Claudio Grass

It’s been a tumultuous couple of months in UK politics. After a troubled time in office, plagued by scandal, internal party frictions and much public embarrassment, Boris Johnson exited the stage leaving behind a big old mess for his successor to clean up. An economy in tatters, inflation at record highs and an energy crisis the likes of which this generation hasn’t seen before.  It’s a miracle that anyone in the kingdom could be found that would be willing to assume the...

Europeans are already facing previously unthinkable dilemmas  As the citizens of the Eurozone and the UK are increasingly struggling to make ends meet due to record levels of inflation, and as the winter draws closer, a serious cost of living crisis is set to spiral out of control. Skyrocketing energy costs, combined with galloping prices for food and other essential goods and services are bound to erase whatever was left of the “middle class”. Households that were once...

I’m back from Geneva where, among other things, I briefly visited the headquarter of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to express my appreciation for this organization. Check out my picture :-). In addition I enjoyed a conversation with Jose El Niño – you will find the podcast under the below link. Claudio Grass, Switzerland If you want to listen, please click on the following link to the podcast:...

Part II of II, by Claudio Grass, Switzerland Finally, a victory for the State  Central planners and paper pushers of all stripes are not generally known for their acumen or their ability to recognize and successfully seize opportunities in time. They always tend to lag behind more or less every other member of society: from the innovators and entrepreneurs, to the criminal masterminds, which is why all upstanding citizens still retain a modicum of freedom, but also why we all...

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass, Switzerland For years, I’ve been following very closely all the relevant updates on the State’s war on cash. I’ve read and written a lot about all the direct and indirect efforts to restrict the citizens’ choices and make sure they shift all their transactions and savings to the digital realm, where they can be better monitored, controlled and if need be, confiscated, by central authorities.  For some time now, the future looked rather grim....

It would appear that the central planners of the Bank of England have very short or very selective memories. After adopting unprecedented easing measures during the covid crisis and after supporting the government in its efforts to flood the economy with fresh cash during that same period, the central bank has put itself in a particularly unenviable position.  With inflation soaring and living costs exploding for most consumers and taxpayers, hiking interest rates was the only way...

The Fascist Boogeyman awakes again The threat of a far-right takeover has been around for at least three decades in Europe and Italy has been one of the best “candidates” for the “beginning of the end” since the last European crisis ten years ago. Back then it was the Lega, led by Salvini, that fueled the scaremongering campaigns of the mainstream press, labeling every conservative policy point as basically pure fascism. Of course, none of those grim scenarios actually...

In the case of Italy, it will take a whole lot more – Part I of II When the collapse of the Italian government was officially announced, on July 21, many political observers both in Europe and across the rest of the West, were aghast. If Mario Draghi, the central banking messiah of the entire Old World, the man, the legend, the hero who rescued the Eurozone and its precious made up currency from the brink of complete annihilation, failed to govern Italy, then those “crazy...

Part II of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland “Reverse currency wars”? Although the parity event may have captured the attention of the mainstream financial press and most western citizens, there’s a much bigger shift that has been going on in the background, which received much less coverage. We are all familiar with the concept of a currency war. In essence, it is basically one of the most crude examples of governments colluding with their central banks (the...

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland There’s been a flurry of articles, news stories and headlines lately over the developments in the FOREX market, specifically over the moves of the EUR/USD currency pair. As headwinds on all levels, economic, geopolitical and social, got a lot worse in recent months for the Eurozone, the news-breaking, headline-dominating “parity” event finally came about, with the euro even breaking below parity on July 13, and it seems to...