SNB & CHF

14. Dezember 2020 – Am 10. Oktober 2020 fand im Hotel „Bayerischer Hof“, München, die 8. Jahreskonferenz des Ludwig von Mises Institut Deutschland statt. Das Thema lautete: „Wie der Markt Umwelt und Ressourcen schützt“. Einen Konferenzbericht von Rainer Bieling finden Sie hier. Nachfolgend sehen Sie den Vortrag „Das Klimaproblem und die deutsche Energiewende“ von Professor Dr. Hans-Werner Sinn. Hans-Werner Sinn, geboren 1948, ist emeritierter Professor für...

Regardless of what happens with vaccines and Covid-19, debt and energy–inextricably bound as debt funds consumption– will destabilize the global economy in a self-reinforcing feedback. Back in the early days of the oil industry (1880s and 1890s), the product that the industry could sell at a profit was kerosene for lighting and heating. Since there was no automobile industry yet, gasoline was a waste product that was dumped into streams. Why couldn’t the refiners...

Did you know that Swiss are so good at tidying up on earth that they've now won a contract to clean up space? ⁠The Swiss start-up – ClearSpace - is using technology developed by engineers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Their four-armed robotic junk collector will be launched into space by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2025. A lot of debris has accumulated over six decades of low-orbit activities and ESA hopes the mission will pave the way for a...

I had the privilege to join Sri Jegarajah at CNBC Asia at the start of today’s Asia Pacific session.  We had a broad chat about the dollar, Brexit, and the euro. He gave me the opportunity to sketch out my views: The dollar’s entered a cyclical decline, and the “twin deficit” issue will likely frame the narrative. Many observers do not use that particular phrase now, but their arguments seem to rest on one if not both of the legs. Sterling gains appear to be more...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.06% to 1.0776 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 14(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The fact that the UK and EU negotiators are still talking is seen as a constructive development and has spurred a sharp bounce in sterling. It traded below $1.3150 before the weekend and is pushing above $1.3400 in the European morning. It is part of the larger risk-on move lifting...

© Alexey Novikov | Dreamstime.com Switzerland’s health system is rated highly by the public, according to the latest survey conducted in eleven countries by the Commonwealth Fund Foundation. Every 3 years, the Foundation conducts a survey of the general population in eleven countries to investigate experiences of the health system. 88% of the 2,284 people surveyed across all of Switzerland rated the overall performance of Switzerland’s health system as good or very...

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links) These days, a lot of shopping is done online. It is so practical to shop for something online. It can save you a lot of time. And it allows you to compare many different websites to get the best deals easily. Shopping online can also save you some money. Of course, online shopping also has its dark side. Since it is convenient to shop online, some people are buying many more things than they should. It is...

[Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow (1979), lecture 1 (1958)] Descriptive terms which people use are often quite misleading. In talking about modern captains of industry and leaders of big business, for instance, they call a man a “chocolate king” or a “cotton king” or an “automobile king.” Their use of such terminology implies that they see practically no difference between the modern heads of industry and those feudal kings, dukes or lords of earlier...

The Senate passed a stopgap bill late Friday that will keep the government funded until midnight this Friday; optimism on a stimulus deal appears to be picking up; the two-day FOMC meeting ending with a decision Wednesday will be important November retail sales Wednesday will be the US data highlight for the week; Fed manufacturing surveys for December will start to roll out; weekly jobless claims Thursday will be important; Canada has a busy data week Brexit talks...

Macroeconomic slack is such an easy, intuitive concept that only Economists and central bankers (same thing) could possibly mess it up. But mess it up they have. Spending years talking about a labor shortage, and getting the financial media to report this as fact, those at the Federal Reserve, in particular, pointed to this as proof QE and ZIRP had fulfilled the monetary policy mandates – both of them. A labor shortage would’ve meant full or maximum employment, the...