GDP per capita tempts policymakers because it is clean, comparable, and frequent. It looks like a single verdict on living standards. It is not one.

The European Union’s competition policy is often portrayed as a brake on growth, as if fines and rules designed to curb the power of large firms inevitably constrain scale. This view mistakes the relation between enforcement and growth.

Long-term government yields are climbing across major economies. Thirty-year benchmarks in the United States, Britain, and France have reached their highest levels in years. Ten-year yields show the same pattern. France now pays 3.5% on its ten-year debt, Germany 2.7%, Britain 4.7%, and the United States just over 4.1%. The rise is not an isolated move. It reflects a broad repricing of risk across sovereign markets.