The Hill has obtained the invitation list for an exclusive White House gathering later today in the newly renovated Rose Garden. This event will follow a White House event on artificial intelligence hosted by First Lady Melania Trump.

Among those set to attend are Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world. The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the media outlet. 

President Trump hosting a dinner for the who’s who of tech CEO’s at in the newly renovated Rose Garden Thursday.

I took a photo of the Rose Garden after getting out of the Oval Office today for meeting between President Trump and the President of Poland. #RoseGarden #WhiteHouse pic.twitter.com/23OkYjm0DR

— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) September 4, 2025

Noticeably absent, according to The Hill, was Elon Musk, whose strained relationship with President Trump earlier this year likely kept him off the guest list.

Trump last night, commenting about Musk: “He’s got 80% super genius and then 20% he’s got some problems.” 

President @realDonaldTrump reveals where things stand personally with @elonmusk…

These are two brilliant men and great Americans. I, like millions of others, really would love to see them get the band back together soon 👇 pic.twitter.com/pywib1gJo0

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 3, 2025

The snub is reminiscent of the Biden-Harris administration’s decision not to invite Musk to a 2021 White House EV summit.

Other attendees include many top tech leaders and CEOs, such as Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai, founder and CEO of Google, respectively; Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle; David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron Technology; and Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI. 

White House AI czar David Sacks will be in attendance, along with Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4, who recently withdrew his nomination to lead NASA.

Following an ugly JOLTS print, a weaker than expected ADP employment report, and Challenger Grey data showing the weakest hiring plans on record for an August, initial jobless claims rose modestly from 229k to 237k (more than the 230k expected) – the highest since June, but still merely in the same range it has been oscillating in for the last four years…

Source: Bloomberg

Continuing claims dipped last week, but remain above the 1.9 million American Maginot line…

Source: Bloomberg

After JOLTS showed government employment weakness, continuing jobless claims in the ‘Deep TriState’ are trending higher still (at highest since Dec 2021)…

Source: Bloomberg

So while jobless claims ‘miss’ made it 4 for 4 labor market disappointments this week, the claims print is certainly nothing to panic over.

Ahead of Friday’s all-important payrolls print (and revisions), this morning’s ADP employment report may see more attention as a less ‘manipulated’ data point.

The headline print was expected to slow to 68k in August (from +104k in July and -23k in June) but in fact slowed further, adding just 54k jobs…

Source: Bloomberg

Leisure and hospitality and construction performed well despite a broader month-over-month slowdown in hiring.

“The year started with strong job growth, but that momentum has been whipsawed by uncertainty,” according to Dr. Nela Richardson Chief Economist, ADP.

“A variety of things could explain the hiring slowdown, including labor shortages, skittish consumers, and AI disruptions.“

Goods and Services jobs both saw slowing in August…

Source: Bloomberg

Manufacturing, Transportation and Education saw job losses in August…

“I think at this point, it’s clear that the labor market is slightly cooling down,” said Nataliia Lipikhina, head of EMEA equity strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank.

“The market is now pricing a 97% chance of the Fed cut. What could change that potentially is if we have very strong inflation data, but we’re not seeing that yet.”

‘Job Stayers’ saw incomes rise at their slowest pace since June 2021 while ‘job changers’ are still seeing higher and rising incomes…

In separate figures, hiring plans fell to the weakest level for any August on record and intended job cuts mounted, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Authored by RFE/RL Staff via OilPrice.com,

• The IISS warns Europe faces gaps in air defense, long-range missiles, and intelligence that could cost up to $1 trillion to address.

• A U.S. defense review may cut American troop presence in Europe by up to 30%, shifting focus to Asia-Pacific.

• European leaders are pledging billions in new defense spending but struggle with slow procurement, recruitment shortages, and strained budgets.

European nations could face a trillion-dollar rearmament bill in the face of a looming Russian threat and an imminent US defense review that could see Washington dramatically draw down forces on the continent, according to a report released on September 3.

The 106-page report, by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), points to gaps across the board: in production, intelligence, and military hardware such as long-range missiles or air and missile defense.

“Chief among the reasons for this greater urgency are Russia’s military threat and uncertainty over the United States’ commitment to defending European allies,” it says.

