SNB & CHF

Overview:  The US debt ceiling talks resume at the White House today but a deal is unlikely to be announced. President Biden will attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima with the debt ceiling still looming. The dollar is mostly softer as last week's gains are pared. The Swiss franc and Japanese are the strongest in the G10. The Thai baht and South African rand, among the market's favorites yesterday are seeing those gains retraced. The JP Morgan Emerging Market Currency...

While the Fed and the Biden administration try to assure Americans that their banks are safe and secure, the numbers tell a different story. Original Article: "Charles Schwab and Other Big Banks May Be Secretly Insolvent" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

In the summer of 2020, the Smithsonian Institution created a chart meant to condemn what it calls “whiteness,” and it listed a number of characteristics it claimed were essential to “white culture.” Among the so-called characteristics it described in pejorative terms was delaying gratification, or saving for the future, what Austrian economists would call low time preference. The chart, which was withdrawn after widespread protest, sought to identify the...

President Biden's executive order to promote transgenderism on college campuses eviscerates long-held due process protections for accused students. This will not end well. Original Article: "Due Process or Transgender Protection on Campus?" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

In a recent lecture on her new book, Redressing Historical Injustice: Self-Ownership, Property Rights and Economic Equality, Wanjiru Njoya challenged current calls among some indigenous groups for “land justice” to redress the alleged historical injustices of European colonization. Drawing from Murray N. Rothbard’s book The Ethics of Liberty, Njoya outlined a set of guideposts for determining the actual justice of such claims with reference to South Africa. As...

Overview: The dollar is mostly consolidating last week's gains. The big news has been on the political front. Thailand's opposition parties dealt the military-led government a powerful blow. But in Turkey, Erdogan staved off a serious challenge and a run-off later this month looks likely, while his party maintained its parliamentary majority. Tensions over arms shipments to Russia have eased between the US and South Africa, giving the rand a boost. The greenback's...

Like the USA, Canada has had a central bank–fueled housing boom. Like all other booms, it also has an inevitable ending. Original Article: "Canada’s Housing Boom Was a Bubble. Now Comes the Bust" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

The real issue we face is not whether we should be in the red tribe or the blue tribe, but rather what will be the constituency for freedom. Original Article: "Neither Red nor Blue, but Free" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

We hear ad nauseum from political and media elites that the war in Ukraine is about preserving "our freedoms." Murray Rothbard had something to say about this sophistry. Original Article: "Rothbard Was Right: Wars Don't Enhance Freedom. They Destroy Liberty." [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

There are different ways to measure it, but the dollar just put in its best week of the year. The greenback rose against all the G10 currencies, and the Dollar Index rose by the most since last September. It also appreciated against most emerging market currencies, with the notable exceptions of a handful of Latam currencies. It seems to be an overdue technical correction. Few genuinely believe that the US will default given the ominous consequences, but the...