Public debt, a major stimulus to inflation

Over the next three decades, public debt in the United States and other major economies will soar. The need to print money to pay for it and a very limited improvement in productive capacity will make it difficult to keep inflation under control.

The US deficit in 2022 was much smaller than in 2020 and 2021 because of higher revenues and the reduction in the massive stimulus to counter the effects of the pandemic. 

However, this figure is misleading. The US Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the annual federal deficit over the period 2022-2052 will average 7.3% of GDP, more than double the average of the past half-century, and will trend upwards year by year, reaching 11.1% of GDP in 2052. 

This means that the US federal debt will rise from less than 40% of GDP in 2000 to more than 185% in 2052. The country’s debt-to-output ratio is expected to start skyrocketing in 2024 and surpass its all-time high in 2031, when it will reach 107%.

This huge increase in indebtedness is largely due to rising interest costs, which will more than quadruple over the period and reach 7.2% of GDP in 2052, according to estimates. As for the primary deficit, which excludes net interest outlays, it will almost double over the next 30 years, reaching almost 4 per cent in 2052.

Unintended consequences 

This scenario could slow economic growth in the world’s leading power, increase the risk of a fiscal crisis and limit political room for manoeuvre in the face of future crises. 

It also makes it difficult to contain inflation if we take into account that it will be increasingly difficult to increase productive capacity: low birth rates will make it increasingly difficult to replace retiring baby boomers, which could reduce the available labour force, while productivity growth tends to slow down.

If central banks in the United States and other economic powers are forced to multiply money printing to deal with public debt and the supply of goods and services on the market does not grow at the same rate, this imbalance will stimulate inflation. As the money in circulation increases more than the goods and services available, prices tend to rise.

Who is the one to bell the cat?

The only feasible measure to limit the debt ratio would be to restrict public spending, but it is difficult for any politician, regardless of political persuasion, to dare to propose such an unpopular measure. As a result, public spending and the resulting deficits, both in Europe and the United States, are likely to continue to rise unchecked for decades to come. 

Instead of tackling the problem, politicians prefer to sweep it under the carpet. The next generation will find it.

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The automation of work is creating an occupational metamorphosis, in which tasks usually done by humans are transferred to a set of technologies. Economics is not spared, and artificial intelligence is also gaining ground. But are economic forecasting algorithms a real alternative to economists?

As a result of the digitisation process of the last decades, huge amounts of data are being generated that are transforming the methods by which we analyse statistical models. Storing, registering, and analysing this constant flow of information has become an essential task for many sectors of the economy.

A technological revolution has opened up new possibilities in economic and financial forecasting capabilities. The analysis of these large databases, known as ‘big data’, would not be possible without artificial intelligence (AI). A rather broad term that encompasses a whole range of ideas.

Even so, there are two concepts in this field: machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), mathematical algorithms that allow computers to identify patterns in data and make predictions by imitating humans. Two computational advances that form the basis of economic forecasting with artificial intelligence.

An algorithmic crystal ball

Experts often compare algorithmic forecasting to “a crystal ball”. Indeed, this metaphor is the title of an internal study published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in which the authors of the research, Jin-Kyu Jung, Manasa Patnam and Anna Ter-Martirosyan, try to establish whether macroeconomic forecasting algorithms can improve on the results predicted by IMF economists themselves.

The study applies three different machine learning algorithms to a common economic forecasting problem, and the results are surprising. In all three cases, the algorithmic prediction far surpassed the benchmark performance of IMF economists.

In their observations, the authors warn that there are still factors that require further research. They also state that, for these predictions to be truly effective, real-time observations would have to be included. They explain that there is some freedom in the introduction of the parameters used by the algorithms, and that this may be key to determining their effectiveness.

Even so, in their conclusion they agree on the fact that the potential of machine learning in terms of statistical analysis of economic data is evident; and that, although these predictions made by algorithms cannot fully replace the work of economists, they represent a valuable additional reference when making decisions on economic forecasting.

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Els Balcans Occidentals, una regió situada al sud-est d’Europa, s’ha convertit en un objectiu estratègic per a la Xina en termes d’inversions i influència. El gegant asiàtic ha aprofitat el buit deixat per la Unió Europea després d’anys d’infructuoses negociacions sobre el lent procés d’adhesió amb els països de la península.

Durant les dues últimes dècades, la Xina ha tret partit de l’espectacular creixement de la seva economia incrementant la seva influència arreu del món a través del comerç i inversions. Beijing, amb el seu enfocament en vincular altres països a la Iniciativa del Cinturó i Ruta de la Seda, inverteix el seu capital ajudant a aixecar les economies regionals de parts del món oblidades per Occident a canvi de recursos naturals i accés als seus mercats.