“While strategic assessments vary across European nations about how quickly Russian forces could constitute a direct threat to NATO Europe, their time frames generally range between two and five years.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s Global Force Posture Review is expected to be published this month and lay out a shift in military resources from Europe to Asia/Pacific.

“Some NATO officials believe a US troops reduction of up to 30 percent could be possible,” says the report, entitled Progress and Shortfalls in Europe’s Defense: An Assessment.

Rising Military Budgets

European leaders have made plans this year to respond to these challenges. In March, a European Union summit pledged to spend billions on defense amid what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called “a watershed moment for Europe.”

EU-backed loans of up to 150 billion euros (160 billion dollars) have been made available to member states to beef up their forces, and Eurozone debt rules have been relaxed when applied to military spending.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized European NATO allies for not spending enough on defense and relying too heavily on US military power. But he has recently praised them for pledging to spend more, particularly after the NATO summit in June when members agreed to raise defense budgets to 5 percent of GDP.

But the IISS report notes that it’s not just a question of money. A key problem will be building capacity.

“Europe’s defense industries continue to face challenges in increasing production fast enough, while many European armies cannot meet their recruitment and retention targets,” it says.

The IISS report underlines Integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) as an area where Europe is particularly vulnerable. Current and serving US military commanders have also told RFE/RL that Europe’s aerial shield is not prepared to meet the scale of the threat from Russia.

“You see what has happened in big cities in Ukraine. This also would happen in some of the big cities of Europe,” Philip Breedlove, former NATO supreme commander in Europe, told RFE/RL in April.

Long-Range Missiles

Another weakness highlighted in the IISS report is in long-range missiles.

European countries do have highly effective air-launched cruise missiles, such as the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp missiles, or Germany’s Taurus system. Non-NATO member Ukraine has recently showcased its new Flamingo cruise missiles.

But “only a handful of European allies currently possess ground-based long-range precision-fire systems, while in the maritime domain, only France and the UK hold 1,000-kilometer-range naval land-attack cruise missiles,” says the report.

“The European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) project is potentially the most significant European effort to extend its conventional land-attack capability up to and perhaps beyond 2,000 km,” it adds.

The project, launched by France, Germany, Poland, and Italy, was later joined by Britain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Other weaknesses noted include a lack of surveillance and intelligence aircraft, “sovereign hyperscale cloud-computing capacity,” and slow, uncoordinated procurement.

The spending requirements come as European governments are already facing intense pressures on non-military spending in sensitive areas such as health, education, and social benefits.

Meeting these challenges will, the report concludes, “require many NATO European allies to take major financial risks and make very difficult political decisions.”

China’s hyper-competitive electric vehicle market means that even top players, such as BYD Auto, are no longer immune, as smaller players continue to gobble up increasing market share. This comes as growth in the world’s largest EV market slowed over the summer, with mounting headwinds expected this fall. 

BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, slashed its full-year sales target to 4.6 million units, down a whopping 16% from its previous estimate of 5.5 million, according to a Reuters report. The downshift in forecast was attributed to intensifying competition in China’s EV market from rivals such as Geely, Xpeng, and Xiaomi. BYD also reported a 30% plunge in quarterly profit and flat deliveries in July to August. 

*BYD CUTS 2025 SALES GOAL AS MUCH AS 16% TO 4.6M VEHICLES: RTRS

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 4, 2025

Despite the cut, one Wall Street analyst noted that the new target is more realistic and aligns with buy-side expectations… 

Sanford C Bernstein analyst Eunice Lee told clients that a “lower target is largely in line with buy-side expectations now and should be achievable,” adding, “This could also be a near-term clearing event for the stock.” 

Shares fell 3% in Hong Kong trading, signaling the gloom was likely priced in. Year-to-date, shares are up about 10.5%, trading 23% below record highs reached earlier this year. 

The New York Times’ Keith Bradsher, who has covered China’s auto industry for over two decades, noted, “Already, fierce competition among automakers has gotten ruthless, with about 50 automakers fighting for customers by slashing prices again and again.” 

Bradsher said excessive competition caught the attention of Beijing in recent months, with top officials unveiling a campaign against “involution, which they define as excessive competition.” 

On July 30, President Xi Jinping declared at a Politburo meeting on the economy, “It is a must to reinforce industry self-discipline to prevent vicious ‘involution’ competition.”

