SNB & CHF

GESDA’s radar anticipates that in five years advances in artificial intelligence could uncover patterns in brain data that offer new insights into consciousness. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi A Geneva-based foundation has created a tool mapping out major scientific breakthroughs that could help decision makers and civil society prepare for their impact. The digital tool offers an overview of 216 future scientific breakthroughs expected over the next 25 years. Nearly...

One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no. America’s economy has changed in ways few of the winners seem to notice, as they’re too busy cheerleading their own brilliance and success. In the view of the winners, who just so happen to occupy all the seats at the media-punditry-Federal Reserve, etc. table–the rising tide of stock, bond and...

The current surge in inflation is not due to a shortage of supply as central banks want us to believe. It is primarily due to soaring consumer demand fueled by monetary creation. Original Article: For central bankers and mainstream analysts the recent inflation outburst is only a transitory phenomenon which has nothing or very little to do with the massive monetary and fiscal stimuli unleashed during the pandemic. Although the Fed has recently conceded that price...

It is costing more to live and be, so naturally people are looking for who it is they need to blame. Maybe figure out some way to stop it. You know and feel for the basics since everyone’s perceptions begin with costs of just living. This is what makes the subject of inflation so difficult, even more so in the era of QE. Money printing, duh. By clarifying the situation – demonstrating over and over how there is no money printing therefore there can’t be inflation –...

Overview: The US dollar is trading with a lower bias ahead of the September CPI report due early in the North American session. Long-term yields softened yesterday and slipped further today, leaving the US 10-year yield near 1.56%.  European benchmark yields are 3-4 bp lower. The shorter-end of the US coupon curve, the two-year yield is firmer. Equities are enjoying a slightly better tone, though Japan, Taiwan, and Australia’s markets traded heavily in the Asia...

Monetary Metals CEO Keith Weiner was back on the Palisades Gold Radio podcast being interviewed by Tom Bodrovics. Keith revealed one key feature that gold has, which bitcoin does not. [embedded content] First, Keith discusses how economists and experts tend to say the strangest things and most of their statements don’t pass basic scrutiny, what Keith calls the “sniff test”. Gold has been accumulated for the last 5000 years. As a result physical scarcity is not...

It was one of those signals which mattered more than the seemingly trivial details surrounding the affair. The name MF Global doesn’t mean very much these days, but for a time in late 2011 it came to represent outright fear. Some were even declaring it the next “Lehman.” While the “bank” did eventually fail, and the implications of it came to be systemic, those overly melodramatic descriptions actually served to downplay the event in public imagination. The world...

In September the city of Lausanne introduced a 30km/h speed limit on 122 streets between 10pm-6am to reduce noise pollution – a Swiss first. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Most Swiss residents would be in favour of a 30 kilometre (18 miles) per hour speed limit in urban areas, a survey has found. A poll by the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BPA), published on TuesdayExternal link, found that 52% of respondents support a 30km/h speed limit on city streets. An...

Entrepreneurship is a method, and it’s also a mindset. Fabrice Testa has written a book that brilliantly integrates the two: he calls the integration “Super Entrepreneurship,” and his book title is therefore Super Entrepreneurship Decoded (Mises.org/E4B_139_Book). He has the appropriate credentials as a proven super-entrepreneur who has created and nurtured numerous great companies (and successfully sold a couple of them). Fabrice knows the true meaning of the...

The Swiss population has voted in favour of banning face coverings, in a vote known as the 'burka ban', in March 2021. They had already voted in favour of banning the construction of minarets in November 2009. What is it like to grow up, and live, as a Muslim in Switzerland? Muslims are the third largest religious community in the small Alpine nation. Despite this, its members say they still face discriminations because they believe in Islam. We met Maymunah in Bern: the young Muslim...