SNB & CHF

Overview: It has taken some time, but the dollar has found better traction. It traded above JPY135 for the first time since mid-March and yesterday's setback has been mostly recouped against the other G10 currencies. Sterling is the most resilient after higher-than-expected inflation. Equities are lower. Japan's Nikkei snapped an eight-day advance and most of the other large bourses in the region (except Australia and South Korea) fell. Europe's Stoxx 600 is off by...

The Swiss crypto exchange SMART VALOR and the financial intermediary SweePay has partnered to ensure that the purchase of cryptocurrencies at Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) ticket machines is simple, smooth and secure. Since 2016, it has been possible to buy crypto at the 1,500 (expected number of ticket machines as of 2023) ticket machines of the SBB. At the SBB ticket machines, users will receive their Bitcoin in a secure paper wallet when they buy the crypto. They...

Violent crime is on the rise in Canada, and its progressive democracy is helpless to stop it. Further empowerment of the state makes things worse. Original Article: "Canada's Impotent Justice System Is the Product of Dysfunctional Canadian Democracy" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.  [embedded content]...

Every decade or so bank failures and the subsequent bailout response via central bank intervention appear. The latest jangling of depositor nerves involved US regional banks and a certain Swiss bank of great systemic importance. As James Grant writes in his book Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian, “In economics, the most ostensibly rigorous of the social sciences, progress–and error, too–are cyclical; we keep stepping on the same rakes.” Sounding...

Democratic politicians and supporters are cheering the Trump indictment, but the entire process has been so politicized that its legitimacy is easily called into question. Original Article: "With the Trump Indictment, America Is a Step Closer to Being a Banana Republic" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.  [embedded content]...

Part I of II by Claudio Grass It might sound like an old-fashioned notion, the sort of thing that one reads about in period novels and romantically sighs “oh, the good old days”. It might sound like old timely advice, perhaps of the kind that our grandparents would have given to our parents: “It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, even if you lose everything, as long as you still have your honor”. Sure. But in our cynical, jaded and largely pedestrian...

Most readers might not remember Daniel Ellsburg, but for those of us who came of age during the Vietnam War, the maelstrom that formed around him and his actions helped to define that era. Ellsburg, of course, is famous because he leaked a number of internal government documents called the Pentagon Papers in which the writers expressed skepticism about the chances for U.S. success in the Vietnam War. Ellsburg chose to leak to the New York Times and the Washington...

Overview:  A rise in US yields, with the two-year Treasury closing yesterday at its best level in more than three weeks help fuel follow-through dollar buying yesterday after an upside reversal at the end of last week. Key levels were approached, like $1.09 in the euro, $1.2345 in sterling, and JPY135 held, and the dollar has consolidated in Asia and Europe. The euro and sterling recouped around half of the losses seen from the Friday's high to yesterday's lows....

Money supply growth fell again in February, falling even further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. February's drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. Since April 2021, money supply growth has slowed quickly, and since November, we've been seeing the money supply contract for the first time since the 1990s. The last time the...

Join 2023's Virtual Mises University for only $25—or join free for Mises Institute Members (uses your promo code on the back of your Membership card).  For almost thirty years, Mises Institute scholars have presented at Mises University, a world-class, week-long, intensive event in Austrian Economics. Virtual Mises University is the online component of this seminar for students, professionals, business people, and absolutely anyone, anywhere, who is interested in the...