These Are Forecast To Be America’s Fastest-Growing States Over The Next 25 Years
Over the next 25 years, Texas is projected to gain 8.6 million residents, the highest absolute increase across states.
Like Texas, Florida and California are projected to lead nationally in population gains, adding 5.2 million and 3.1 million people, respectively. In comparison, 18 states are projected to shrink.
Between now and 2050, the U.S. is projected to grow 9%, adding nearly 32 million people to its population.
However, growth across states is forecast to vary widely. Utah, for instance, is set to grow nearly four times faster than the national average, at 35%. Meanwhile, West Virginia’s population is set to contract 15%.
Notably, North Dakota, Idaho, and Washington D.C. are all projected to see 30% growth over the period.
At the same time, nine states are expected to grow their populations by over 1 million residents, including Georgia and North Carolina. When it comes to New York, the population is set to grow just 4%, adding around 820,000 people—far lower than other populous states.
On the other hand, Illinois is set to see the sharpest absolute decline, losing 1.1 million residents.
With migration slowing and fertility levels declining as the population ages, America’s growth is projected to slow over the coming decades. In fact, 25% of Maine and Florida’s populations are projected to be 65 years or older by 2050.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the world’s fastest-shrinking countries.
Germany’s Industrial Core Is Collapsing As PwC Warns Of “Decisive Year”
Submitted by Thomas Kolbe
Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Katherina Reiche (CDU), hopes her new debt package will trigger an economic turnaround. But new data from consulting firm PwC shows the downward spiral in the industrial heart of Germany – its machinery sector – is accelerating.
The path back from economic depression keeps getting longer. PwC’s latest industry analysis shows conditions in machinery manufacturing continued to worsen over the course of the year. For 2024, a sales decline of 5.6 percent is now expected.
No Light at the End of the Tunnel
This brings the total production slump since pre-Covid times to over 22 percent. Average capacity utilization has fallen to 80.8 percent – its lowest level in five years. Rising energy-related cost pressures, suffocating regulation, and weakening demand in major export markets such as China and the U.S., also a result of Washington’s tariff policy are pushing output into the basement.
PwC’s industry expert Bernd Jung says: “2025 will be a decisive year for machinery and plant engineering. After the government collapses in France and Germany, alongside geopolitical conflicts, fears are growing about the viability of the sector’s business model.”
This assessment is reinforced by a surge in insolvencies reported by industry association VDMA and Creditreform. Compared to last year, bankruptcies increased by 22 percent. Since January, around 12,000 jobs have been lost in machinery manufacturing. PwC warns another 20,000 could disappear by year’s end if the expected recovery fails to materialize.
A Rabbit in Front of the Snake
Where should the turnaround come from? The federal government remains a monolithic obstacle. Its reaction to this dramatic situation exposes a political class unable to diagnose problems or correct them.
Coalition parties are tangled up in internal disputes and tax-hike fantasies. The only consensus? Defending Brussels’ eco-socialist agenda at any cost. Climate targets—and their catastrophic downstream effects on German industry—are non-negotiable.
The sole measure actually enacted to ease industry pressure is a 30 percent degressive depreciation allowance introduced on July 1. But where little or no investment happens, tax write-offs are meaningless.
A tiny tax cut of €11 billion annually from 2027 for four years is an even smaller band-aid.
To recap: Germany is now the most expensive business location in the OECD—and with a regulatory cost burden of €60 billion, hardly an investor’s paradise.
Investors Are Fleeing Germany
PwC’s report confirms the trend: companies relocate wherever possible. Automakers like BMW and Audi now invest heavily in Hungary—BMW’s expansion in Debrecen being one prime example.
Berlin hopes to counter this trend with a capped industrial electricity price. If adopted into law, about 1,200 energy-intensive firms in chemicals, metals and glass could apply for subsidies capping wholesale power costs at five cents per kWh for up to half their consumption.
The €4 billion relief package is another drop in the ocean—and predictably tied to “climate-friendly production.”
One can’t shake the impression that policymakers have consciously turned against traditional German industry to impose their ideological experiment.
The Myth of Growth
PwC offers a clear view of the near- and mid-term economic outlook—and it’s bleak. While the government celebrates its debt package with fairy tales of an imminent boom, Germany digs itself deeper into economic depression.
Machinery manufacturing is the industrial seismograph: once it shakes, the entire economic engine rattles. These companies are the first to feel when corporate investment is slashed.
The sector is also burdened by the collapse of the German auto industry. What politicians and powerful climate NGOs—such as German Environmental Aid, long suspected of serving foreign interests—call “transformation” was in truth a direct assault on the core of national prosperity.
China, meanwhile, plays a major role in financing anti-industry climate activism in the EU and U.S.
