Finansiering af oprustning: Det er ikke noget problem.

You could have mentioned the EU-commission and the frozen Russian assets. Now I am getting technical here, but bear with me.

Those frozen assets will/shall be administered in a fideicommis.Which is an ancient legal construct. You can't spend the money in that fideicommis, which is the precise purpose of said construct. It was used originally to protect assets from being squandered by irresponsible successors to the estate. That was typically real estate - great manors of agricultural property. The beneficiaries can spend the proceeds from the assets - less the necessary upkeep. Now assets might be sold off and the proceeds from the sale can be placed in maximum security assets - like sovereign bonds (not russian bonds, as they cannot be termed secure). The french still use the revolutionary calendar to calculate some yields from russian pre-revolutionary consoles (a console is a bond that never reach maturity, but interest is paid in perpetuity - normally the central bank will buy them back as they are a pain in the posterior to keep calculating and are not freely transferable - sort of junk bonds with time).

Now these assets can be placed in government and other bonds (of impeccable security) - as they reach maturity. What is safer than German sovereign bonds? This means there is always an overestimation of such prime securities. This contributes to the inverse interest curve:

"Normally" a security that only reach maturity after a predetermined number of years will carry a HIGHER interest/yield to compensate for the inflation in the period up to maturity - than short term or cash deposits. But that is building on a flawed assumption, that there will always be a significant inflation - which is not the case. The demand for long term securities generally exceeds the interest curve, and thus press down the yield. I bet you could buy russian securities - but that would grant you immediate commitment to a closed institution for the criminally insane. Let's just say that russian high yield sovereign bonds are going to be VERY cheap for two reasons. There will be a raging inflation in Russia and there is a great chance that Russia is going bankrupt pumping all that money into the war - with no prospect of finding buyers to their newly produced blunder busses.

This means that long term securities are not likely to be as expensive as a "healthy" economy is going to have an inflation less than the annual coupon payments thus the eventual value at maturity will be less than assumed.

Now with the investment in arms production getting under way in Europe the price of munition is going to drop considerably. The munition firms will be able to borrow from the government at a lower interest rate, as they do that investments with background in FIRM government orders. The price for artillery shells might be high today, but war-profiteering can be taxed away (and believe me: It will be). You see the massive donation that the Scandinavian countries plus the Netherlands and Belgium (the F-16 Gang) give to Ukraine is partly financed by cruel fines to the banks that facilitate money laundering. National fideicommis is not possible under Danish law f.i.; but it is under EU law.
The trick is really to get the firms substantial volume orders partly to not only produce to Ukraine, but to restock the Nato depots with modern weapons -and large orders allow the firms to invest in mashinery and tools to lower the price. Does this take time? Yes and No.

The Czeck president Petr Pavel is cool, and can source more shells on short notice if the money is there - and trust me it is. Now Petr Pavel (as one of my other favourite generals: Ben Hodges) has a brain. A good attitude is prerequisite, but good intentions are only hot air, if not backed by brain cells.

And now I am prepared to take your questions.