Aquesta expansió de llaços comercials s’ha concentrat principalment en el continent africà, impulsant un nou model de desenvolupament econòmic més benevolent que l’alternativa neoliberal dels poders colonials occidentals. Tanmateix, l’ascendent abast global del gegant asiàtic també és palpable al continent europeu, especialment dins del grup de països dels Balcans Occidentals que no formen part de la UE: Albània, Bòsnia i Hercegovina, Kosovo, Macedònia del Nord, Montenegro i Sèrbia.

La península dels Balcans Occidentals és una regió rica en recursos naturals i un element cabdal per al desenvolupament del projecte xinès amb la finalitat de facilitar les seves exportacions a Europa. Això no obstant, una gran part d’aquests països tenen unes infraestructures poc desenvolupades i malmeses després d’anys de conflictes militars, inestabilitat política i manca d’inversió. Concretament, les guerres iugoslaves durant la dècada dels 90 i posteriors crisis polítiques van ser la principal causa de la fragmentació del mercat balcànic i de la destrucció i subseqüent abandó de la seva infraestructura.

És per això que hi ha un gran potencial de desenvolupament econòmic en l’antany espai d’influència soviètica, que la Xina ha suplantat mentre la UE es mirava el melic. Aquesta presència cada vegada més evident del gegant asiàtic ha generat algunes reaccions divergents entre els països de la regió, i preocupa especialment als Estats Units i la Unió Europea, que veuen minvat el seu poder de persuasió a l’hora de dictar les aliances geoestratègiques i comercials d’aquests estats.

Un Pla Marshall a l’estil xinès

A partir de la crisi econòmica global del 2008, que també s’abatia sobre els Balcans, la Xina va veure la regió com un lloc ideal per a oferir les seves inversions, préstecs i exportació de productes. Una dècada després, 136 projectes activats per un valor de 32.000 milions d’euros en els sectors energètics, metal·lúrgics, de la mineria, dels transports i infraestructures s’han fet realitat.

Des dels 61 plans d’inversió aprovats per infraestructures crítiques i construcció de fàbriques a Sèrbia fins als 30 projectes actius en el sector de l’energia a Bòsnia i Hercegovina, els estats més pobres del continent europeu rebien amb les mans obertes al país asiàtic. A la vegada que la Xina els feia donacions de material sanitari i vacunes durant la pandèmia mentre es queixaven de la falta de solidaritat de la Unió Europea que els donava l’esquena.

És veritat que atès que molts d’aquests projectes s’implementen en països amb una situació macroeconòmica precària, un limitat accés a finançament i una situació política relativament inestable, no tenen gaires opcions de trobar altres fonts d’inversió. Encara que aquesta situació pot canviar en un futur, el soci asiàtic ha establert les bases d’una cooperació que difícilment s’esvairan quan millori l’estabilitat econòmica-política d’aquests estats.

El cost ocult de les inversions

Els beneficis d’aquesta expansió dels llaços comercials entre els dos continents són evidents. Les inversions xineses han ajudat a millorar la infraestructura i han creat llocs de treball als Balcans, contribuint al desenvolupament econòmic i a la reducció de la pobresa. A més, s’han establert acords de cooperació en àmbits com la cultura, l’educació i la sanitat, fomentant una major interdependència i reforçant les relacions econòmiques i diplomàtiques entre les dues parts.

No obstant això, també hi ha una contrapartida menys positiva que de vegades acompanya a les inversions xineses. Alguns d’aquests projectes han estat subjectes de denúncies i protestes per l’explotació laboral i danys mediambientals facilitats per una legislació laxa i una corrupció governamental endèmica. Un bon exemple d’aquestes males pràctiques va tenir lloc durant la construcció de la planta de pneumàtics de Linglong a Zrenjanin (Sèrbia) amb migrants portats de Vietnam que, segons va denunciar l’Associació Ciutadana Zrenjanin Acció, treballaven i convivien en condicions infrahumanes.

De la mateixa manera, una de les principals crítiques és la manca de transparència dels projectes d’inversió i de les possibles conseqüències de no poder fer front als préstecs multimilionaris que sovint els fan viables. El temps dirà si la Xina seguirà el mateix camí que els poders occidentals amb el Fons Monetari Internacional, generant deutes insostenibles per als països receptors de les seves ‘ajudes’ que comporten una pèrdua de sobirania i la venda dels seus béns i recursos a preus de saldo.

Deixats de la mà de la Unió Europea

Lluny queda la cimera UE-Balcans occidentals Salònica del 21 de juny de 2003, on es promovia el missatge que els Balcans podrien ser membres de la Unió Europea en 10 o 15 anys. Es volia vendre la idea d’una integració europea que més tard va passar a segon pla a causa de la crisi financera del final de la dècada, després per culpa del Brexit i més tard pels resultats electorals als Estats Units i el conflicte a Ucraïna.

