SNB & CHF

A study from The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco claims that most of the price inflation that plagued the US economy over the past few years was due to global supply chain disruptions, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Is this a valid study, or an attempt by the Fed to evade responsibility for our recent economic troubles?There are several problems with this study. First, this study aims at establishing a correlation between supply chain disruptions and “above...

In a recent interview with CNN, Kamala Harris said that Bidenomics is working and that she is “proud of bringing inflation down.”However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest CPI at 2.9%, despite annual inflation being 1.4% when she took office. Inflation is a disguised tax and accumulated inflation since January 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration started, has increased more than 20%.Of course, Democrats blame inflation on the war, the...

The central problem with government economic policies is that many bad economic policies are politically advantageous. Hence, politicians enact policies that many of them know don’t work just to stay in power. Price controls are bad economic policy. Democrat Presidential candidate Kamala Harris wants to empower the Federal Trade Commission to stop “food price gouging” with what would amount to price ceilings.Price ceilings cause shortages of goods and wasteful...

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a think tank headquartered at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released a study claiming former President Donald Trump’s economic plans would add about four trillion dollars to the national deficit over ten years while Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plans would add about two trillion dollars.Vice President Harris would increase the deficit largely through expanding refundable tax credits such as the child tax credit....

I recently had the opportunity to attend a homeschool resource fair at a small local school for the arts in my hometown. Every classroom and corridor was filled with tables covered in information about homeschool co-ops, clubs, private classes and teachers. Everything from ballet to robotics, art, woodworking, and every conceivable academic approach were represented by eager adults, excited to share their particular interest and expertise, and most of it free.The...

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order....

11 fintechs made it to this year’s  TOP 100 Swiss Startup list, an award organized by Venturelab. The 2024 ranking features in total 100 Startups, Yokoy is once again the highest ranking fintech. Highest fintech newcomer this year is Calvin Risk on rank 44. Of the 11 fintechs 5 were repeats from the 2023 startup ranking and 6 were newcomers. Meet the 11 Swiss fintechs that made the TOP 100 Swiss Startups 2024 list: Yokoy Group AG (#3)-1 Your expenses and company...

Overview: The one-two punch of the disappointing US job opening report and the downbeat Beige Book weighs on the US dollar, which is softer against all the G10 currencies. The Canadian dollar is a notable exception. Prime Minister Trudeau's minority Liberal Party lost key support and the Bank of Canada affirmed expectations for more rate cuts. Japan's wage growth was stronger than expected, underscoring the divergence of policy and the dollar was sold to almost...

If one has the patience or the curiosity to go down certain conservative rabbit holes in social media, one will encounter a small corner of the movement in which one finds a latent or explicit desire to somehow rehabilitate Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists (i.e., the “Nazis.”)This is often found in the form of comments or memes that take the position that the National Socialists were the defenders of “the West” against a militant Left then growing in Europe....

Conventional wisdom has it that the Federal Reserve system (the “Fed”) and the US Treasury Department are two separate entities. Congress created the Fed in 1913 as a legally and financially independent federal agency, privately owned by its member banks, with no funding from the federal budget. The US Treasury, on the other hand, is an Executive-branch cabinet-level department reporting directly to the President, with funding appropriated in the federal...