SNB & CHF

Is immigration why employment reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) continue defying mainstream economists’ estimates? Many are asking this question as the U.S. experiences a flood of immigrants across the southern border. Concurrently, many young college graduates continue to complain about the inability to receive a job offer. As noted recently by CNBC: The job market looks solid on paper. According to government data, U.S. employers added 2.7...

Growing your own tomatoes can be rewarding far beyond the sweet taste of your crop.The traditional extra benefits keep bringing many of us back season after season. If you’re a gardener, you know the great feeling of acting directly on nature to produce the food you eat. Raising tomatoes gets you outside and sweating, and usually provides a sense of accomplishment. It encourages discipline and planning and demands a bit of knowledge and a ton of patience.And when you...

We need to start thinking outside the current system, which has no solutions. Our convictions about money are quasi-religious: heretics are burned at the stake. I'm not sure which stake I'll be tied to, because all the conventional choices--fiat currency, sound money (gold, Bitcoin) or debt-free currency (a.k.a. MMT)--are all fatally flawed. To understand why, consider the wild cards in any monetary system: global trade and credit. Let's start with credit, which...

The major cities of the world have been facing housing problems for years. With the increase of immigrants and of people experiencing homelessness, the discussion about housing regulation has intensified.The West, once a bastion of ideas of freedom and free markets, continues to harbor central planners whose delusions of omnipotence are paid for by the misfortune of ordinary people as the regulation attempts of these planners fail because such rental laws were not...

I do not hear much talk about world population these days, the way I did growing up in the 1960s and ’70s. People were supposedly starving, dying, with tens of millions more sure to die. The problem back then was that there were just too many, well, people.Population numbers coming out of China and India were unthinkable, and projections indicated many more people were going to be born into this dire situation. There were over twenty thousand people in my hometown...

Switzerland is gaining recognition for something beyond its stunning landscapes and precision timepieces – its rapidly expanding online gambling industry. The remarkable growth in gaming platforms’ popularity has been partly fueled by the adoption of igaming white label casino online solutions. These pre-built, fully licensed operational setups allow new ventures to launch their online casinos or sports betting sites swiftly. The growing popularity of online gambling...

Unsurprisingly, Javier Milei´s monetary reform plans are discussed intensively in libertarian circles. For the first time, a real libertarian reform of the monetary and financial system is in sight. One of the main issues of contentions is Milei´s plan to introduce a 100% reserve banking system. Such a move would be truly revolutionary. The Argentinian banking system would be sound and stable. Harmful credit expansion would be ruled out. Unfortunately, but perhaps...

This year, more than sixty countries will hold or have already held elections; a quarter of the population will participate in democracy. Most people in the free world would consider that a victory for liberalism (“liberalism” in the traditional meaning of the word, not the corrupted definition used in the United States). Democracy is often staged as the epitome of freedom and prosperity, a noble system where the voices of the people not only reign supreme, but a...

Overview:  Higher than expected US CPI for the third consecutive month drove US interest rates sharply higher and lifted the greenback broadly. The market appears to be catching its proverbial breath today, but the shallow consolidation suggests the moves are not over. The ECB meeting is likely to highlight the new divergence that has opened. The dollar has reached nearly JPY153.30, and although Japanese officials cautioned about the fx moves, intervention while...

Donald Trump last week said he opposes any national legislation on abortion, and said he supports state governments adopting their own policies. According to USA Today:  "Former President Donald Trump said individual states should choose their own abortion restrictions, avoiding talk of any kind of federal government ban and drawing criticism from Democrats and anti-abortion Republicans alike on a pivotal election issue. ...At the end of the day, this is all about...