Si bé és cert que la UE ha seguit creixent en diversos processos d’adhesió de nous estats membres de l’Europa Central i Occidental, els països dels Balcans Occidentals segueixen a la cua, estancats en negociacions que semblen no avançar 20 anys després de les promeses. Això ha fet perdre credibilitat a la Unió Europea i ha provocat que grans sectors de la població d’aquesta regió, anteriorment molt proeuropeus, avui se sentin traïts per la UE.

Les darreres cimeres europees de caràcter majoritàriament simbòlic i la posada en marxa d’una tímida alternativa europea a la nova Ruta de la Seda, per a ajudar als països en vies de desenvolupament a canvi d’una intensificació dels llaços comercials amb la UE i un refredament de les seves relacions econòmiques amb la Xina i Rússia, és poc probable que canviïn la percepció que tenen els Balcans Occidentals d’una Unió Europea que ja fa anys que ni hi és ni se l’espera.

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China’s spectacular economic growth has been reflected in the Asian giant’s rising influence on the African continent. With investments that span across the continent and have global geopolitical implications, China is expanding its worldwide reach and tapping into Africa’s vast market and resources.

As the world’s second-largest economy, China is expanding its global reach and tapping into Africa’s vast market and resources. In the process, the Asian giant has become Africa’s largest trading partner, investing heavily in infrastructure, resources, and businesses across the continent.

For their part, African governments see an opportunity in this increased Chinese presence in their territory, diversifying their global strategic alliances through a new model of economic development that is more benevolent than the neoliberal alternative of the Western colonial powers.

On the other hand, Europe and the US understandably see this as a threat to their hegemonic position in dictating what economic policies are best for the continent or themselves and accusing China of imperialism.

Loans and infrastructure in exchange for natural resources

Several factors have contributed to this paradigm shift. One of the key ones is the search for natural resources to fuel China’s rapidly growing economy. Africa is rich in minerals and hydrocarbons that are critical to China’s economic growth.

With these investments, Beijing secures access to the raw materials necessary for its economy to continue to grow, while at the same time increasing exports of its products, services, and infrastructure development contracts in the 53 African countries with which it maintains diplomatic and trade relations.

At the same time, the desire to position itself to take advantage of the large consumer market on the African continent can’t be ignored. With a population of more than 1.4 billion people, expected to double by 2050, Africa is one of the regions with the highest GDP growth and is expected to maintain a stable and steady growth tendency between 2023 and 2027.

Unlike the privatisation and market deregulation policies promoted by the World Bank and the IMF, which are designed to benefit Western corporations at the expense of the misery of the local population, who will end up paying back the loans, China provides a type of financing that does not interfere in economic policies and is perceived as a less unequal treatment between two state actors.

That said, it remains to be seen whether, in the face of increasing debt overhangs and potential defaults, China will continue to forgive African countries’ debts in exchange for influence and new contracts, or will opt for the Western model of tying them into a spiral of unpayable debt in order to decimate what little sovereignty they have left.

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There is a comfortable way to explain the present: to say that “everything is going up” and to point to an external culprit. China, war, the pandemic, or the markets. It is a simple, reassuring explanation, but an insufficient one. Because when the world seems expensive, it is often not that it is expensive, but that it is poorly understood.

What we are experiencing is not a structural inflation of the planet, but a fragmentation of the system that the West itself designed some thirty years ago. And as with all structures that break, the noise does not come from the final blow, but from the cracks that have accumulated.

After the Cold War, the West believed it had won something more than a conflict: it thought it had gained time. With the collapse of the USSR, the world seemed governable under a single logic, based on open markets, global production and cheap consumption. Politics stepped aside, allowing the economy to take center stage. In some way, that vision would eventually impose itself as common sense.

From that point on, the decisions were clear. Industry was offshored in order to reduce costs and increase margins. China entered this system not as a rival, but as a functional piece of a new large-scale productive model. In a short time it became the factory of the world, providing labor without comparable rights, cheap energy and strong state support.

Today, this narrative is often presented as a strategic mistake. But it was not. It was a mutual agreement. On one side, the West obtained low prices and controlled inflation; on the other, China gained access to growth, technology, and markets. No one deceived anyone. Everyone knew what they were buying and what they were selling.

Private profits, socialized risks

The problem did not arise with globalization, but with its moral management. Western companies achieved extraordinary margins, but did not reinvest them in their own industrial fabric or in long-term productive capacity. States, for their part, took advantage of cheap consumption to sustain an artificial political stability, financed by cheap debt. And the middle classes, without yet realizing it, began to pay a deferred bill: less industry, less job security, less bargaining power.