The latest figures from the China Passenger Car Association showed that China-made EV sales fell 4% in August from the same period a year ago, following an 8.4% drop in July.

For Tesla, China is its second-largest market, after the US. It launched a refreshed version of its best-selling Model Y earlier this year; however, sales so far this year have been underwhelming, with lower deliveries in the first seven months compared to the same period last year. 

Both BYD and Tesla have underperformed this year. 

. . . 

Earlier this week, we laid out a case why the coming Sept 9 Preliminary Benchmark Announcement of labor market revisions could shock the Fed, and force a jumbo 50bps rate cut similar to last year for one simple reason: the revision could be just as big as last year, and as Powell explained, the massive 818K revision in 2024 was one of the primary reasons for the unexpectedly large rate cut 2 months ahead of the election. And the last thing the Fed chair would want, is to look political (cough) and prompt questions why he doesn’t do another jumbo rate cut if he is faced with a similar jobs revision.

But what is we don’t even need to wait until next Tuesday. What would it take to seal the deal and get the Fed to cut by 50bps just from this Friday’s payroll report (which as today’s JOLTs job openings report indicated could again come in well below estimates).

Luckily, we have answer: in a note from Standard Chartered’s head of global FX and titled just, Steve Englander calculates that investors would want to see NFP below 40k and the UR at 4.4% or more for a 50bps cut to be on the table.

Some more details: as Englander points out, the Bloomberg consensus for the upcoming NFP data has a median of 75k, but the distribution is tight by historical standards – of 54 forecasts, 48 are between 60k and 100k. This makes sense: after all, most projections of equilibrium NFP growth (especially now that there is an embargo on illegal immigrant workers) are between 50k and 100k. If revisions to prior months’ data are relatively modest (note Friday’s revisions will be different from those the BLS will announce next week), Englander believes that “any August NFP number below 40k would move markets towards a 50bps cut.”

Furthermore, in line with previous findings that that NFP revisions tend to be procyclical, a weak print for the headline month is likely to be associated (again) with downward revisions to prior months. So to take a cut off the table completely, NFP would have to rise to 130k or more, with positive revisions. Unlikely, especially now that the BLS no longer has a commissioner and whoever will end up in charge will want a kitchen sinking event that gets Trump the rate cut he desires.

Of course, NFP has to be looked at in conjunction with the unemployment rate (UR). The market forecast for the August UR is 4.3%, but this is not a big jump, as the unrounded UR for July was only slightly below 4.25%. Since the market is split between 4.2% and 4.3%, Englander thinks a cycle-high UR of 4.3% will not be enough to guarantee a 50bps cut unless NFP is very weak. Similarly, 4.4% would put 50bps in play unless NFP was particularly strong.

There is a catch

Englander – who broke down his note into two parts, the first dealing with what numbers will be sufficient to prompt a 50bps rate cut, and the second reiterating his view that the labor-market data that the Fed and markets focus on are highly misleading and understate the degree of slack – agrees with what we have been saying for the past five years, and notes that “it is rare that we disagree so vehemently with how markets and policy makers interpret data, but we do so now.”

His first quarrel is easy to deal with. The Unemployment Rate has been at 4.1% or 4.2% for 13 of the last 14 months, so it doesn’t show any trend. In Englander’s view, this is misleading because the employment-population (E-P) ratio has dropped steadily over this period (Figure 1).

The cyclicality of participation rates is well established, so the E-P ratio pointing to labor-force softening is likely to be more indicative than the UR. To be clear, the latest data show nothing like the sharp labor-market deterioration of 2008-09 or 2020, but the decline is very visible

His view on NFP is more controversial, and similar to what we have complained about for years Englander thinks the birth-death adjustment is heavily distorting NFP outcomes. Consider the following:

• Since the beginning of 2024, the monthly birth-death adjustment has been out of sync with the accurate (but lagging) BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BDM) estimate of net new job creation from net new firm openings (Figure 2). The BDM numbers are based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) so they are considered definitive.
• BDM data on jobs created by net new firm openings only go through end-2024, but historically they have tracked what is happening at continuously operating firms. Both have dropped sharply, which explains why there is such widespread expectation of a sharp downward benchmark revision based on QCEW on 9 September (Figure 3).

