SNB & CHF

Wall street cheered the fact that we added fewer jobs (150,000) than expected (179,000) in October. This was a welcome relief after the hot September number that was revised down from 336,000 to 279,000. The Goods economy actually lost 11,000 jobs. The culprit here was motor vehicles and parts which was -33,000 on the month. The Services economy gained 110,000 jobs. 77,000 were in Health Care and Social Services. 10,000 were added to perming arts and spectator...

Last month, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University announced that it was laying off almost all of its staff, in spite of having received almost $55 million in funds in the last three years. Critics have jumped on Kendi’s fall to renew arguments that he’s a grifter or a “midwit,” but there’s another underappreciated aspect to Kendi’s fall. Kendi always struck me as someone who had the raw intellectual horsepower to succeed but whose...

Robert Murphy explains how traders make money in a world of uncertainty and diabolical risk. Original Article: Making Money While Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding the World of the Traders [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop are joined by Joseph Solis-Mullen of the Libertarian Institute to discuss his new book, The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger. Joseph debunks some of the most prominent myths about China, provides historical context for modern tensions, and outlines the real threats the "China myth" poses to Americans. "So Much Hot Air: The (Fake) China Threat Strikes Again!" by Joseph...

Critics of the free market often aim at the wrong target. They assail the market for “failures” that are actually the result of government intervention in the economy. In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss an example of this mistake in Angus Deaton’s Economics in America (Princeton, 2023). Deaton was the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for economics, about which he says: As many previous recipients have reported, the experience is both exhilarating and...

"Econ Bro" (who wishes to remain anonymous) is a Nigerian scholar who realized the limits of his conventional economics training and then discovered the work of Murray Rothbard and other Austrians. He now seeks to help his country and the world by spreading the truth. Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 1: Mises.org/HAP420a Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 2: Mises.org/HAP420b A Nigerian Scholar...

Every year, investigativ.ch, an association of investigative journalists, bestows an award on the public figure it deems to have exercised the lowest levels of transparency during the year. This year the award went to Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland’s minister of finance, for the secret decision making process surrounding the fire sale of the bank Credit Suisse to UBS, another Swiss bank. The arrangement was backstopped by the federal government, and ultimately...

President Biden claims that spending money to send weapons and ammunition around the world is good for the US economy. Original Article: Don't Fall for Biden's Latest Talking Point [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Consumer prices increased by 0.1% in October 2023, reported Switzerland’s Federal Statistical Office (FSO) this week. Rising prices in October represent a reversal of the 0.1% fall in September 2023. Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.comOctober’s rise in inflation kept the annual rate of inflation at 1.7%, 0.3 percentage points below the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) preferred maximum of 2% – the SNB equates price stability with a rise in the Swiss consumer...

“Whenever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” (emphasis added) —John Jay, “Federalist No. 2” “Like breathing, [government] is not permitted to depend on our volition. Necessity will force it on all communities in some one form or another.” —John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is...