The effects were gradual but persistent. Stagnant wages, silent precarization, rising costs of living. Products were cheaper, but citizens were more fragile. Globalization reduced prices, yes; but it also eroded the consumer’s ability to sustain them in the long term. Here lies the central paradox of our time: never before had we bought so much with such a deep sense of economic insecurity.

The dollar and debt trap

This is where the system acquires a depth that often goes unnoticed. This entire mechanism —offshored production, sustained consumption, restrained wages— rested on an invisible but decisive pillar: trust. The dollar as the hegemonic currency and U.S. debt as an infinite safe asset allowed the world to function with a logic that was apparently paradoxical but stable. The United States could borrow without limit, the rest of the world could accumulate reserves, and the circuit closed with a shared faith in the center of the system.

But trust is neither eternal nor neutral. It creates monetary dependence, exposes geopolitical vulnerabilities and, over time, awakens the temptation to seek alternatives. When a global economy revolves too much around a single axis, any shock becomes systemic. And when the center begins to seem less reliable —due to excessive debt, political use of the currency or internal instability— the periphery stops wanting to orbit by inertia. Not out of hostility, but out of prudence.

It is at this point that real fragmentation begins. Not with Trump’s tariffs, which are merely its visible manifestation, but with the silent crack in trust. When the system ceases to be perceived as fair and predictable, attempts to create parallel routes, regional agreements and alternative currencies multiply. Globalization does not collapse all at once; it splits. And when this happens, the world does not immediately become more expensive, but it does become much more fragile.

When China stops being the workshop

The shift in the center of gravity is not only monetary, but also productive and political. The turning point comes when China decides to stop being merely a subordinate production space and aspires to become a strategic actor. It no longer only manufactures for others, but plans for the long term, subsidizes key sectors, exports surpluses and defines its own priorities. In a world where trust in the center is beginning to crack, this evolution is not an anomaly, but a logical consequence. Whoever depends too much on a system eventually tries to govern part of it.

Europe, meanwhile, looks in the mirror and discovers its own structural nakedness. Expensive energy, the absence of a common industrial policy and an increasingly defensive response based on tariffs. But tariffs are not strength; they are the symptom. They indicate that the problem is not so much one of competition as of foundations, because when you cannot compete, you protect yourself. And when you protect yourself too late, you do not solve the problem; you merely postpone its diagnosis.

The world of blocs

The shift toward a fragmented world does not imply the disappearance of trade, but the end of a fiction: that of neutral trade, disconnected from politics and power. What emerges is a system of regional blocs, where economic decisions are once again conditioned by strategic interests. There is less globalization and more alignment; less efficiency and more politics. Flows are no longer free, they are negotiated. And this generates frictions, costs and tensions, but it also opens windows of opportunity for those actors who understand well where they are and with whom they want to align.

This new scenario is not necessarily more expensive by definition. It is, above all, a less fluid world, more aware of its limits and much more fragmented. Complexity replaces simplicity, and blind dependence gives way to a more closely monitored interdependence. Prices do not always rise; what changes is the ease with which everything used to circulate. And when that ease disappears, the system forces us to think, to prioritize and to make decisions that had been postponed for decades.

Faced with this panorama, fragmentation does not demand panic, but judgment. Understanding the context is already a form of financial defense. Fragmenting means diversifying, protecting savings and not trusting everything to a single system or a single promise. This is not about selling fear, but knowledge. Because history remembers it with relentless consistency: systems do not collapse when the world changes, but when people insist on interpreting it with old maps. And today, more than ever, the problem is not that the world is expensive; it is that it is no longer simple.

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Water covers 70% of the planet’s surface, and the volume of business that this can generate makes the marine ecosystem a strategic sector for developing a sustainable economy.

The blue economy describes all those economic activities linked to the sea and marine ecosystems. It includes port and logistics activities, fishing, shipbuilding, energy production, sports, science, and technology activities. The main premise is sustainability, as the future of both this economic sector and the planet in general will depend on it. 

2050 goal: 35% of energy will be produced in the sea

The European Commission points to the blue economy as a key player in the European Green Deal, which promotes the sustainable development of all member countries. The ocean acts as a climate regulator, is indispensable in the production of oxygen, and provides energy, food, and other resources without which we could not live.

It is, therefore, a strategic sector in the fight against climate change which, today, focuses on two major goals: developing renewable energy on the high seas in order to achieve 35% of energy production by 2050 and, on the other hand, making ports and transport more sustainable, seeking to limit carbon emissions and reduce the ecological footprint of ports.