• It is possible to back out job creation from continuing firms in the monthly NFP survey. Continuing firms are those that appear in the BLS sample two months in a row; they drive the BLS sample estimates of employment growth, the birth-death adjustment is not based on any sample and is added to these sample-based estimates. Job growth at these firms has dropped sharply and has been close to zero or even negative in recent months (Figure 4). NFP growth from continuing firms dropped to a monthly average of 14k in the 12 months to July 2025 from more than 450k in the 12 months to early 2022, but the average birth-death adjustment only edged down to 94k from c.120k over the same period.
• This strongly implies that correctly measured net job creation from new firm openings is well below the BLS birth-death estimate of around 90k monthly.

Bottom line: Englander estimates that the birth-death adjustment has been overstating job creation by 70k monthly over the last year, which is in line with our estimates from one year ago. And, as we explained earlier, this will likely be the major source of the sharp downward benchmark revision, whose preliminary estimate through March 2025 is scheduled to be released on 9 September.

In conclusion, Standard Chartered estimates that actual monthly job creation among newly opened firms is no higher than 20k or so. So the published monthly NFP data have probably continued to overstate job growth. By this reckoning, a 100k published NFP growth number on 5 September would suggest an actual number closer to 30k; by the same calculation, even a 170k published NFP number would be only 100k (roughly equal to the estimate of equilibrium NFP growth) in reality.

Bottom line: sooner or later the BLS will have to come to terms with what are years of generously overestimated jobs numbers, and it behooves Trump to do so sooner rather then later in his term, especially when he can still take advantage of a jobs revision that puts most of the blame on his predecessor.

More in the full report available to pro subscribers.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Thirteen years ago, Mario Draghi, then President of the European Central Bank, opened the liquidity floodgates to prevent the eurozone from collapsing. Since then, the structural problems have remained unresolved. We are now facing the next chapter of the roughly patched-over debt crisis. It is time for the ECB to prepare its emergency toolkit.

For some time now, a worrying pattern has emerged in global financial markets: long-term government bonds are coming under selling pressure — even those of leading economies such as the U.S., Japan, the U.K., and, to a notable extent, France. As a result, yields are rising, along with the refinancing costs for already heavily indebted nations.

Financial Architecture Severely Damaged

It is the so-called long end of the yield curve that alarms both policymakers and central banks. The stability of global financial architecture rests on the long-term bonds of the U.S., Japan, and the eurozone. Banks, sovereign pension funds, and insurance systems have already paid a heavy toll from the sell-off in this segment. The structure has been severely weakened — and Europe is now facing the next debt crisis.

It can no longer be ignored: long-term government bonds, once considered safe and yielding positive real returns, have lost considerable trust. A look at France’s political turmoil and the decline of the U.K. underscores that escaping the debt spiral — with ever-growing annual deficits and collapsing social systems in an aging, migration-stressed European society — seems highly unrealistic.

The consequence: anyone not legally obligated to hold these securities is offloading them, fleeing to so-called safe havens such as precious metals or cash, often in U.S. dollars or Swiss francs — a tried-and-true pattern when times get tough.

Europe in the Crosshairs

While the yield on ten-year UK government bonds rose above 5.7% on Tuesday afternoon — the highest since 2009 — the crisis in France is intensifying dramatically. On September 8, a confidence vote on Prime Minister François Bayrou’s austerity budget is expected to fail. The country faces political chaos and a planned general strike, which, following the sad tradition of this fragmented, migration-impacted society, is likely to erupt into violent street clashes in the Banlieues.

France has long become an ungovernable state, now at risk of being the starting point for the next eurozone debt crisis.

Dark clouds are gathering over Europe — and Germany will not be spared. Once praised for its conservative fiscal policy, the country has opened the door to severe market disruptions with a trillion-euro debt program. If Germany sacrifices its creditworthiness just to buy time and a temporary fix for its social system crisis, it will drag down its EU partners. Since the start of the monetary union, markets have intertwined the community’s creditworthiness with that of Germany.

None of Europe’s crises — neither overregulation, the energy crisis, nor migration chaos — has ever been effectively controlled. The continent now stands exposed to the next debt crisis.

