percentage of women in leadership positions are Cyprus (21%), Luxembourg (22%) and… the Netherlands (26%). Period.

The US economy ahead of the elections

The biggest surprise on the financial markets this year is that inflation is continuing. While investors had hoped not long ago for 4 interest rate cuts by the Fed this year, there are now only 3, and with a significant delay. This underpins the thesis we have often expressed that central banks do not fully understand the dynamics of the current inflation. The indicators suggest that parts of the economy, such as real estate and the automotive sector, are struggling with high interest rates, while other sectors, such as the defense industry, the semiconductor industry, the AI industry and the manufacture of anti-obesity drugs, are experiencing a boom. So, after the pandemic, due to new IT technologies and the war in Ukraine, a two-speed economy has emerged, where monetary policy is more difficult, as supporting the weak parts of the economy can go hand in hand with persistent inflation, which is more costly for companies.

Investors try to glean from the Fed’s statements the level of future interest rates (i.e. how much the money – the loans – will cost businesses in the future). It is often the case that the worse the situation in the economy is, the higher share prices rise as investors hope that in response to weak economic data, the Fed will cut interest rates to stimulate the economy. Just yesterday (July 3, 2024) we had an example of this: the ISM index for the service sector collapsed and – excluding the Covid-19 pandemic – fell to its lowest level in almost 15 years. And Wall Street hit record highs in response.

So investors believe this two-speed economy will continue to work. Meanwhile, fiscal spending in the US is unsustainable in the long term and current government bond yields are increasing government spending related to debt, taking away funds for citizen welfare and infrastructure. The US government has to deal with the risk of an economic slowdown or risk letting inflation run high for longer. So the scenario is: whether Democrats or Republicans win, they will have to increase spending (read: inflation), which will cause the Fed to perhaps raise interest rates even higher.

Investors need to understand that the real killer for stocks is recession, not inflation. Yes, I know that the examples, such as the behavior of the stock markets in Turkey or Argentina, clearly show that high inflation need not be a particular problem for equities in the long term. But one day the moment will come: even large companies will not be able to generate higher profits in the face of expensive loans, high taxes and wages. On that day, it will no longer be worth putting money into shares. Even in the USA.

Upgrading of Russia’s economic outlook

“Russia’s economy will expand much more rapidly this year than previously expected (…) Gross domestic product is forecast to rise 2.6 per cent this year, more than double the pace the IMF predicted (…) The Russian upgrade, by 1.5 percentage points, is the largest for any economy featured in an update to the fund’s World Economic Outlook.” That’s what Financial Times has to say.

“Russia is expected to grow faster than all advanced economies this year,” announces CNBC and continues that “Russia is expected to grow 3.2% in 2024, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook published Tuesday, exceeding the forecast growth rates for the world’s advanced economies, including the U.S.” The growth forecasts for other countries are: the U.S. (2.7%), the U.K. (0.5%), Germany (0.2%) and France (0.7%), as we can read in the same source.

Also the BBC informs us that “Russia [is] to grow faster than all advanced economies” and refers its readers to an IMF report: 

Oops… So many sanctions (is it sixteen thousand by now?), so much anti-Russian propaganda, the freezing of Russian financial assets, and all for nothing! Yet, the collective West – its leaders – should have known better. When did ever sanctions had their expected effect? In recent history it was North Korea, Iran and Cuba to name just a few which were severely sanctioned for years and despite those efforts to break their leaders or populations they remain politically defiant. Drawing on examples from more remote history: Napoleon Bonaparte imposed a continental blockade of the British Isles and it, too, was to no avail. The whole continent against one isolated country and the country continued to scheme against Napoleonic France and eventually brought about Napoleon’s downfall.

Notice that it is the Western media and Western agencies that speak about flourishing Russian economy. No propaganda on the part of the Kremlin, you see. The West feels itself compelled to reveal such data, data that prove how ineffective the West’s sanctions are, data that undermine the West’s policies. What are they going to do now? Impose a further two or five thousand sanctions? But then I suppose they have run out of the items they can put on the sanction list… Besides, in the face of Russia’s developing close economic ties with most of the world – be it the BRICS group or otherwise – and in the face of Russia’s self-sufficiency in terms of resources and Russia’s growing autarky, any new sanctions will fail miserably. They will effect one thing, though: they will strengthen Russian resolve to defy the West and to rely on and develop self-sufficiency even more.

The Western leaders must really be uneducated. It was during World War Two that Americans and the British used to bomb German towns and cities on a more or less regular basis, razing them with the ground. The allies pinned their hopes on the calculation that the German people, the common people, being exposed to enormous suffering, would eventually lose faith in the victorious outcome of the war and would rebel against the authorities. As we know nothing remotely resembling a loss of morale or willingness to resist the allies occurred. Rather, quite the contrary was true. The people were united behind their leaders even if some of them did not hold those leaders in high esteem. Does anyone learn anything from the past? Does anyone study past events?

With all the natural resources in their territory, with a well-developed industry and millions of educated people, Russia can really develop an autarkic economy. If additionally the country can rely on the help from China, India, Iran, Brasilia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, then all the sanctions in the world are doomed. Why impose them then?