Catalonia has a project that could achieve the energy goal, the so-called Tramuntana Park. With the intention of becoming a benchmark against climate change, the Empordà presents this proposal to create a marine and floating wind farm in the Gulf of Roses. The project would start operating in 2026 and could supply 45% of energy in the province of Girona, in addition to creating 5,000 jobs and contributing to the preservation and regeneration of marine ecosystems.

What is the European Green Deal? The European Research Council explains it in this video.

Blue Catalonia, leader in Europe

The plan to promote the blue economy in Catalonia began in 2018. Since then, the sector has generated more than 200,000 jobs and 35.5 billion euros. A figure that places Catalonia at the forefront of European countries where the maritime economy has greater internal weight. It is followed by Portugal, Estonia, Greece, Malta, and Cyprus.

Its weight is undeniable, and Catalan business involvement corroborates this. For example, the Port of Barcelona has launched a project to turn into a blue economy hub acting as a strategic point for companies related to the sector directly or indirectly.

Also, this year, the Blue Economy Business Cluster was created in the lands of the Ebro. It is an initiative open to all companies in the area that want to join forces for the environmental preservation of the Delta and its economic activity, mostly maritime.

A sustainable economic development involves making efficient use of the available resources, and in this sense Catalonia must make conscious use of everything the sea has to offer. The goal will be economic and social progress, but with the same degree of importance as environmental preservation, because as the European Commission warns, “there can be no green without blue.”

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Every January, Davos becomes the nerve centre of global power. Presidents, bankers, major business leaders and international organisations deliver speeches on cooperation, sustainability and shared prosperity. But while the cameras focus on the main stages, there are glaring silences that go unnoticed. And it is precisely these silences that should concern citizens, savers, and anyone trying to protect their economic future the most.

The World Economic Forum was born in the 1970s with an apparently noble purpose: to facilitate public-private dialogue in an increasingly interconnected world. For decades, Davos was the showcase of triumphant globalisation. Growth, free trade and monetary stability were the keywords.

Today, the context is radically different. What was once a space of optimism has become a defensive space, where elites try to preserve a system that is showing cracks. Not because Davos has lost influence, but because the world it helped to build is entering a phase of structural friction.

And here appears the first major absence from the official narrative: the crisis of legitimacy. Davos does not pass laws, does not vote on budgets, does not account to citizens. But it sets the agenda. And it does so from a perspective that prioritises the stability of the system over the well-being of people.

Inflation and debt: the elephant in the room

One of the most frequently mentioned issues in the corridors —but rarely addressed in depth on stage— is the level of global debt. Governments, companies, and households are carrying historically high levels of debt. The institutional response of recent years has been clear: more liquidity, more stimulus, more money created out of thin air.

In Davos, there is talk of “monetary normalisation”, but almost no one explains the real cost of this process. Inflation is not a one-off accident: it is the direct consequence of years of expansionary monetary policies. And this inflation acts as a silent tax that erodes savings.

The silence is revealing. Because acknowledging it publicly would mean recognising that the purchasing power of the middle classes will remain under pressure for years —not as a temporary anomaly, but as a structural consequence of the model. It would mean admitting that saving in fiat money is intrinsically vulnerable, exposed to constant erosion that does not stem from poor individual decisions, but from deliberate monetary policies. And above all, it would require stating an uncomfortable truth out loud: that the current system needs inflation to sustain levels of debt that would otherwise be unpayable. Saying it would be admitting that stability is built by sacrificing value… and that this value almost always comes from the same pocket.

Davos speaks of “stability”, but avoids saying that this stability is often built at the expense of the saver.

Economic geopolitics: the end of the free market as we knew it

Another major hidden issue is selective deglobalisation. Officially, no one wants to talk about protectionism. But in practice, major powers use tariffs, sanctions, technological controls and aggressive industrial policies.

The free market is only free while it suits. When strategic interests come into play, the discourse changes. Davos knows this, but frames it with euphemisms: “resilience”, “secure supply chains”, “strategic autonomy”.

Translated into real life, this means less global trade, more economic blocs and, inevitably, more uncertainty. A scenario with immediate and very concrete consequences: more volatile markets, where sharp movements are no longer exceptional; increasingly politicised investments, subject to strategic interests and government decisions; and risks that are no longer merely economic, but clearly geopolitical, with conflicts, sanctions, and alliances shaping asset values. The free market, as we understood it, is no longer the playing field.

Yet this paradigm shift is rarely explained clearly. Perhaps because acknowledging it would mean admitting that the global model is changing… and not necessarily for the better.

Artificial intelligence: promise of productivity, social risk

If there is one omnipresent concept in Davos, it is artificial intelligence. The speeches are almost messianic: more productivity, more growth, more efficiency. But the debate about who wins and who loses is diluted.

Economic history teaches us this: every technological revolution creates wealth, but also displacement. The difference this time is the speed. And social structures are not adapting at the same pace.

