Illustration of a small human figure standing between a large pie chart and an enormous blue fist, appearing to struggle as if holding them apart.

Illustration: Alex Nabaum

Aug 24th 2025|6 min read

You are a finance minister after a decade of meagre economic growth, shocks from a financial crisis, a pandemic and sky-high energy prices. Public debt is worth more than your country’s gross domestic product, interest rates are at their highest in years and merely servicing outstanding debt is taking up an ever-greater share of tax revenue. Inflation is stubborn. America’s profligacy is satisfying much of the world’s appetite for government bonds, meaning your debt must pay more to attract investors. You lie awake worrying about how to make the numbers add up. Your fellow ministers, meanwhile, fret for their careers: populist parties are on the rampage. The economic context calls for fiscal consolidation; the political one warns against austerity. What do you do?

Delivery of a bouquet of peonies in Chelsea, New York

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