SNB & CHF

China reopening, media rather than money blitz. Bank lending has been hyped though as usual the rest of the story - the important parts - get left out for the narrative. The reopening impulse just isn't there, and we can verify that it isn't just by doing the full money math. Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIP https://www.eurodollar.university https://www.marketsinsiderpro.com https://www.PortfolioShield.net RealClearMarkets...

Overview: A consolidative tone is mostly the theme of the day. The revisions to the US CPI announced before the weekend add to the uncertainty and focus on tomorrow’s report. At the same time, investors watch ongoing air space activity that has led to a few objects being shot down over the US and Canadian airspace. Yet the fear of escalation seems too mild still, but China’s ability to secure a rapprochement and leave its “wolf diplomacy” behind is strained, even as...

If the dollar has lost 97% of its value, then why had the world prospered so much during that time when it did? The answer provides tremendous insight into several fallacies about the global currency arrangement, even a window into current age of so much "sudden" and "unexpected" geopolitical balloon-based instability. Eurodollar University's Weekly Conversation, featuring Steve Van Metre...

swissinfo.ch Swiss citizens look set to vote on a people’s initiative to try to ensure their economy never becomes cashless. What do the campaigners behind the idea really want? More from this author Cash is widely used in Switzerland, much more so than in many other countries. In Sweden, only 9% of people still pay with notes and coins; in the United States the figure is around 60%. Meanwhile, 97% of people in Switzerland still keep some cash at home or...

There is an element of inevitability in play, but it isn’t about central bank bailouts, it’s about Death Spirals and the collapse of unsustainable systems. The vapid discussions about “soft” or “hard” landings for the economy are akin to asking if the Titanic’sencounter with the iceberg was “soft” or “hard:” either way, the ship was doomed, just as the global economy is doomed by The New Normal of Death Spirals and Speculative Frenzies. Death Spirals are the...

[This article is the Introduction to Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities.] The world is now, and has always been, politically decentralized. At no time in history has all of humankind been ruled by a single political regime. Although the Roman Empire claimed to be universal, the Romans never even conquered all of Europe, let alone the whole inhabited world. Roman power never extended to India, China, Sub-Saharan...

© Keystone / Christian Beutler The president of the Swiss Employers’ Association wants to increase the potential workforce in Switzerland by 300,000 people. To achieve this, women, young people, the elderly and refugees must be integrated into the labour market or be given more work, said Valentin Vogt on Swiss public radio SRF on Saturday. “The lack of labour is the biggest obstacle to the growth of the Swiss economy,” he warned. According to him, if this...

As I sit here writing this Sunday afternoon, the US has just shot down a third UFO in the last 3 days in addition to the Chinese “weather” balloon last week. I have no insight into what these things might be but I do wonder if we haven’t declared war on the National Weather Service. The federal government has become so sprawling that it could easily  be the case that NORAD has no idea what the NWS has up in the air. And with all the UFO shooting going on, the NWS...

Widespread analysis of what went wrong at Credit Suisse converges on a constant theme: an international bank that lost touch with its Swiss roots, led by people who put profits ahead of prudence. This has resulted in massive financial losses and a restructuring drive that will see 9,000 staff lose their jobs. Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Körner is leading a major restructuring of the bank. © Keystone / Michael Buholzer What happened? Credit Suisse has lurched from...

[caption id="attachment_994215" align="alignleft" width="400"] The Swiss commodities trader is taking legal action. Keystone / Martial Trezzini[/caption] Swiss commodities trading company Trafigura says it has been defrauded to the tune of $577 million (CHF530 million) by fake nickel shipments. The firm has launched legal action against a Dubai-based metals trader and the group of companies he runs out of the Middle East emirate. “The fraud...