What is not being said clearly is that this technological transformation will not be painless: many jobs will be replaced before real and stable alternatives emerge, creating periods of precariousness that are not always explained. At the same time, capital concentration may increase even further, strengthening the power of some actors who control technology, data, and infrastructure. And without solid and effective redistributive policies, the outcome is predictable: a wider, deeper and harder-to-reverse social gap.

Davos talks about “upskilling”, but avoids talking about the loss of workers’ bargaining power and the real impact on wages and job stability.

Green transition: discursive consensus, blurred bill

Climate is another apparent consensus. Everyone agrees that an energy transition is necessary. But the key question —who pays for it— remains unanswered.

The reality is that much of the cost of the transition falls on the same groups as always. On consumers, through taxes, tariffs and everyday price increases presented as inevitable. On medium-sized companies, with less financial and technological capacity to adapt to top-down imposed timelines. And on already heavily indebted states, which finance the transformation with more deficit, pushing the cost into the future while fiscal room for manoeuvre shrinks year after year.

Meanwhile, major financial players continue to play on both sides. In Davos, the discourse is green, responsible, and committed; away from the spotlight, however, many investments continue to follow strictly profit-driven criteria, with short horizons and little willingness to absorb real losses. The reassuring narrative thus conceals an uncomfortable truth: the transition will be economically painful if it is not carried out with judgement, fairness, and realism. Denying this only postpones social and economic conflicts that will eventually emerge with greater force.

All this may seem distant, abstract. But it is not. Davos does not speak directly to you, but its dynamics affect you every day: when inflation erodes savings, when volatility shakes markets, when debt conditions public policy, and when technology reshapes work. In this context, the key question is not what Davos says, but how you protect yourself. And this is where the official narrative fails: it asks for trust in the system, but offers few real guarantees. The system needs citizens to trust… even when its foundations are fragile.

The core idea Davos avoids

Perhaps what is not being said in Davos is precisely the most important thing: that the protection of wealth and the future will not come from above. It will not come from summits, solemn declarations or institutional promises. It will come from knowledge, personal judgement and informed decisions. Understanding how the system really works is not pessimism —it is responsibility. And in a world of structural uncertainty, the best tool is not blind faith, but economic awareness.

Davos will continue to exist. It will continue to set trends and generate headlines. But the ultimate responsibility is not its own. It is ours. At 11Onze, we are clear: talking about economics is talking about personal sovereignty. About how we protect savings, how we understand risks and how we stop being mere spectators to become informed actors. Because the future is not decided only in Davos… it is also decided at home.

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It is difficult for us to talk about death, but it is even more difficult to talk about the cost of dying. We want to break the taboo and take a look at the procedure and costs of funeral services, historically criticised for their high prices and lack of transparency.

The Covid-19 pandemic has left us with very unpleasant figures, headed by the 23,000 deaths that have been recorded in Catalonia since the beginning of the pandemic. Added to this number is the desperation of many families when it comes to paying for the funeral to have a dignified farewell for their loved ones, either due to a lack of financial resources, the high costs of the funeral home, or, in some cases, because they cannot afford or do not have burial insurance. 

Barcelona creates a protocol of good practice

The first obstacle encountered by many families begins at the medical centre itself: due to lack of information, in many cases, they are unaware of the procedure for contracting funeral services at the hospital for the death of a family member. In response to this need, Barcelona City Council has created a protocol of good practices on funeral services, to which ten of the city’s hospitals have already signed up.

The aim of this protocol is to provide families with information on the steps to follow and to promote freedom of choice as to which funeral company they want to use. For this reason, the medical centres, together with the cemeteries of the city of Barcelona, provide a leaflet with information on prices, rights, funeral homes operators, the procedure to follow in case of having insurance, free services, and subsidised services. The protocol also details how all this information must be provided by medical personnel in a designated area, in order to maintain privacy.

Price of burials limited by the coronavirus

The impact of the pandemic and the situation of helplessness in which many families have found themselves has led the Generalitat to establish that “under no circumstances, the prices of funeral services maybe be higher than those in force prior to 14 March 2020”. This malpractice had already been denounced by some funeral homes customers, who warned of prices that were too high for those who died of coronavirus.

Currently, due to the lack of transparency and information from funeral homes and the aggravation of the coronavirus, it is difficult to establish an average burial price in Catalonia. But to give us an idea, in Barcelona, the limit for funeral services during the pandemic was 1,948.10 euros.

The recurrent lack of transparency

In 2020, the Organització de Consumidors i Usuaris (OCU) carried out a study analysing the websites of 50 funeral homes in different cities in Spain, and concluded that the lack of transparency is constant and recurrent in this sector. Only five funeral homes out of the 50 that were analysed reported and detailed their prices; others showed the price of certain services or simply the total cost, and the remaining 37 did not report prices at all.