While Beijing showers its automakers with support, Berlin has pulled the rug out from under its own flagship sector—triggering cascading damage throughout the industrial value chain.
Cascading Decline
A cumulative production decline of 22 percent since the 2018 peak is a glaring alarm signal—proof of an economic depression that not only cripples industry but threatens social insurance funds with a debt spiral.
This crisis is triggering a massive social shock, driven by an eco-socialist crash policy that imposes ideology regardless of economic reality. It carries the potential for explosive societal upheaval.
A social crisis of historic scale will erupt the moment the state can no longer reliably provide pensions, ensure basic living standards, or maintain adequate healthcare. Germany has overextended itself—trying to run the world’s social welfare office and a centrally planned green economy at the same time. That “green miracle” now stands revealed for what it always was: a utopian illusion detached from reality.
* * *
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he 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.
Trump Says Milei’s Argentina Win “Made A Lot Of Money” For U.S.
Update (0710ET):
Earlier this month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arranged a $20 billion currency swap with Argentina’s central bank to stabilize the country’s bond market ahead of Sunday’s elections. The midterm results were surprising, as President Javier Milei’s party scored a major comeback, and the move may now pay dividends for the US.
Goldman analyst Clara Mourey provided clients with midterm election results:
With 94% of ballots counted, President Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, received 40.8% of the votes, above expectations, and will increase its representation in Congress starting December 10, up from the current 10% in the Senate and 15% in the Lower House. Importantly, the government’s representation would exceed the one-third threshold in the lower house, and together with allies also in the Senate. This outcome would enhance the President’s veto authority and bolster governability.
The left-wing coalition Fuerza Patria received 24.4% of the votes, and together with other Peronist groups reached 31.6% of the votes. Finally, the group of governors united under the Provincias Unidas coalition received 7.0% of the vote.
Aboard Air Force One earlier while on his Asia tour, Trump told reporters that Sunday’s midterm election results were a “big win” for Milei’s party. “Not only did he win, he won by a lot.”
Trump’s backing of Milei is part of a strategic political shift across Latin America, following decades in which failed socialist leaders sent the country’s economy into the dumps.
One of Bessent’s bets included over $1 billion in peso purchases, according to Bloomberg estimates, which appears to have paid off.
BBG: ARGENTINA DOLLAR BONDS SOAR AFTER MILEI’S MIDTERM WIN
BBG: ARGENTINA BONDS JUMP 10-13 CENTS ACROSS THE CURVE ON MILEI WIN
The nation’s debt jumped across the curve in early trading, with dollar notes due in 2035 up more than 13 cents to trade at a record 70.34 cents on the dollar.
A stronger Argentine currency in Monday’s trading session will mean the US could net hundreds of millions of dollars in gains.
In the US, Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT) jumped 17%.
“That election made a lot of money for the United States,” Trump said Monday. “The bonds have gone up,” he said. “The whole debt rating has gone up.“
Goldman’s Mourey continued, “The election results improve the outlook for structural reforms in the second half of the Administration. Following the election, investors will monitor any shifts to the government’s economic policy mix, especially those related to the exchange rate and monetary regime. In the months leading up to the elections, Argentine assets were affected by heightened political and policy uncertainty.”
In a separate note earlier, UBS analyst Matthew Cowley told clients, “The peso is expected to appreciate post-election, alleviating currency pressure, though Argentina’s $48 bn debt payments by 2027 remain a concern. A reinforced political mandate and potential foreign investment flows could stabilize reserves and support international debt market re-entry. Milei’s victory signals optimism for Argentina’s economic trajectory, with key reforms now more likely to advance.”
Bessent told reporters earlier, “Now I think the market is going to take care of itself and it’s going to have a lot of confidence in his policies,” referring to Milei, adding, “They have some big refinancings next year, but the Argentinian people have spoken.”
Bessent also congratulated Milei on X:
Congratulations to President @JMilei on La Libertad Avanza’s very successful midterm election. President Milei has a renewed mandate for change.
Argentina is a vital ally in Latin America. These results are a clear example that the Trump Administration policy of Peace through… pic.twitter.com/tjcciFSkxG
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) October 27, 2025
* * *
Update(2050ET): Despite plenty of earlier predictions to the contrary, Argentine President Javier Milei’s party is on track to finish first in Argentina’s midterms with over 90% of votes counted, in a big comeback. According to a breaking news wire:
MILEI’S PARTY HAS 41.5% IN BUENOS AIRES TO PERONISM’S 40.8%
BREAKING:
Huge electoral victory for Javier Milei in the midterm elections.
