Netherlands

The new US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, is not off to a good start following an international embarrassment on Dutch TV in which he smugly denied every saying there are no-go zones in the Netherlands - calling the suggestion "fake news." 

Ambassador Pete Hoekstra

Hoekstra - former congressman (R-MI) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee for two years, was asked by Dutch journalist Wouter Zwart of news program Nieuwsuur about comments he made in 2015: 

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

Here’s the story in a nutshell: Ultra low interest rates mark a shift away from people’s wealth residing in their savings and pension plans, and into to so-called wealth residing in their homes, which are bought with ever growing levels of debt. When interest rates rise, they will lose that so-called wealth.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Earlier this week, The New York Times noted that movements for greater local autonomy appear to be spreading throughout Europe. In some ways, the conflict in Catalonia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Times reports: 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

Catalonia’s separatist campaign has dominated European headlines for the past couple of weeks, but it’s really the northern Belgian region of Flanders which will serve as a barometer over whether large chunks of the EU will fall apart into a collection of identity-centric statelets prior to the bloc’s reconstitution into a “federation of regions”.

Via GEFIRA,

A change in demographic trends takes 50 year before they become plainly visible. The decline in fertility in the sixties started to become visible after 50 years. Cerberus, our population simulator, shows with scientific precision that the replacement of the European society has started, and within 50 years it will be visible and irreversible.