In addition to this lack of transparency, there is a lack of freedom to choose funeral homes, especially for people with burial insurance, who can only choose from the options indicated by the insurer. In Spain, practically half of the deceased population in 2020 had insurance (46.6%) and, therefore, their choice was limited. The association of small funeral homes Esfune alerted the National Commission for Markets and Competition this year to this lack of freedom of choice, which according to its study affects 70% of families, with or without insurance.

Nothing spares us from death. That is why it is so important that the funeral sector offers facilities and guarantees to families and is committed to transparency. Because the duty of funeral homes is to provide a good death.

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The year 2026 has begun with a United States that has abandoned the courteous language of the liberal order. The world no longer revolves around shared values, but around scarce resources. And when those resources become vital, diplomacy gives way to pressure. What we are witnessing is not a sum of conflicts, but a shift in paradigm.

For decades, Washington presented itself as the guarantor of an international order based on rules, open markets, and multilateral institutions. The narrative was clear: free trade, democracy, stability. But this model had an implicit condition: that the United States controlled the key levers of the system —energy, finance, trade routes, and currency.

Today, that control is no longer unquestioned. China challenges industrial hegemony, Russia questions the European security architecture, and more and more countries are seeking alternatives to the dollar. In this context, U.S. foreign policy has changed its tone: fewer sermons, more muscle.

This is not an improvised drift, but a defensive response. A geopolitics of systemic survival in a world where power can no longer be taken for granted.

When sanctions replace invasion

The case of Venezuela illustrates better than any other how the exercise of global power has evolved. The official narrative continues to speak of democracy and human rights, but in practice it points in another direction. Energy control is no longer exercised with marines, but with sanctions.

Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves on the planet. For years, the financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States has strangled its productive capacity without the need for a single boot on the ground. In this way, the economy has done the work that the military once did.

When the global energy market tightened —due to the war in Ukraine, inflation, and supply insecurity— Washington adjusted the mechanism. It partially relaxed sanctions, not out of political conviction, but out of strategic interest. The blockade does not disappear, but it is rationed.

The special licenses granted to companies such as the U.S.-based Chevron do not signify a normalization of political relations, but rather a surgical management of scarcity. Washington now decides who can extract, in what quantity, at what pace, and under what conditions. Punishment is transformed into permission, and sanctions become the new tool of governance.

This model has an obvious advantage for the hegemony, as there is no longer a need to occupy territory or overthrow regimes, a practice widespread during the twentieth century. Now it is enough to control the financial and energy tap. But in the long run, the cost will become too high, because the systematic use of sanctions will erode international trust and accelerate the search for alternatives. As a result, payments outside the dominant system, bilateral agreements, and gradual exits from the dollar circuit have already begun to appear.

Thus, the world faces a very clear paradox: the more sanctions are used as a geopolitical weapon, the less neutral the currency that enables them will appear.

When the Arctic is no longer peripheral

If Venezuela represents the energy-rich south, Greenland symbolizes the strategic north. For decades, the island was perceived as a remote, almost anecdotal space, but today it has become a central piece on the global chessboard.

The melting of the Arctic —as a consequence of climate change— opens new maritime routes, shortens commercial distances, and exposes resources previously inaccessible, such as rare earths, uranium, and minerals critical for the energy transition. At the same time, Greenland hosts key military infrastructures for the U.S. early warning system and space defense.

Washington’s pressure on Nuuk and Copenhagen is neither a whim nor a diplomatic outburst, but a clear message: the Arctic cannot remain outside its sphere of control. Neither through Chinese influence nor through full autonomy that escapes the Atlantic orbit.

Here, geopolitics takes on a more classical form: military presence, selective investment, diplomatic pressure. But the underlying objective is the same as in Venezuela: securing resources and corridors before rivals do.

What connects Caracas and Nuuk?

This shift in U.S. foreign policy does not respond to a single factor or to a temporary situation. It is the result of a combination of structural pressures that affect the very core of its power. If Venezuela and Greenland appear as distant and unrelated scenarios, it is because they conceal the same pattern.

Behind Washington’s new assertiveness converge three key vectors that explain why the language has changed and why economic and strategic coercion has replaced consensus as the primary tool. 

1. Reindustrialization. The United States has understood that relying on fragile global supply chains is a strategic risk. Cheap energy and critical minerals are essential to recover productive capacity. 
2. The geopolitics of the dollar. The U.S. currency remains hegemonic, but it is no longer uncontested. Every sanction, every exclusion from the financial system, feeds the idea that alternatives must be sought. This is not a sudden de-dollarization, but a constant erosion.
3. The credibility of power. When a power perceives its leadership to be challenged, it tends to act more forcefully. Not necessarily by force, but to avoid appearing weak. Firmness becomes an end in itself.