His party won 41% of the votes and will increase its number of deputies in the parliament from 37 to 101 while the number of senators will increase from 6 to 20. pic.twitter.com/xzElWGSK1P
According to the English-langauge Buenos Aires Times at 9:30pm local time, “Official results point to a decisive win for President Javier Milei and La Libertad Avanza. The only force to be running in every province, the ruling party’s alliance with ex-president Mauricio Macri’s PRO party has won it more than 40 percent of the national vote for lower house deputies.”
Official results now in from Argentina…
Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (purple) has 40.8% of the votes, while the Peronist left-wing opposition (blue) has 24.4%.
90%+ counted. An even better outcome for Milei than their most optimistic prediction. pic.twitter.com/DclKba9maT
The Wall Street Journal reviews of the significance:
That means it should secure at least one-third of the seats in both chambers—the critical threshold that allows Milei to preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees. The result, stronger than most polls had predicted, gives Milei fresh political momentum after months of unrest over deep spending cuts and a grinding recession last year.
It also shores up his standing with Washington and the International Monetary Fund, which have tied future financial support to the survival of his austerity experiment. Market analysts expect Argentine bonds and the peso to rally when trading opens Monday, reflecting relief that Milei still has political traction. The U.S. announced a $20 billion currency swap this month to prop up Argentina’s currency and promised to raise another $20 billion from private banks and sovereign-wealth funds.
My friend President Javier Milei’s party has swept Argentina’s national legislative elections, winning 40.84% of the vote compared to 24.50% for the Kirchnerist bloc, with 91% of ballots counted.
President Trump and I simply say, “VIVA LA LIBERTAD, CARAJO!”
Recall the crucial words of Trump from earlier this month, “If he wins, we’re staying with him. And if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.” He just survived and thrived in this major test of his austerity agenda, despite a public turnout which was a low in decades.
* * *
Some 36 million eligible Argentines are headed to the polls Sunday for legislative elections which are key to determining the fate of President Javier Milei’s sweeping reform agenda, and could unsettle financial markets if his support collapses, despite record US assistance in the form of the ultra-controversialbig beautiful bailout from the Trump administration, which could also hang in the balance.
The midterm vote is being closely watched internationally, as it marks the first nationwide referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s austerity measures and economic deregulation efforts since he assumed office two years ago. At the start of this past week, Argentina assets soared on the heels of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling the South American country “a systemically important US ally in Latin America,” adding that the US Treasury“stands ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina. All options for stabilization are on the table.”
But the potential $40 billion bailout package for Argentina is also on the line (Bessent indicated the extra $20 billion on top of the initial $20bn would come from “the private sector” – which seems somewhat wishful given the scenario of private investors wanting to risk such sums in volatile Argentina). The aid could be withdrawn by Trump if his populist ally Milei tanks. President Trump even spelled out, “If he doesn’t win, we’re not going to waste our time, because his opponents’ philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again.”
On Sunday, voters are choosing half of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and one-third of the Senate. It was the campaign period leading up to the vote which saw a sharp decline in the peso, prompting Milei to the request emergency financial support from Washington. Should the Sunday vote go against Milei – and there are a number of signs suggesting this will be the case – then Trump “will not be generous” – as he’s forewarned in prior comments.
President Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party, which remains a newcomer in Argentine politics, currently holds just 37 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and six in the Senate, giving it less than 15% of the total seats in Congress. The party desperately needs to expand its representation to at least one-third of Congress, a goal that would strengthen its ability to block opposition efforts to derail Milei’s ambitious agenda.
If Milei’s party performs weak, this could serve to quickly resolve domestic controversy for Trump at home:
On October 19, a reporter asked Trump why he decided to aid Argentina despite concerns among US soya producers. “Argentina is fighting for its life,” Trump answered. “Young lady, you don’t know anything about it. … They have no money. They have no anything.”
US aid to Argentina didn’t directly harm US soya producers – they have been hurt by a separate Trump policy, his trade war with China. But the timing of the aid and the soya bean export troubles pose a problem of optics for the White House.
But as for “optics” – a loss in these midterms will mark a defeat of US credibility in the region, given the aforementioned multibillion-dollar lifeline from the White House.
With a few hours until polls close, reports of low voter turnout, a bad sign for the Argentine Trump ally…
🇦🇷Low voter turnout in the midterms in Argentina. This isn’t a good sign for Milei’s party as Peronists have a better ‘get out the vote’ apparatus. The midterm election in the province of Buenos Aires where Milei’s party underperformed compared to the polls also saw low turnout. https://t.co/1jt0cZlllk
Milei himself faces reelection in 2027, and the national direction after Sunday will signal whether Milei’s “chainsaw” austerity program will have any staying power. Politiconotes, “LLA is expected to gain seats — though not enough to secure a majority against the left-wing Peronist coalition — but if the president’s coalition underperforms, it could lead to a broad selloff of Argentinian assets.”