To save face. The Western world is in a position similar to that that the American Democratic Party finds itself in: once the party has rolled out Joe Biden, it feels compelled to stick to this candidate for president, even though it is clear that he is a sorry sight to see. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Relevance of century-old observations

“The Germans long before …14 sought to destroy the unity of the Russian tribe forged in hard struggle. For this purpose they supported and boosted in the south of Russia a movement that set itself the goal of separation of its nine provinces from Russia, under the name of Ukraine. The aspiration to tear away from Russia the Little Russian branch of the Russian people has not been abandoned to this day. XY and his companions, the former protégés of the Germans, who began the dismemberment of Russia, continue to carry out their evil deed of creating an independent “Ukrainian state” and fighting against the revival of the United Russia (Единая Россия).”

Sounds familiar? This remark was made more than a hundred years ago by General Anton Denikin, one of the four most recognizable leaders of the anti-Bolshevik Russia during the civil war of 1917-1921. The other three were Alexander Kolchak, Nikolai Yudenich and Pyotr Wrangel. General Anton Denikin fought for a few years in the south of the former Russian Empire against the Red Army, but after some initial successes, he was forced to leave his fatherland. It was at that time that the West was very much interested in disrupting Russia. The two revolutions – the first one, often referred to as the bourgeois revolution, took place in February and the second one, the Bolshevik revolution, took place in October 1917 – were sparked off with the support and blessing of the Western powers. The British had a hand in dethroning the tsar in February 1917, the Germans substantially supported the Bolshevik party in October 1917: the leaders of the coup d’état that was to take place in October were transported in a sealed train from Switzerland across Imperial Germany to Sweden, from where they made their way to Petrograd (that’s how in 1914 the German-sounding Saint-Petersburg was renamed after Russia began the hostilities against Germany). Americans, too, chipped in. While Vladimir Lenin enjoyed German protection, travelling across Germany, Leon Trotsky, having spent a couple of years in New York with his family and two sons, was financed to cross the Atlantic and be on time in Petrograd to disrupt the Russian state. It was not only the financial and political support that helped the revolutionaries of all persuasions to bring about the collapse of the empire: national or ethnic resentment was also exploited, with the Germans advancing the idea of a Ukrainian nation as separate from Russians.

There were a number of Ukrainian leaders at that time, with Symon Petliura being one of the most recognizable. He was backed by the Germans, he was later backed by the reborn Polish state. The Polish troops together with some of his Ukrainian units advanced towards Kiev and even occupied it for a week or two in 1920. Quite a Maidan, was it not, even if short-lived? These are the events that General Anton Denikin referred to in the text at the opening of this article. The full date the part of which we intentionally deleted was 1914, while the letters XY stand for no less a person than Symon Petliura.

In 2014 we saw a kind of historical repeat. The Western powers made themselves felt in Ukraine, but especially in Kiev, and caused the legitimate president to flee the country. Also, a crawling civil war commenced in the Donbass, while Russia in response to all these events reclaimed the Crimean Peninsula, all of which led to the war that broke out eight years later. Today Anton Denikin might write something like this:

“The collective West long before 2014 sought to destroy the unity of the Russian tribe forged in hard struggle. For this purpose they supported and boosted in the Ukraine a movement that set itself the goal of antagonizing Ukrainians and Russians. The aspiration to tear away from Russia the Little Russian branch of the Russian people has not been abandoned to this day. Volodymyr Zelensky, Yulia Tymoshenko, Leonid Kravchuk, Petro Poroshenko, Vitalii Klichko (you name them) and their companions, the protégés of the West, who began the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, continue to carry out their evil deed of creating an independent “Ukrainian state” and fighting against the revival of the United Russia (Единая Россия).”

by the way, the phrase United Russia (Единая Россия) that Anton Denikin employed overlaps one to one with the name of the “Putin” party, which holds power in this largest post-Soviet republic.

This time, too, it is the United States, Germany and Great Britain along with Poland that are busy playing Ukrainians off against Russians. This time, too, they have found present-day Petliuras ready to serve them. Today, too, war is being waged, and today, like yesterday, it looks like Ukraine is on the losing end. So it goes. Will we be witnesses to yet another historical repeat in… 2114/2124?

During World War Two, after the Germans had attacked the Soviet Union, they approached General Denikin, who lived at that time in France, with a proposal of backing the Third Reich against the Bolsheviks. Anton Denikin was very much opposed to the Bolshevik rule in Russia, which is putting it mildly. Yet, he did not for a moment think it right to ally himself with the enemies of Russia, even Red Russia. Anton Denikin flatly refused and warned those Russians – and especially Ukrainians – who were willing to serve the Third Reich against the Bolsheviks. Anton Denikin tried to convince them that they were going to be miserable tools at the hands of the Germans, to be discarded the moment they were not needed.

It is said that the civil war in the Soviet Union did not end in 1922 – when Denikin, Wrangel and Yudenich were forced out of Russia, while Kolchak was taken prisoner and put against the wall – because the civil war in the form of resentment and a deep division running through Soviet society festered. It only ended when the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany. It was only then that the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens of whatever political persuasion rallied around the Soviet leaders to defend Russia. Has not the same been happening since 2022 in Russia? Even those Russians who did not hold Vladimir Putin in high regard changed course and rallied around him. War and especially the resultant hardships were supposed to turn the people against the Kremlin: as it is, the opposite is true. Sure, there are some who have betrayed their country – there were some also during World War Two, like General Vlasov – but the majority have expressed their unwavering support for the leadership. Does anyone learn anything from the past? Does anyone study the past?

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