ECB in Action

The next debt crisis is likely to follow the pattern of its predecessor 15 years ago: contagion spreading from country to country, each tested by waves of bond sell-offs on stability and resilience. What may originate in France will eventually reach Germany via the heavily indebted southern European states. The question is: can the ECB stabilize the situation, as it did with its emergency toolkit back then?

Every sovereign debt crisis is also a banking crisis. A significant portion of government bonds is held on commercial banks’ balance sheets — and a sharp drop in market value risks dangerous over-indebtedness across the financial sector. To mitigate this, the ECB has developed an arsenal of liquidity and stabilization measures, forming the core of its emergency toolkit. These include LTROs (Long-Term Refinancing Operations) and TLTROs (Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations), which provide banks with long-term, low-interest loans to ensure liquidity and maintain credit flow to businesses and households.

Highly Leveraged Fiat Credit

There is also Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA), a kind of safety valve for institutions under acute pressure, usually collateralized by government bonds or other so-called “high-quality assets.” The toolkit is complemented by forward guidance and interest rate policy, aimed at steering expectations and stabilizing interest rate markets — often more psychologically than materially.

Here lies a central flaw and logical inconsistency in central banking: the very assets deemed “high-quality” contributed to the crisis. Highly leveraged, virtually unsecured fiat credit — without backing in gold or energy — has turned the financial system into a Ponzi-like structure, inevitably driving massive credit expansion.

This context also includes Germany’s massive debt program and, according to EU policymakers, the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine. If the credit tap falters, the house of cards collapses.

Focus on Interest Rate Manipulation

The ECB’s main focus remains the stabilization of government bond markets — the sector most vulnerable in a crisis. Deeply entwined with the EU power center in Brussels, the central bank acts almost as a liquidity department. When panic strikes the bond market, it will start manipulating yields and clearing the market, as it did 15 years ago.

Emergency programs include the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), which buys government bonds to increase liquidity, and Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), activated only if affected countries commit to reforms. Newly introduced is the Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI), which allows the ECB to buy bonds to reduce excessive yield differences between member states and ensure monetary transmission. This instrument operates largely clandestinely: market interventions are not always immediately visible and may be carried out gradually, even via proxy actors, to avoid market panic.

The ECB’s policy can be summarized simply: ahead of the looming debt collapse, its task is to manipulate the entire yield curve downward to maintain the illusion of controlled public debt — and to prevent private investors from panicking. The persistent operation of the ECB is evident in the yield corridors that long-term government bonds have followed for some time.

Transparency? Virtually nonexistent. Backroom dealings between the ECB and major capital pools are routine. Markets are actively managed and manipulated — the free market and the disciplining force of rising interest rates (bond vigilantes) are long gone.

Emergency Patches and Soothing Pills

Ultimately, the names of ECB instruments are irrelevant. Their core function is to smooth short-term market fluctuations and provide policymakers with repeated room to maneuver for an ever-expanding state. The ECB itself has become a malignant force within the euro system: market-based reforms are impossible as long as policymakers can rely on its backstop — whether for green climate agendas, military build-ups, or other dubious projects.

The EU Commission and ECB aim to establish a unified debt mechanism, consolidate national debts under the commission’s umbrella, and integrate the ECB as a liquidity pool to stabilize markets. Europe is thus steering toward centralized socialism, with the ECB as a key enabler.

In a systemic crisis, the eurozone’s main pillars — France, Italy, and Germany — would be drawn into the downward spiral. It would be naive to believe that the situation could be stabilized solely through ECB credit injections and short-term liquidity measures.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Axios’ global affairs correspondent Barak Ravid has cited Israeli officials who say that the White House is ready to greenlight a Netanyahu-ordered seizure of West Bank Palestinian territory.

“Rubio has signaled to Israeli officials in private meetings that he does not oppose Israel’s West Bank annexations and that the Trump administration will not stand in the way,” writes Ravid.

If accurate, or if this scenario comes to fruition it would be a definitive death knell for any future state of Palestine or for a two-state solution, the latter which happens to still be Washington de facto policy, and stretching back historically across several administrations. 

Despite occasional protestations from Trump over the ratcheting hunger crisis, or high civilian death toll, the US administration has really done nothing of significant pressure or with teeth to thwart the overwhelmingly destructive Gaza offensive by Israel’s military. 