The vote is happening between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. (1100–2100 GMT), and some preliminary results are expected to emerge roughly three hours after polls close.
EU And UK Launch Digital War On America’s Tech Giants: Censorship As Trade Policy
Submitted by Thomas Kolbe
London and Brussels are coordinating their attacks on US tech giants. Under the flimsy pretext of consumer protection, they are trying to lay the groundwork for far-reaching censorship designs through multi-billion-dollar fines.
When Germany’s Minister of State for Culture, Wolfram Weimer, delivered his verbal assault on American digital platforms last week, it got somewhat lost amid the waves of his own hypocrisy. As we now know, the minister does not think too highly of copyright rules or private property.
Aggressively Defensive
Weimer branded Meta, Google and others as digital colonizers whose business model essentially depends on exploiting the creative potential of users and monetizing it for their own profit. The political response to this supposed injustice is to be a kind of digital tax, levied nationally to put an end to this behavior.
Of course, this is solely about providing the state, that over-satiated and over-fat Leviathan, with yet another source of revenue.
With his aggressive rhetoric, Weimer stands firmly in the tradition of recent EU policymaking, which increasingly resembles London’s digital doctrine.
What we are witnessing is a theatrical performance from a technologically sidelined continent. Brussels may cast the world’s densest net of digital regulations, but in this climate, no one dares to found startups capable of competing with American or Chinese tech giants or the AI industry.
These are rearguard actions, with sprawling regulatory catalogs designed to open the gates to censorship. The goal is to prevent the rise of counterpublics on platforms like X. Publics capable of pointing out the failures of European governance, EU centralization and the growing concentration of power in Brussels.
Absurd Fines
In their economic distress and with shrinking geopolitical weight, London and Brussels have begun imposing grotesque fines on the supposed misbehavior of American tech corporations.
Apple was recently ordered by the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to pay up to 1.5 billion pounds (1.75 billion euros), as the company allegedly abused market power and disadvantaged app developers through excessive commissions on in-app purchases and subscriptions between October 2015 and late 2020.
According to regulators, a commission of up to 30 percent per transaction is unjustified and restricted competition. Apple has announced it will appeal.
Apparently, the gentlemen in the “cradle of liberalism” remain unfamiliar with contractual freedom and individual sovereignty.
It is a similar picture in Brussels. The European Commission imposed a fine on Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, claiming the company offers only inadequate complaint systems and tools to report illegal content like terrorist propaganda or abuse imagery.
They also accuse Meta of denying researchers access to public data and deploying dark patterns to manipulate user choices. Meta is to pay 200 million euros and show more cooperation in the future.
The Battle for Data Sovereignty
At its core, this is about giving European regulators unrestricted access to user data and internal communications processes, very much in the spirit of the proposed chat control for private users. Europe has much more in store for its citizens.
True to this spirit, the European Commission already slapped Google with a record 2.95-billion-euro fine in September for alleged antitrust violations in online advertising. Since 2014, Google is said to have abused its market dominance by prioritizing its own products in ad placement and brokerage. The company must now rebuild its digital marketplace to rule out self-preferencing.
There is one small outlier in this European war against US digital dominance: the proceedings against TikTok, which remains heavily Chinese-controlled. A fine of 530 million euros looms over alleged data-protection violations, including unauthorized transfers of user data out of the EU to China. Lack of transparency in advertising and the absence of a functional ad register for researchers and users are also being challenged.
However, the TikTok theater mainly serves to distract Americans from the fact that Europe’s real intent is to challenge the US in digital economics with the regulatory bludgeon and create bargaining chips for the unresolved trade conflict.
The negotiation pattern is familiar: define maximal demands; escalate individual hotspots within the matrix of negotiations; accept the results with pious words while beginning the sabotage at the very moment of signing.
Central Planning vs. Individual Sovereignty
Even from a systemic perspective, the arguments of the European Commission and UK regulators do not hold. Every user enters a voluntary contract. So do app developers. Apple rightly notes that around 84 percent of apps in its store are free. And every individual is free to switch to alternative technologies, like Google’s Android. No one is forced to use TikTok or upload videos there.
Europe’s escalation strategy once again proves their discomfort with competition, private property and individual decision-making sovereignty. It would not be wrong to say they fundamentally misunderstand the principles of a free market economy.
The alleged argument of consumer protection is nothing but a cloak for a deeper political agenda aiming at censorship and the subjugation of private enterprise.
In reality, we are witnessing another escalation of invasive policies from centralized regulatory authorities in Brussels and London. Policies that the US government under President Donald Trump is unlikely to tolerate. Transatlantic tensions are rising. The next act of the trade dispute will unfold on precisely this digital battlefield and continue to intensify.
