Author: Erik Sass

The 20-year-old Toledo Pact, by which Spanish politicians attempted to head off the long-term unsustainability of the national pensions system, is defunct, writes F. Cabrillo of Spanish think tank Civismo. Cabrillo notes that the Spanish roundly rejected plans to import privatized models some decades ago, and now the national pension system is “bankrupt.”

If Britain is to regain its competitive edge in innovative technology-based industries, the government needs to institute a number of reforms and new measures, the Centre for Policy Studies argues — and that could include special “Unicorn Visas” (probably not actually called that) to attract promising tech talent.

The tortuous, and as yet inconclusive, course of Brexit will have real impacts on the UK’s relations with European allies, according to Sophia Besch writing in the Berlin Policy Journal.  British participation in a proposed defense union is one area that could suffer from growing mistrust amid a hard Brexit.

Happy thoughts!  A majority of German financial professionals expect the UK to crash out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement, with a major chance of serious disturbances to international financial markets, according to Germany’s Center for Financial Studies.

European importers currently pay for oil in dollars, but energy trading in more than one currency used to be commonplace, according to Bruegel’s Elina Ribakova. She argues that a return to the days of multiple trading currencies could yield multiple benefits — and please Russia, which naturally would like to “de-dollarise” trade.

Well-intentioned efforts to export European-style laws, regulations, and standards covering things like labor and product safety to developing countries risks backlash and unintended consequences, Avenir Suisse warns in a new blog post.

Contrary to assertions by populists of both left and right that the rich are under-taxed, the Austrian Economics Center finds that they pay a disproportion share of taxes based on national income.  If anything, they are over-taxed… like everyone else.

The Adam Smith Institute takes on the critical housing shortage in the UK, which is driving up prices and locking many people (especially young, would-be first time homebuyers) out of home ownership, and suggests the commonsense — in fact, only — solution: build more houses.  That includes opening up “green belts” around big cities, which […]

Unlike the United States, which saw a sharp increase in preventable deaths among working-age people over the last two decades, the rate of mortality from “deaths of despair” (including suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses, and so on) has declined sharply in Germany, according to the DIW Berlin.  Read about it here.