The result is a more direct, less rhetorical, and far more pragmatic foreign policy. A policy that no longer promises a better world, but seeks to avoid a worse one… for its own interests.

The risk of a world under permission

This shift in global policy has profound consequences. It normalizes the idea that security justifies indefinite sanctions, accelerated extractives, and the militarization of trade routes. The global economy ceases to function as a space of shared rules and becomes a system of licenses and exceptions, where power decides who may produce, trade, or prosper… and who may not.

For Europe —and for the conscious saver— the message is unequivocal. The risk is no longer merely financial, or even economic: it is systemic. Understanding geopolitics ceases to be an intellectual exercise and becomes a patrimonial necessity. In a fragmented world, ignoring the global context is no longer neutral; it is a form of exposure.

From Venezuela to Greenland, the United States is not improvising. It is adapting to a more competitive and less docile world, where power is concentrated and margins are tightening. And in this scenario, saving ceases to be a passive gesture and becomes a strategic decision: preserving value, reducing dependencies, and gaining autonomy. When geopolitics tightens, ignorance becomes costly. That is why, at 11Onze, we choose to look beyond the headline, understand the underlying movements, and make informed decisions that protect savings and assets in uncertain times.

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The Catalan economy is made up of a veritable “great spider’s web,” as Roger Vinton calls it in the title of his book. Faced with this idea, and with the suspicion that the knots and actors in this web are poorly explained, a good number of books have appeared on a recurring basis that attempt to untangle it. We review them in La Plaça.

The reflections that follow, whether in the form of memoirs, such as those by Josep Pla and Cristian Segura, or in the form of journalistic essays, such as those by Roger Vinton, Gemma Garcia Fàbregas, Jordi Amat, Pere Cullell and Andreu Farràs, describe how the productive and financial economy works in the hands of elites who prefer to remain in the shadows.

• Homenots (1958-1962) by Josep Pla. ‘Homenots’ is a series of 60 profiles by Josep Pla on figures of his time. They were published between 1958 and 1962 by Editorial Selecta and between 1969 and 1974 by Editorial Destino in four volumes. In the preface to one of the volumes, Pla stated that, for him, “a ‘homenot’ is a singular, unusual type, a person who has been significant, in any activity, in a remarkable way”. Among these profiles are those of Prat de la Riba, Jaume Bofill, Joan Miquel Avellí and Ramon Godó, among many others, who make up the economic and political substratum of the country.
• L’oasi català (2001) by Pere Cullell and Andreu Farràs. The Catalan oasis refers to the close relations that developed between the Catalan bourgeoisie and the centralism of the Madrid court in the 19th century. The term seems to have been coined by the journalist Manuel Brunet. And it seems that, today, there would be some 400 people who would represent this Catalan elite spread across cultural and economic centres. With this expression, the journalists Pere Cullell and Andreu Farràs titled their essay, in which they explain the family, educational and summering relationships of a good part of these leading figures of Catalan society, who embrace the entire Catalan political spectrum.
• Els senyors del boom (2014) by Gemma Garcia Fàbregas. The journalist touches in depth a very sensitive story, that of the real estate gold rush experienced in the Catalan Countries and its social, political and economic impacts, with first-hand information and a highly documented analysis that opens a new perspective on the reasons for a catastrophe foretold as was the real estate bubble.
• La gran teranyina (2017) by Roger Vinton.  ‘La gran teranyina’ reveals the opaque structure from which certain agents exercise the power through which they control events and situations that affect our society on a daily basis. This book allows us, in Vinton’s own words, to “open our eyes and become aware of the immense power of the individual”. A profound investigation that changes the perception of Catalonia and that some have considered a true reference manual or compass in the jungle of power.
• El fill del xofer (2020) by Jordi Amat. Following the dark figure of Alfons Quintà -journalist, lawyer, merchant navy officer and judge, who on 19 December 2016 murdered his wife and then committed suicide with a hunting rifle-, Jordi Amat reflects on power. Behind a dazzling journalistic career, which spans from the direction of TV3 to the talk shows of Intereconomía, a dark trajectory is hidden, full of blackmail, sexual persecutions, abuses of authority and various tricks, which shows how the sewers of power work in Catalonia.
• Gent d’ordre (2021) by Cristian Segura. Halfway between an essay, a memoir and a journalistic chronicle, Cristian Segura writes an exhaustive portrait of Barcelona’s elites. A society in transformation due to globalisation, the consolidation of the welfare state and also the hegemony of Catalan nationalism. Elites do not disappear, they are transformed. And Barcelona is the paradigm of this.

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