Perhaps this is the perfect moment for Donald Trump to slap London and Brussels on the fingers. A drastic increase in tariffs might give some of them pause and put pressure on policymakers to stop playing dangerous censorship games.
* * *
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he 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.
Data from the most recent Consumer Insights survey from Statista shows that almost three out of ten Americans (29 percent) say they won’t be able to go on vacation this year due to a lack of funds.
The share of Canadians whose finances did not allow them to go on holiday this year was slightly lower at 28 percent.
As the infographic also shows, China was the only country where fewer than 10 percent of the respondents couldn’t afford a holiday this year, far fewer than in Germany (22 percent), France (19 percent) or even Japan (26 percent).
Which countries have the most educated populations?
Higher levels of tertiary education among a populace generally indicate greater potential for innovation and economic growth, but this isn’t always the case.
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes educational attainment by country, breaking things down into three categories: below high-school, high-school or diploma, and college or university degree.
Data & Discussion
This data comes from the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025 report. It compares educational attainment among working-age adults across 45 countries as of 2024.
Country
Below high-school
(%)
High-school or
diploma (%)
College or university
degree (%)
🇨🇦 Canada
6.4
28.9
64.7
🇮🇪 Ireland
10.7
31.7
57.5
🇰🇷 South Korea
6.5
37.3
56.2
🇱🇺 Luxembourg
17.6
28.0
54.4
🇬🇧 UK
17.1
29.0
53.8
🇦🇺 Australia
13.0
33.9
53.1
🇸🇪 Sweden
11.7
36.5
51.8
🇺🇸 U.S.
8.0
41.3
50.7
🇮🇱 Israel
12.3
37.2
50.5
🇳🇴 Norway
17.1
32.5
50.4
🇱🇹 Lithuania
7.0
45.3
47.7
🇨🇭 Switzerland
13.8
39.7
46.5
🇩🇰 Denmark
16.2
38.7
45.1
🇳🇱 Netherlands
18.3
36.6
45.1
🇧🇪 Belgium
17.2
37.8
45.0
🇮🇸 Iceland
20.4
35.1
44.5
🇳🇿 New Zealand
16.9
39.2
44.0
🇫🇷 France
16.1
40.6
43.4
🇫🇮 Finland
10.9
46.4
42.7
🇪🇪 Estonia
9.5
47.9
42.5
🇪🇸 Spain
34.7
23.0
42.3
🇱🇻 Latvia
10.7
48.9
40.5
🇵🇱 Poland
5.2
55.4
39.5
🇦🇹 Austria
13.1
49.2
37.7
🇬🇷 Greece
18.1
46.7
35.3
🇸🇮 Slovenia
11.0
54.4
34.6
🇩🇪 Germany
15.9
49.9
34.3
🇧🇬 Bulgaria
13.1
53.1
33.8
🇨🇱 Chile
25.0
42.1
32.9
🇵🇹 Portugal
38.5
30.1
31.4
🇭🇺 Hungary
11.9
57.0
31.1
🇨🇴 Colombia
32.7
36.8
30.6
🇭🇷 Croatia
9.7
59.9
30.4
🇸🇰 Slovak Republic
6.3
64.7
29.0
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
51.7
20.5
27.8
🇨🇿 Czechia
5.7
66.8
27.5
🇹🇷 Türkiye
49.9
23.1
26.9
🇦🇷 Argentina
32.2
43.6
23.7
🇮🇹 Italy
33.3
44.4
22.3
🇲🇽 Mexico
54.4
23.7
21.9
🇧🇷 Brazil
39.9
38.6
21.5
🇷🇴 Romania
24.6
56.2
19.2
🇮🇳 India
75.2
10.5
14.2
🇮🇩 Indonesia
57.3
29.7
13.1
🇿🇦 South Africa
49.3
41.7
9.0
Leaders in Higher Education
Canada tops the list with nearly 65% of adults holding a college or university degree, followed closely by Ireland and South Korea.
These nations have invested heavily in expanding access to higher education, driven by knowledge-based economies that reward advanced qualifications.
According to other OECD data, higher levels of education bring significant earnings advantages.
For instance, across OECD nations, tertiary graduates typically earn double the income of individuals who have not completed secondary education (high school).
Balanced Education Models in Europe
Countries like Austria and Germany demonstrate a more balanced split between tertiary and vocational education (education related to a specific job or trade).
For example, Germany ranks 19th in the world in terms of GDP per capita, despite only 34% of its adults having a university degree.
The country has a strong apprenticeship system where students combine hands-on training with theoretical learning, resulting in a high rate of employment upon graduation.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán marked the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution in Budapest with a public address portraying his government as the spiritual heir of those who rose up against Soviet tanks nearly 70 years ago.
