Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Germany scraps its debt brake entirely?

Scrapping the debt brake for general spending floods Bund supply and lifts the 10y above 3.5% — the clean trade is short Bunds/long German defense and industrial beneficiaries, which the Lockheed/Northrop bid captures. Rhymes with the March 2025 debt-brake reform for defense/infrastructure that triggered the sharpest Bund selloff in decades and a defense-equity surge. Transmission: heavier issuance steepens the German curve and drags global duration; the euro firms on growth/rate-differential. Forward angle: full abolition beyond defense is a regime shift in European safe-asset supply, structurally cheapening Bunds rather than a one-off.

27%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 27% · 90% range 8–46% · 17 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 6–18 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Bundestag abolishes the Schuldenbremse for general spending beyond the defense carve-out; 10-year Bund yield spikes above 3.5%. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Defense spending ▲ · Fed policy path ▲ · Growth surprise ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.