I’m an economist and Founder of IRMA Corp, IRMAexpress, Quantamatica, There Hospitality Group, Claimflowpay and Element Consulting Group. Here’s how I look at the news: 1. What’s the incentive? 2. Who pays, and when? 3. What does the data say, not the headline? Every weekday I take a market-impacting world event and run it through those three questions.

Two numbers in this list belong together. Net revenue retention of about 900%, a figure that excludes Claude Pro and Max subscribers according to PPC Land, says the customers it covers keep spending more. Yet 48% of revenue flows through marketplaces run by Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which also compete with Anthropic, and seven founders hold 50.1% of the votes. Buyers get the growth without the channel or the control, so the IPO price should pay for that gap.

Vote

280 million Americans stand with Elon Musk. To millions, he represents something bigger than business: the audacity to dream big, defy the impossible, and build the future. If Superman represents humanity’s highest aspirations, Elon is the closest real world equivalent we have. He doesn’t just imagine tomorrow he builds it. 🇺🇸🚀

The Cost of the French Welfare State Is Unsustainable The Case for Abolishing Publicly Funded Universal Healthcare in France to Revitalize the Economy, Improve Quality of Life, and Address the Anger Driving Social Unrest and National Decline France faces a fundamental economic choice: continue expanding a welfare state that places an ever-growing burden on workers and future generations, or reform it before the cost of maintaining it undermines the prosperity it was designed to protect. The issue is not whether people deserve healthcare. They do. The question is whether the state should finance a comprehensive universal healthcare system through compulsory taxation and social contributions, regardless of individual circumstances, or whether a more targeted model could protect those who genuinely need assistance while giving individuals and businesses greater control over their money. A system intended to protect society can become destructive when its costs consume the resources society needs to prosper. The Economic Reality France's public finances illustrate the scale of the problem. In 2025, government expenditure reached approximately 57.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), while the public deficit stood at €152.5 billion and public debt reached roughly 115.6% of GDP, according to [France's National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies](insee.fr/en/statistiques/896…). These figures are not attributable to healthcare alone. Pensions, other social benefits, public services and interest payments also consume substantial resources. But healthcare must be examined as part of the wider system of public commitments that taxpayers are expected to sustain. France spent 11.5% of GDP on healthcare in 2024, well above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 9.3%. The spending figure alone does not prove that the French model is inefficient, but it demonstrates the scale of the resources involved. ([OECD, *Health at a Glance 2025: France*](oecd.org/.../health.../franc…)) When public spending persistently exceeds revenue, governments face a limited set of choices: raise taxes, borrow more, reduce other services, or reform existing commitments. Borrowing does not eliminate the cost. It transfers part of the burden to future taxpayers, including young people who had no say in the decisions that created it. High compulsory contributions can also weaken incentives to work, invest, hire and establish businesses. They reduce the income available to households and the capital available to private enterprise. When governments absorb an increasing share of national resources, the opportunity cost is not abstract: it is money that cannot be saved, invested, spent or used to build productive businesses. The Cost-Benefit Question: Who Benefits, and Who Pays? Universal healthcare provides real benefits. It can protect people from catastrophic medical bills, enable earlier treatment and improve access for those who could not otherwise afford care. Those benefits deserve serious consideration. But a responsible cost-benefit analysis must also account for what the system costs individuals, what it delivers in return, how efficiently it operates and what alternative uses of those resources are sacrificed. A healthy 25-year-old and an 85-year-old with complex medical needs do not have the same immediate healthcare requirements. Yet a universal system pools costs across the population, requiring workers and taxpayers to finance a broad range of services regardless of how much they personally use them. For younger adults, this creates an important intergenerational question. They may be trying to pay for education, secure employment, purchase a home, raise a family, start a business or build retirement savings. Every additional euro taken through taxes and compulsory contributions is a euro that cannot be used for those purposes. The consequences can extend across a lifetime. Money saved and invested early has decades in which to compound. Money that cannot be saved during a person's formative working years cannot easily be recovered later. If younger generations face high housing costs, constrained wages, heavy taxation and rising public debt simultaneously, their ability to accumulate wealth may be seriously diminished. That does not mean healthcare contributions alone explain the difficulties young people face. Housing shortages, interest rates, wage growth, productivity and other taxes matter enormously. But the cumulative burden of public commitments belongs in the calculation. Nor should the elderly be treated as a single wealthy group. Some retirees