The White House has also said nothing, even in terms of caution, concerning to new Netanyahu-ordered offensive which will see ground forces try to take over Gaza City.

President Trump only put the following message out Wednesday on Truth Social: “Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”

Essentially he’s standing by Netanyahu, who has stated time and again that the war will carry on until it ends with the complete eradication of Hamas, and to ensure it can never return to rule the Strip again.

If there is Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which has long been recognized by the UN and even the US as ‘occupied’ Palestinian territories, the unraveling of the Abraham Accords would surely follow. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is in charge of the Gaza Strip, and is actually a political rival to Hamas.

The UAE, for example, has already declared that this would be a ‘red line’ concerning its recently restored relations (in 2020) with Israel.

But here’s how Axios frames the situation: “Israel is considering annexing large portions of the West Bank later this month in response to the recognition of a Palestinian state by several western countries. President Trump is likely the only foreign player who could stop it.”

Indeed this is the case, but he’s as yet unwilling to use the key leverage over Israel that the US possesses, and has had for a long, long time: money and weapons. Israel’s military is propped up by US military hardware and ordinance, and this relationship is not going away anytime soon – especially not under Trump’s watch – who long enjoyed massive contributions from the likes of the Adelson family and AIPAC.

In the latest example of a European government taking stronger measures to curb illegal immigration, the Greek Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that promises lengthy prison sentences for migrants who stay in the country after their asylum requests have been rejected. 

“The Greek state does not accept you. You only have one choice: to go back. You’re not welcome,” said Migration Minister Thanos Plevris after the bill passed. The new law is the second major tightening of Greek immigration in the last two months. On July 9, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis completely suspended asylum applications for three months, saying he was effectively notifying human smugglers that “the passage to Greece is closed.”

The two moves came after the pace of illegal-immigrant arrivals on Crete reached crisis levels this summer, with the number of illegals landing on the island in the first six months of 2025 tripling over the same period last year. The last straw that prompted Mitsotakis’ three-month asylum ban was the arrival of more than 2,600 illegals on Crete just during the first week of July. The move quickly paid off, slashing arrivals to just 500 over the first 27 days of August.

Under the new law, which was championed by Mitsotakis, migrants who fail to leave the country after their asylum request is rejected face up to five years in prison and fines of up to 30,000 euros. The penalty for illegal entry is tripled to 10,000 euros. The deadline for leaving after being rejected was slashed from 25 days to 14, and authorities are now authorized to outfit rejected applicants with ankle monitors so they can be tracked until they leave, the New York Times reports. The law also abolished illegal immigrants’ previous privilege of applying for residence after they’d been in Greece for seven years. 

During parliamentary debate on Tuesday, Plevris said asylum-seekers fell into two categories:  

“There are those who are downtrodden, and then there are some who are spoiled, who think that Europe owes them. We need to put emphasis on the voluntary returns, but there will be consequences for those who do not choose to return to their countries.”

Crete became a preferred dumping ground for migrant-smugglers after other European countries imposed tougher asylum processes or increased their offshore patrols and other security measures. When asylum requests were barred, Plevris told a reporter: 

“All European countries now understand that it is not possible to have open borders, it’s not possible to welcome illegal migrants with flowers. There should be a clear message that countries have borders, (that) Europe has exceeded its capabilities and will not accept any more illegal migrants.”

In one of the continuing consequences of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton’s utterly catastrophic regime-change operation, most of the diversity landing on the shores of Crete this year has come from Libya. Cursed by geography, Greece has long suffered from the effects of US-led destabilization campaigns, particularly in 2015-16, when hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa flowed through the country.  

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The ideology of open external borders has become a core element of Brussels policymaking. When Angela Merkel extended her 2015 invitation to millions, it merely confirmed a policy already long embedded. The claim that this had anything to do with combating the “skills shortage” was always a convenient fiction.

Germany’s economy is now in free fall. Years of overregulation, crushing fiscal burdens, and a self-inflicted energy crisis have scarred the labor market deeply. Since 2019, roughly 700,000 jobs have vanished in the private sector.

