All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.
The European Union barely avoided sliding into an official recession at the close of 2023. The U.K. is in recession, while Germany has admitted to “recessionary conditions.” Portugal and Spain, meanwhile, led EU economic growth with growth rates of less than 1%.
Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan observes that this recession seems to be global and that it is certainly not limited to Europe. In fact, Zeihan argues, North America appears to be the only continent where economic forecasts continue to look good.
Below is an excerpt from Peter’s March 5 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
I was scanning the financial news this morning and realized Germany was in recession. In my morning brief I was informed Japan was in recession as well. On a call with a client someone brought up that the United Kingdom had joined the downers club. A quick convo with the staff revealed the same was true for Hungary and Ireland. And Greece and Lithuania and Estonia and Finland. Israel probably as well, while Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy are only a rounding error away. China’s data, such that it is, suggests that the Middle Kingdom is by most definitions at best recession-adjacent.
We’ve known for a while that between China’s stumbles and global demographic aging that consumption-led growth on a global scale has become nearly impossible. The problem is we have lacked the data to confirm what theory dictates. GDP growth data always comes out with a lag of months. Often multiple quarters for many places. And COVID (~&@#^*-ing COVID) scrambled everyone’s data for nearly three years. Well, we’re starting to get a good deep look at reality again, and it appears we may already be past the point where the sort of economic activity we’ve all thought of as “normal” for so long is simply…over.
