Arbiter

BREAKING 🚨: U.S. Debt U.S. Debt now exceeds 100% of GDP for the first time since World War 2 🤯👀

Afghanistan’s education minister has announced that women are permanently banned from schools. UN Women has not said a word.

The most underrated economy in the Western world right now is Sweden. I’m not being patriotic, I’m looking at the numbers. GDP growth forecast for 2026: 2.7%. That’s ahead of the US, the entire Euro area, UK, France, and Germany. Not by a little. Government debt at 34.8% of GDP. The Euro area sits at 88.5%. The US is at 125%. We have fiscal room that most Western governments would kill for. Budget deficit at -2.4%, the tightest in the peer group. France and the UK are running -5.5%. The US is at -7%. And Sweden’s deficit is partly Spring Budget expansion from a low-debt base, not structural weakness. Inflation at 1.6%, below the Riksbank’s 2% target. Core ex-energy is around 1.1%. The Riksbank is paused at 1.75%, one of the lowest policy rates in the developed world. I know the political conversation in Sweden often feels like everything is broken. Some things genuinely are. And part of it is that media has a Sweden story it likes (crime gang rape!!!) and this doesn’t fit it. But the macroeconomic position? It’s strong. Stronger than almost anyone in our peer group. The uncomfortable question is what we actually do with that position. Because fiscal space only matters if someone uses it. I would hit the gas, and let Sweden build and thrive.

Trump is a military moron.  His war, with a price tag of $44 billion and $4+ gas, made us worse off today than we were when he started it. And if he restarts this war we will be in even worse shape. We must pass our War Powers Resolution to end this war for good.