State Expansion Hides Collapse

During the same period, the government itself added nearly half a million public sector jobs. That means the real destruction in the productive economy totals around 1.2 million jobs. In 2025 alone, another 100,000 cuts are looming—an alarming verdict on Berlin’s socialist-style, centrally planned economic course. It is also the logical result of believing a subsidy-driven “Green Transition” can substitute for a private economy shaped by capital markets, competition, and innovation.

This decline is structural. Since 2018, productivity has been sliding, year after year. The German growth model has broken. In 2024, €64.5 billion in net direct investment left the country, much of it flowing to the United States, where reindustrialization, deregulation, and energy abundance make the business climate more attractive. Germany, once the world’s export engine, is bleeding capital and know-how.

The Labor Market Turns

Investment inside Germany has stalled. According to official data, the number of job openings in July fell by almost 11 percent compared to a year before, to just 628,000. Facing those positions are millions of unemployed, both Germans and migrants. Two causes stand out: state-run education systematically produces graduates misaligned with market demand, and a lavish welfare state discourages individuals from adapting and seeking productive work.

The true scale of unemployment is obscured. Hundreds of thousands are hidden in short-time work schemes, “training” programs, or statistical loopholes designed to minimize the numbers. The workers exist. And yet, media and politics never tire of repeating the warning of an acute shortage of skilled labor.

Virtually no corporate speech or think-tank study avoids the cliché of missing workers. The Cologne-based Institute for the German Economy warns of a shortage of over 530,000 skilled workers, claiming competitiveness is “dramatically endangered.” The state-owned KfW bank calls it “Germany’s biggest economic risk” and predicts “decades of weak growth” without reform. The official “solution” offered is always the same: open the borders wider, in the hope that somewhere in the tidal wave of migration a fraction of suitable candidates might be found.

The Business Reality

But the practical recruitment of skilled personnel has always been a core responsibility of management. No successful company relies on the state to provide qualified applicants. Instead, they create attractive conditions: competitive salaries, promotion prospects, and opportunities for development. They scout for talent worldwide, targeting the actual pools of expertise. They invest in integration and retention, knowing that skilled workers are in global demand.

Proactive firms go to international trade fairs, use specialized recruiters, and place ads in technical media. They recruit at schools and universities to secure their pipeline. None of this relies on state-run job agencies, symbolic “initiatives,” or the influx of unqualified economic migrants.

That German companies remain largely silent about the failures of open-border policy, just as they remain silent about the absurdities of the Green Transition, reveals the corporatist spirit now binding business and politics.

Two Camps Defend Open Borders

The narrative of “demographics” and “skills shortage” is sustained by two camps. The first are the naïve idealists, clinging to the belief that Germany’s collapsing demographics can be offset by inflows from impoverished regions. They remain blind to the cultural consequences of mass Islamization, ignore the reality of social fragmentation, and cite the United States as a model—ignoring that U.S. immigration in the 19th century was overwhelmingly European, culturally compatible, and forced into assimilation by the absence of a welfare state.

For them, Frontex—the EU’s border guard—is little more than a fig leaf for the abandoned external borders of the Union.

The second camp follows a more calculated political strategy. As in the U.S., mass immigration from impoverished, unstable regions translates into higher vote shares for the Left. They, too, invoke “demographic collapse” and “skills shortages” as justification. With media support, they have succeeded in stigmatizing any criticism of open-border policy as fascist or reactionary.

Outlook and Consequences

While the United States under Donald Trump executed the most radical immigration reversal imaginable—zero tolerance, mass deportations, and enforcement—the European Union drifts toward chaos. The rise of right-wing parties such as AfD in Germany, Fidesz in Hungary, Fratelli d’Italia under Giorgia Meloni, and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France signals public resistance. But despite the surge, there is still no credible reversal in EU migration policy.

As long as symbolic gestures—such as a single deportation flight or a brief border check—are enough to calm the press and stabilize polling for the Left (and its so-called “conservative” allies), Brussels bureaucrats keep a tight grip on policy.

Meanwhile, the real solutions are being pursued not by governments but by companies: Mittelstand firms, retailers, industrial champions, and family-owned businesses. They recruit abroad, invest in training, cooperate with schools and universities, and build the pipelines the state has destroyed with its failed education system. Germany’s labor market is being salvaged not by open-border politics, but by the initiative of the very private sector that politicians continue to undermine.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.