have substantial property, pensions and savings; others have very limited resources and significant medical needs. Nevertheless, a fair system should ask whether public subsidies should be distributed without regard to ability to pay, particularly when younger taxpayers are struggling to establish financial security. Protecting people from medical hardship should not require a system that makes financial independence increasingly difficult for the next generation. Universal Coverage Is Not the Same as Universal Public Payment A critical distinction is often lost in this debate: ensuring that everyone can obtain essential healthcare is not the same as requiring the state to finance nearly everyone's healthcare through a universal public system. A country can pursue broad access through private insurance, regulated insurance markets, direct payment for routine services and targeted public assistance for people who cannot afford necessary care. Public resources could prioritise low-income households, serious illnesses and catastrophic medical expenses rather than subsidising every eligible person on the same basis. Under such a model, individuals with sufficient means would assume greater responsibility for their own coverage, while government assistance would protect those most at risk. Insurance regulation would need to prevent insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions, imposing unaffordable premiums or denying essential treatment. Support for vulnerable patients would have to be established before public coverage was withdrawn. The transition would be complex. Private insurance is not automatically cheaper or more efficient, and the United States demonstrates that a system relying heavily on private payment can still spend an exceptionally large share of its economy on healthcare. Administrative costs, insurer profits, fragmented billing and high prices can undermine efficiency. ([OECD, *Health at a Glance 2025*](oecd.org/.../health-at-a-gla…...)) Consequently, replacing France's publicly financed universal model must not mean simply transferring the bill to households and declaring the problem solved. The objective should be a system that delivers essential care at lower overall economic cost, preserves access and gives people more control over their income. Any reform must demonstrate that it achieves those goals in practice. The Wider Consequences for French Society France's economic frustrations cannot be reduced to healthcare or welfare spending alone. Housing affordability, stagnant purchasing power, public-service pressures, regional inequalities, pension disputes and distrust of political institutions all contribute to social discontent. Nevertheless, when people believe that they work hard yet cannot afford a home, accumulate savings or provide a better future for their children, the social contract begins to lose credibility. When businesses face high labour costs and households face heavy compulsory deductions, economic opportunity can narrow. When governments borrow to sustain commitments they cannot fully finance, the resulting obligations constrain future choices. The danger is not simply a larger national debt. It is the gradual erosion of confidence that work and responsible financial decisions will lead to a better life. A welfare system should be judged not only by the benefits it distributes today, but also by the economic opportunities it leaves available tomorrow. If its financing undermines employment, investment, household savings and future fiscal stability, then its benefits must be weighed against those consequences. The Case for Fundamental Reform France should seriously consider replacing publicly financed universal healthcare with a regulated, predominantly private insurance model, supported by targeted public assistance and strong protections against catastrophic medical costs. Such a transformation should proceed only with a credible financial plan. Policymakers would need to establish how existing commitments would be honoured, how vulnerable patients would be protected, how insurance markets would be regulated and how any savings would translate into lower taxes, reduced borrowing or increased private investment. Otherwise, reform risks becoming a costly transfer of responsibility rather than a genuine improvement. The purpose should not be to abandon the sick, punish the elderly or deny care to those who cannot afford it. It should be to distinguish essential social protection from the assumption that the state must finance every service for everyone, regardless of means. France must also recognise that healthcare is one part of a much larger fiscal challenge. Pension reform, public sector efficiency, economic growth and the management of public debt all require serious attention. No single policy change can reverse national decline on its own. The underlying principle, however, is straightforward: Compassion must be economically sustainable. A society cannot indefinitely promise benefits without considering who pays, what is displaced and whether future generations will be able to afford the same commitments. France has the opportunity to redesign its social contract around both security and economic freedom: protecting those who genuinely need help while allowing working people to retain more of what they earn, build wealth and invest in their futures. A prosperous country needs more than an extensive welfare state. It needs productive businesses, growing incomes, affordable housing, responsible public finances and citizens who believe that effort can lead to progress. The ultimate measure of a social system is not how much it spends in the name of compassion, but whether it protects people today without sacrificing the ability of the next generation to build a prosperous tomorrow.