SNB & CHF

Like so many others in the "national greatness" movement, Christopher Buskirk understands some of the problems the country faces but fails to grasp the solutions. Original Article: "Don’t Get on the Nationalist Bus" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Bernie Sanders, in a recent opinion piece, attacked Republicans for trying to get concessions out of the Biden administration under threat of debt default, stating, “Defaulting on our nation’s debt would be a disaster.” Writers at Jacobin echo Bernie’s sentiment. Unfortunately, it seems like modern socialists are against default; however, historic socialists are not on the same page as our contemporaries. Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and other socialists were in favor...

The current regime wants to use taxation not simply as a means to collect revenue for the government, but as a weapon against economic prosperity itself. Original Article: "Taxation as a Weapon against Prosperity" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became effective in 2016, is one of the most detailed legislative schemes in the field of data protection. This article discusses two libertarian-minded objections to its approach. First, I argue that the notion of “right” adopted in the GDPR is flawed. Second, it shows that the GDPR doesn’t protect individuals from data-hungry governments and corporations. In the end, data protection legislation...

Overview: A surprise cut in China's seven-day repo and a stronger than expected UK employment report are session's highlights ahead of the US CPI. The base effect alone suggests a sharp fall in the year-over-year rate, while the median forecast in Bloomberg's survey has been shaved to a 0.1% month-over-month gain. The dollar is under pressure and is weaker against nearly all the G10 currencies. It is mixed against the emerging market currencies. The dollar gapped...

With the rise of homeless camps and tent cities in many American cities, the issue of squatting has become a cause for alarm among many residents and policymakers. In many cases parks, sidewalks, and other public rights-of-way have been taken over by people living in tents or makeshift shelters, rendering the areas unusable to most area residents. In other cases, some of these homeless people have taken over empty businesses and homes that were left unattended long...

As the Fed increases interest rates to reverse the inflation it has caused, firms that depended on easy money will face the bankruptcy judge. Stay tuned; there's more to come. Original Article: "The Bankruptcy Caravan Is Now Arriving: Time to Pay for the Easy Money" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

While George Orwell wrote magnificently against totalitarianism, his attempt to defend socialism in The Road to Wigan Pier stumbled badly. Original Article: "Review: Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

The real drama of default in global markets has not been the federal debt ceiling negotiations in Washington but the write-off by inflation. The issue of whether it turns out that the US Treasury for a few weeks has been slow in servicing its debts—with all delays subsequently rectified—is a sideshow. We could regard this as camouflage for the ongoing real write-off operation. In this, countries led by the US, where a great inflation emerged during the pandemic and...

Residents of rockslide-threatened Brienz/Brinzauls in Switzerland have been fetching items from their homes to make their lives in exile more bearable. They were temporarily allowed home a few days ago for the first time since being evacuated last month amid concerns that the nearby crumbling mountain could destroy their village in Graubünden. Some 84 people live there and only two people per household could return home, with the numbers limited for safety reasons. --- swissinfo.ch is...