Speaking before tens of thousands gathered for a Peace March on the national holiday, Orbán cast modern-day Brussels as Hungary’s new oppressor and vowed that the country would remain “a strong and sovereign nation with dignity” standing for peace while the rest of Europe “marches with the war alliance.”
“The pro-war countries have already formed a coalition of the willing,” Orbán declared. “They are willing to send others to die. If Brussels had not blocked the U.S. President’s peace mission, the war would be over. Everybody knows that if Donald Trump had been president, the war would not have broken out, and if he were not chained now, there would be peace.”
Throughout the speech, Orbán repeatedly drew parallels between the 1956 uprising against Soviet domination and his government’s present-day confrontations with the European Union. “From there, the Soviets have left, the IMF has gone home, and the pro-migration Brussels will go the same way,” he said to loud applause. “None of them could swallow us. We were stuck in their throats.”
🕊️ The day of the Budapest Peace March has come. Today we send a message to the whole world: Hungary says NO to war! We will not die for Ukraine. We will not send our children to the slaughterhouse at Brussels’ command.
Portraying Hungary as the “only migrant-free country in Europe,” Orbán praised supporters of his Fidesz movement for defending “families against the whole Brussels snake pit,” expelling “LGBTQ activists from schools,” and maintaining a “Christian and patriotic constitution.” He described his supporters as “the largest national patriotic movement in Central Europe, and perhaps in Europe as a whole.”
On foreign policy, Orbán insisted that Hungary would not be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine, calling it “not our war.” “We will not give our money, we will not give our weapons, we will not go to war, and we will not die for Ukraine — but we will live for Hungary,” he said. He rejected any prospect of Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO, asserting that such membership “would bring the war in, take our money out, and destroy our economy. Partnership, yes; membership, no.”
As the 2026 elections draw closer — Hungarians will head to the polls in April next year — Orbán framed the coming months as a historic choice between “peace or war, freedom or slavery.” He urged his followers to convince “misled Hungarians” that opposition parties “sent here from Brussels” are tools of “the Brussels bureaucrats who want to impose the migration pact on us.”
Calling on Hungary’s youth to “wake up, rebel, your country is waiting for you,” Orbán warned that “the Brussels empire wants you to be homeless Europeans… It wants you to stay in the virtual world, hooked up to a computer.”
Concluding his speech on Kossuth Square, Orbán declared: “In 1956, Budapest was the European capital of freedom. In 2025, Budapest will be the European capital of peace. God above us all, Hungary above all!”
Danish Commercial Warns White Citizens About Breeding With Other Whites
Like it or not, advertising is culture. Marketing is an expression of a society’s norms, values and demographics. It is meant to serve the free market by appealing to either a target demographic or the most common demographic as a way to sell products and services. That said, advertising can also be used as propaganda, designed to sell ideologies rather than soda, cars and insurance.
This has been the primary setting of marketing in the west for at least the past ten years – The vast majority of commercials have political messaging embedded within them. Though it might not be obvious for the unaware, once you notice the patterns it’s impossible to avoid them.
A new propaganda advertisement paid for by Denmark’s state television and posing as a promotion for a science show called “Evolution.”
The commercial features an “expert” interrupting a white Danish couple as they flirt with each other. He explains to them that the history of war in Denmark introduced foreign DNA into their gene pool which “protected them from disease”. He then compares their relationship to inbreeding and suggests they find new partners with more “exotic” genetics.
The woman then smiles as if she’s intrigued by the idea.
This ad in Denmark shows two Danes making out before an “expert” shows up and tells them that they shouldn’t date each other because that is inbreeding and that they need to have kids with non-whites. pic.twitter.com/liNcIVCnez
The series was originally created in 2020, but is now being re-aired with “inbreeding” ads this year. Perhaps Danish TV is unaware of the rapid political shift away from woke propaganda from 2020 to 2025? This messaging is a stark contrast from Denmark’s “Do It For Denmark” ad campaign in 2014, which encouraged Danish couples to get busy and combat the nation’s population decline by making more babies.
Setting aside the lack of historical context and scientific accuracy, the inbreeding commercial plays into an ongoing trend of anti-white sentiment in advertising in Europe over the last decade. It also is clearly meant to support the government’s pro-mass immigration stance, which has led to Denmark’s foreign numbers doubling to 16.3% of the population in less than ten years (as well as a 30% increase in violent crime over the same time period).
One trend that has been noticed in Europe and the US is the increasing prevalence of minorities in advertising while white people (specifically white men) are greatly diminished. In the UK, for example, the population is 83% white, but you wouldn’t know by watching their advertisements. Black citizens in the UK are 4% of the population, yet they make up over 50% of actors featured in commercials as noted in Channel 4’s “mirror” data.
