SNB & CHF

Out with the old, in with the new? Digital asset trading venues now have to convert promise into performance. Keystone / Justin Lane A blockchain-inspired trading infrastructure, which links banks, companies and investors to cryptocurrencies and a new breed of digital securities, is nearing fruition in Switzerland. On Monday, the Swiss financial regulator gave the green light for the TDX Digital eXchange by awarding a securities house licence to technology company...

Der hervorragende amerikanische Wirtschaftshistoriker Robert Higgs warnte eingehend vor dem Ratchet-Effekt des Staatsinterventionismus. Auf Deutsch könnte man ihn auch den „Sperrklinkeneffekt“ nennen. Ein Zahnrad mit Sperrklinke lässt sich leicht in eine Richtung drehen, aber nach dem Einrasten der Klinke gibt es kein Zurück. So ähnlich ist es mit Staatseingriffen auch. Higgs entwickelte die Theorie in seinem Buch Crisis and Leviathan, das bereits 1987...

One of the most common complaints I hear about the markets is that they are “divorced from reality”, that they aren’t acting as the current economic data would seem to dictate. I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I think I first heard that in year one. Or maybe even before I decided to lose my mind and start managing other people’s money. Because, of course, it has always been this way. Economic data represents the past while markets look to the future. And...

America’s financial system and state are themselves the problems, yet neither system is capable of recognizing this or unwinding their fatal synergies. why do some systems/states emerge from crises stronger while similar systems/states collapse? Put another way: take two very similar political-social-economic systems/nation-states and two very similar crises, and why does one system not just survive but emerge better adapted while the other system/state fails? The...

Now that the Biden administration has settled in, it is time to reassess American policy towards Russia, China and the wider Asian scene. Is it going to be a continuation of the Trump administration’s policies, or is there something new going on? Given the continued tenure of staffers at the Pentagon from before the Trump presidency, it seems unlikely there will be much in the way of détente: it is game-on for the cold war to continue. Before delving into...

[embedded content] Tom welcomes Stefan Gleason, president of Money Metals Exchange, to the show. The idea of sound money is something that holds it’s value over time in contrast to fiat currencies. The market has chosen gold and silver over thousands of years as the money that sustains and preserves purchasing power. They focus on improving public policy at the state level via the Sound Money Defense League. There are more options for improving laws at a state level...

As Covid-19 continues to rage throughout Europe, China and Russia seem to be giving the European Union lessons in soft power on its home ground. EU members and countries nearby are turning to Beijing and Moscow for additional supplies of Covid-19 vaccines, faced with rising discontent at the slow rollout of the EU’s own vaccination strategy, supply shortages, delivery bottlenecks, poor communication and concerns about vaccine safety. China’s vaccine deliveries...

The aviation industry has been virtually grounded by Covid for a year. © Keystone/ Valentin Flauraud Business, tourism and trade union leaders have put forward an action plan to get Swiss air transport back in action as the coronavirus pandemic drags on. The “Back in the Air” plan was presented to Swiss President Guy Parmelin at Zurich airport on Thursday. Zurich Economics Minister Carmen Walker Späh said the airport is the “Suez Canal of Switzerland”, referring to...

The pandemic looms over the Swiss documentary festival, but is far from being the main topic. Some films tackle the social effects of quarantine, such as Pacho Velez’s “Searchers”, which explores how social networks helped to compensate for the loneliness of isolation. Visions du Réel After last year’s record edition during the Covid-19 lockdown, Visions du Réel – Switzerland’s largest documentary film festival that opened on April 15 – faces the challenge of...

Wie drei Frauen versuchten, die Amerikaner vom Sozialismus abzubringen 16. April 2021 – von Kerry McDonald Im Jahr 1943, als die kollektivistische Politik auf dem Vormarsch war, geschah etwas Außergewöhnliches. Drei Frauen veröffentlichten in diesem Jahr drei Bücher, die die Amerikaner von ihrem sozialistischen Taumeln befreien und sie an die grundlegenden amerikanischen Werte der individuellen Freiheit, der begrenzten Regierungsgewalt, der freien...