2025-10-20
8 分钟The Economist Hello, Mike Bird here, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've chosen an article from the latest edition of The Economist,
which we very much hope you'll enjoy.
Just about everywhere you look in the rich world, government finances are in ruins.
France, as its debt mounts,
is getting through prime ministers faster than Versailles, went through wigs.
On October 14th, Sébastien Le Corneux, the latest,
proposed delaying an increase to the retirement age that was meant to restore sanity to the budget.
In Japan,
both rival candidates for Prime Minister want to splash out despite their country's vast debts.
Britain faces big tax rises to plug a hole in its budget,
after welfare reforms were mostly abandoned,
and despite a supposed once-and-for-all tax rise last year.
Looming over everything is America's unsustainable deficit of 6% of GDP,
which President Donald Trump muses about adding to with yet more tax cuts.
How long can governments live so far beyond their means?
Rich world public debt is already worth 110% of GDP.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it had been so high only after the Napoleonic Wars.