One is hard pressed to find happy white couples in these ads. Instead, mixed-race couples dominate marketing in the west, despite the fact that they represent only 10% of all marriages in the US and Europe.
Mention this over-representation in the UK in a political setting, however, and you will be attacked as a racist. The common retort: “Why do you care?”
‘She should be utterly ashamed of herself.’
Labour’s Wes Streeting condemns Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s remarks about adverts ‘full of black people,’ labelling them racist. pic.twitter.com/gHNbBF9Fj8
But what would the progressive response be if minorities were being systematically removed from advertising below their percentage of the population? Well, we already know how they would respond.
The Sidney Sweeney jeans/genes ad broadcast this summer for American Eagle triggered a salty firestorm among leftists who accused the company and Sweeney of “Nazi propaganda.” A beautiful white woman talking about her good genes was treated like the ultimate social crime. Leftists couldn’t handle just one commercial that stepped outside of their narrative.
This is how much the political left cares about controlling the messaging of advertising. They care because they believe that marketing is a tool for social engineering. And, they seem to be particularly interested in getting rid of white couples, not just in media, but in the real world.
Germany’s Geopolitical Freefall: Beijing Shows Berlin The Red Card
Submitted by Thomas Kolbe
Germany’s dramatic economic collapse is dragging its geopolitical standing down with it. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has now learned what it means to be treated as a second-tier diplomat, receiving the red card from Beijing. A humiliation and a reprimand for Germany.
The school of life can be cruel. Growing up usually means losing lofty ideals, fringe ideologies and the dreamy mindset of an inexperienced existence to the harsh reality of the world. Reality follows its own rules, unimpressed by self-delusion.
That moment of maturity, the exit from the bubble of hermetically sealed party ideology, has now arrived for Germany’s top diplomat.
A Minister of Fantasies
Johann Wadephul, who only recently wandered through wonderland attributing the German economic miracle to Turkish immigrants, had to cancel his first official visit to China at the last minute because Beijing saw no need to speak with a German delegation.
The Christian Democrat is learning, much like his BlackRock-seasoned party colleague Friedrich Merz, that Germany’s dramatic economic decline is being followed instantly by a loss of geopolitical relevance.
Wadephul’s first China trip was intended as a reset in the strained diplomatic relationship with Beijing. A high-profile business delegation was set to accompany him and help ease tensions over critical rare earth supplies.
China has been threatening a complete export ban for weeks, a measure that would instantly paralyze key German industries.
Suddenly Business Matters
The delegation was to include representatives from the German automotive industry, Siemens Healthineers, the German Robotics Association and a leading importer of rare earth elements. Together, they were meant to relieve pressure in Beijing and secure access to the essential resources that Germany’s industrial base cannot function without.
When Beijing made clear that it would not entertain additional talks beyond the mandatory meeting of foreign ministers, Wadephul was forced to cancel the trip late Friday. A last-ditch attempt to save face and limit the political damage.
Perhaps Wadephul should have copied his predecessor Annalena Baerbock and focused on moral-philosophical escapism such as feminist foreign policy. It is harmless, fits the German zeitgeist and would have earned him brownie points among left-leaning coalition partners.
The Giant’s Achilles Heel
Right now Europe would desperately need a delegation that positions itself smartly in the slipstream of the Americans.
Every giant has a weakness. China’s economy is caught in a self-reinforcing deflationary spiral triggered by draconian US tariffs and a long-festering property crisis caused by massive state-driven capital misallocation.
Deflation is fatal because China’s growth relies on the fiat-credit machine. Rising insolvencies mean shrinking loan books. The credit turbo sputters, collateral values collapse through fire sales and oversupply, especially in real estate. Then the state must intervene again, inject more government credit and weaken its currency further.
It is a vicious cycle gripping nearly every modern economy.
China’s answer has always been the same: a colossal export-subsidy engine, a mercantilist model built at the expense of trade partners who lost production capacity to China.
Beijing’s trade surplus accounts for roughly 1 percent of global GDP. Roughly 1 trillion US dollars, fueled by massive export aid.
On top of that come geopolitical Trojan horses like the Belt and Road Initiative, opening markets wherever China needs raw materials.
China Is Desperate for Replacement Markets
Europe’s internal market has become essential for Beijing to dump excess production. The US market is increasingly blocked since Donald Trump’s tariff offensive: Chinese exports to the United States have crashed by a staggering 27 percent.
At the same time, Chinese exports to Germany rose 10.7 percent in the first half of the year.
To prevent a labor-market meltdown at home, Beijing is flooding alternative markets with overcapacity. The Communist Party is facing a youth unemployment rate likely around 20 percent. The social explosive lies right there.
