SNB & CHF

In its annual letter to shareholders this past weekend, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced that it had increased its cash holdings to $334 billion. As the Financial Times chart on the right shows, Berkshire's cash balances have more than doubled over the last few quarters to its highest level. Additionally, cash as a percentage of assets, graphed on the left, shows it now holds more cash as a percentage of its portfolio than before the 2008 financial...

Säntis cable car will be completely renovated Keystone-SDA Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language selector...

Just recently, S&P Global released its 2026 earnings estimates, which, for lack of a better word, have gone parabolic. Such should not be surprising given the ongoing exuberance on Wall Street. As noted last week, correlations between all asset classes, whether international or emerging markets, gold or bitcoin, have all gone to one. Unsurprisingly, rationalizations justify illogic when too much money is chasing too few assets. Therefore, it should not be...

Fraud or mistrust: Ruag is once again under fire for its management Keystone-SDA Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language selector...

Fintech is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates that the market will reach a size of US$1.5 trillion in revenue 2030, representing a roughly fivefold increase from 2024. This growth has driven a surge in demand for fintech professionals, leading to the launch of a wide range of educational programs, courses, and certifications tailored to both young students and experienced professionals looking to navigate...

An issue which not long ago had only the support of Ron Paul has now become a priority for the Trump Administration: the auditing of Fort Knox. At CPAC last week, Donald Trump took time out of speech to boast that he and Elon Musk were soon to be traveling to America’s largest gold depository “to see if the gold is there. Because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold.”The topic of Fort Knox is interesting itself for a number of other reasons. Its gold reserve...

In 2021, the main destinations for illicit waste from Switzerland were Western Europe (likely because of Schengen rules that abolished border controls, said criminologist Serena Favarin), Eastern Europe and Africa. About a third of illicit shipments are returned to Switzerland, according to the federal environment office. Keystone...

[Editor’s Note: In 2011, Congressman Ron Paul sponsored legislation to audit the gold reserves of the United States and publish the results of that audit for public scrutiny. Thanks to opposition from the usual opponents of transparency and decent monetary policy in both parties, the bill was never passed. Below is the text of Congressman Paul’s opening statement on the legislation at the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. Paul was...

High inflation spurred Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris last November. The economy was the top issue for most voters, and inflation was the top economic issue. As Biden’s partner in economic crime, Harris could not escape the blame for the torpedoing of the dollar’s value in recent years.Inflation occurs when the government prints excessive currency, resulting in more money chasing the same amount of goods and services. Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich...

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....