SNB & CHF

The great Ludwig von Mises first described the concept of a crack-up boom as part of the Austrian business cycle theory, based on real life events that to an unsuspecting bystander might have appeared unconnected, or perhaps even quite bizarre and counterintuitive. Indeed, such a bystander might think the same of today’s economy and would likely have trouble making sense of the picture painted by stock markets, by our monetary and fiscal policies and their...

Over 800 people volunteered to be locked up in a Zurich prison last month to test the new facility. SWI swissinfo.ch reporter May Elmahdi-Lichtsteiner was one of the lucky inmates selected for the trial. The Zurich cantonal authorities recently came up with the unusual idea to give the detention facility and staff a test run before the prison starts taking real inmates. The pilot project was intended as a good way of “ensuring the proper functioning of daily operations and allowing...

The total number of hours worked in Switzerland reached 7.798 billion in 2021, representing an increase of 2.5% compared with the previous year. The pre-pandemic level has not yet been regained, however. According to the latest results from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) and the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), the volume of work among 20-64 year olds in Switzerland increased slightly more than in the EU. .   You can find further...

The crushing issue of high inflation caused by central banks can no longer be downplayed. Public displeasure at the increasing currency devaluation has now forced monetary policy makers to act. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) has raised its key interest rate to 1 percentage point. Many other central banks have also reacted—such as the Bank of England, the Central Bank of Australia, and the Central Bank of Sweden. Even the ponderous European Central Bank (ECB) now plans...

It wasn’t exactly a secret, though the raw data doesn’t ever tell you why something might’ve changed in it. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, confirmed by industry sources, US new car sales absolutely tanked in May 2022. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 12.7 million, it was a quarter fewer than sales put down in May 2021 and 13% below the not-great level from the month prior in April 2022. Such puny results have typically been reserved for those...

Economists are often examining the variables that lead to prosperity, but surprisingly, intelligence is rarely featured in this literature, despite its high replicability in research. Intelligence is a robust predictor of well-being, job performance, and other social outcomes. Due to heightened reasoning abilities, intelligent people are more cooperative and adept at defusing tension. Intelligent people are also appreciative of the long-term reverberations of their...

A Russian soldier guards an area of the Mariupol Sea Port in eastern Ukraine. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, commodity prices have soared and trade flows have been redrawn. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Geneva-based Trafigura reported record half-year profits as volatility and disruption in commodity markets, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, supercharged earnings for the world’s biggest traders. The group’s net...

Forget about digital gold. The only truth is the yellow metal. As Keith Weiner notes, real gold “is the one financial asset that is nobody else’s liability.” Weiner, the founder, and CEO of Monetary Metals explains to Mike Green how his company boosts gold’s value proposition by paying interest on bullion holdings. He also talks about the inevitable debasement of fiat currencies and the inherent volatility of #Bitcoin. Weiner believes it won’t be too long...

US consumer prices rose 8.6% year-over-year for the month of May 2022, says the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists, financial media and central banks implicitly conflate this price expansion with money expansion (inflation) and economic expansion (booming) - that's a mistake. ----EP. 246 REFERENCES---- CPIs Aren't the Economy, and They're Not Inflation: https://bit.ly/3MMn8NX United States Inflation Rate: https://bit.ly/3MNJ3nY No Pandemic. Not Rate Hikes. Doesn’t Matter...

Overview: The prospect of a more aggressive Federal Reserve policy has spurred a sharp sell-off in global equities and bonds and sent the dollar sharply higher. The large Asia Pacific bourses were off mostly 2%-4%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is off 2.2%, its fifth consecutive losing session. US futures are off also. The NASDAQ was down 3.5% before the weekend and the S&P 500 fell 2.9%. The dollar rocks. The Scandis and Antipodean currencies are bearing the brunt and are...