This is precisely where Europe — especially Berlin — could apply leverage. In the escalating struggle for rare earth access, crucial for German industry and especially automakers, Europe could build real bargaining power by teaming up with the United States.
Irresponsible and Stubborn
It is irresponsible, considering China’s 90 percent dominance in rare-earth refining, not to side with Washington and secure strategic advantages for Europe’s own industrial survival.
Ideologically rigid, strategically naive and severely weakened by its trade debacles with the US, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is stumbling from one pseudo-summit to the next like a dethroned Brussels queen.
One gets the impression that the entire climate circus, the theatrical solidarity on Ukraine and the delusional green posture have become a psychological overcompensation for the visible failure of the Brussels project.
Time to Seek Alliance with the United States
Europe should have embraced geopolitical division of labor with Washington from the start. Especially now that the US, under a hyperactive foreign-policy president, is openly claiming leadership. Trump is right to point at EU protectionism, ubiquitous climate regulation and a policy increasingly hostile to markets.
Washington is on the offensive: deregulation, tax cuts, junking the quasi-religious climate cult. It’s working: the US economy is growing 3.8 percent, new debt fell from 6.7 to 5.8 percent. Trump is recalibrating the system while Europe tumbles in the opposite direction: higher debt, deeper recession.
Wadephul and his fellow European diplomats must finally accept this reality and drop their escalating crusade over censorship laws, scrap the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the online-surveillance regime entirely. Instead, they should seek fair trade with the US without hidden climate protectionism.
Europe is resource-poor and energy-dependent, importing up to 60 percent of its energy. Without Russian energy and raw materials, Europe’s prosperity model collapses.
And the attack on a Eurasian rapprochement between continental Europe and resource-rich Russia did not come from Washington, despite media mantras to the contrary. It came straight from the heart of the European Union.
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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he 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.
Lots of attention was drawn to the Great Nicobar Island Project (GNIP) last month, which aims to develop this namesake island in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory, after Indian National Congress leader Sonia Gandhi published an op-ed at The Hindu lambasting it. Her criticisms mostly center on its potential environmental consequences while ignoring its geostrategic significance, thus prompting the ruling BJP spokesman to rhetorically ask on whose behalf she’s lobbying against it.
For background, India has been practicing what it calls the Act East Policy for over a decade after Prime Minister Narendra Modi rebranded the Look East Policy in 2014 to emphasize his proactive intentions, which aim to comprehensively strengthen ties between his civilization-state and ASEAN. The Trilateral Highway with Myanmar and Thailand was supposed to be this policy’s flagship project but has run into trouble due to the latest phase of Myanmar’s civil war.
The GNIP is now envisaged as the new flagship.
As Savitri Mumukshu wrote on X, “By developing Great Nicobar into a deep-sea port, airport, and military hub, India gains a vital strategic foothold just 160 km from the Malacca Strait, a vital chokepoint through which 80% of China’s oil imports and 40% of global trade pass. This allows India to monitor maritime traffic, project power across the eastern Indian Ocean, and quickly use naval and air assets”.
Mutually friendly rhetoric from the past few weeks aside, China and India are still veritably competitors with one another, if not still rivals. All that’s recently changed is that there now appears to be a renewed interest in responsibly managing border tensions with a view towards gradually growing bilateral trade. This is a significant achievement given the bad blood between them since summer 2020’s lethal clashes over the Galwan River Valley but neither is naively imagining that the other is now a trusted partner.
India practices what can be described as a Hyper-Realist foreign policy in the sense that its Minister of External Affairs explicitly details his country’s interests and openly seeks to advance them. This contrasts with most countries’ top diplomats, who usually only hint at what their interests are and then quietly pursue them. There’s no ambiguity when it comes to Indian foreign policy. The GNIP can therefore be interpreted as a means of counterbalancing what it considers to be China’s regional hegemonic policies.
It’s unimportant whether observers share India’s assessment of China’s regional approach since all that matters is that the GNIP is meant to become the new lynchpin of its Act East Policy. It’s outwardly driven by economic imperatives but crucially includes unstated military-strategic goals with respect to entrenching India’s envisaged role as the guardian of its eponymous ocean. These aren’t objectively threatening to China but are intended to counterbalance and deter it in case tensions one day return.
With all this insight in mind, while some critics of the GNIP might truly mean well, their advocacy against it inadvertently harms India’s grand strategic interests. The global systemic transition to multipolarity is such that Great Powers like India are independently advancing their interests vis-à-vis their peers like China. This isn’t a sign of unipolarity’s impending return like some members of the Alt-Media Community might fear but a natural development that stabilizes the emerging balance of power.
