SNB & CHF

[This article is the foreword to Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Decentralization, and Smaller Polities, by Ryan McMaken, available in PDF, at the Mises store, and on Amazon.] Classical liberal tradition defends the right of secession on many grounds. One of the main reasons is that the territorial dispersion of power limits political domination much more than formal constitutions do. Small states cannot easily adopt protectionist policies and their political...

Economic crashes appear to strike without warning. That's only the case when you follow central banks and Economists who time and time again refuse to consider an entire array of dependable, useful, and most of all timely warnings. While having such knowledge won't alter the economy's course, we can (and should) be prepared for what happens. It is never "unexpected", so get out of the car driven by blind officials. Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis Twitter:...

In "Switzerland says sorry", our satirical video format, Swiss comedian and director Patrick Karpiczenko apologises for Switzerland’s Wild West-style handling of cryptocurrencies. Switzerland has a very relaxed attitude when it comes to regulating cryptocurrency and finds itself now overrun by foreign businesses. Half a trillion dollars’ worth of crypto companies have set up their offices in the small Alpine nation. In this video, we’ll visit the Wild West that...

There will be no daily commentary over the next couple of weeks.  The next post will be the January monthly outlook on December 29.  Here is to a happy and healthy New Year.  Good luck to us all.   [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

More than ninety central banks worldwide are increasing interest rates. Bloomberg predicts that by mid-2023, the global policy rate, calculated as the average of major central banks’ reference rates weighted by GDP, will reach 5.5%. Next year, the federal funds rate is projected to reach 5.15 percent. Raising interest rates is a necessary but insufficient measure to combat inflation. To reduce inflation to 2%, central banks must significantly reduce their balance...

Overview: Seven of the G10 central banks pumped the brakes between last week and this week as they purposely seek to push demand back into line with supply. And there are more signs that they are succeeding in weakening growth impulses. The dramatic surge in European bond yields continues today with 10-year rates mostly rising another 13-15 bp. Italian and Greek benchmark yields are up 22-24 bp. The US 10-year Treasury yield is up nearly five basis points to 3.50%....

Switzerland is the global leader in metal recycling, a lucrative business that attracts international interest. We visit a pioneering Swiss waste disposal and recycling plant with a delegation from Japan. Thomas Kern was born in Switzerland in 1965. Trained as a photographer in Zürich, he started working as a photojournalist in 1989. He was a founder of the Swiss photographers agency Lookat Photos in 1990. Thomas Kern has won twice a World Press Award and has...

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by half a point yesterday. It was a drop from the .75 point rate increases that the Fed has been implementing for the past several months.  A big reason the Fed is going slower is the longstanding fear among Fed officials of bringing about another Great Depression by raising interest rates too high and too fast. That’s, of course, what happened in the late 1920s, when the Fed’s actions brought about the 1929...

The U.S. personal savings rate eased in September to 3.1 percent from 3.4 percent in August. In September 2021 the savings rate stood at 7.9 percent. By popular thinking, a decline in the savings rate during an economic slowdown is regarded as supporting economic activity. In the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), savings are established as the difference between disposable money income and monetary outlays. Disposable income is defined as all personal...