SNB & CHF

© Giuseppe De Filippo | Dreamstime.com The latest Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey of the prices of 200 goods and services in 173 cities placed both Geneva and Zurich in the top 10 most expensive cities in 2021. Overall, the cost of living across these 173 cities has risen by an average of 3.5%, the highest inflation seen in the last 5 years. This compares with inflation of just 1.9% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2019. Supply-chain problems, as well as exchange-rate...

Recent correspondence between U.S. Rep. Alex X. Mooney, R-West Virginia, and the U.S. Treasury Department suggests that the department has given the Federal Reserve and International Monetary Fund unfettered control of a portion of U.S. gold reserves. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on June 9 this year, Mooney posed many questions about the U.S. gold reserves, which are owned by the Treasury. A reply from the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant...

The preference is for “flex crops” like sugarcane that have multiple uses, as well as the potential for mechanisation of cultivation. Keystone / Andre Penner Research by investigative non-profit Public Eye has revealed that trading companies with a Swiss presence – or their subsidiaries – own over 550 plantations covering over 2.7 million hectares. These companies buy and sell commodities like sugar, soy and palm oil from trading offices in Geneva or Zug and include...

Jeff Snider on live to answer YOUR questions and discuss the recent inversion of the Eurodollar yield curve, one of the most powerful predictive tools in history. Check out the Rebel Capitalist Live event Jan 7th - 9th!! https://rebelcapitalistlive.com

Part II of II Unsound money, unsound society  Of course, one of the most important and consequential parts of the incredibly complex organism that is the economy is money itself. It is its lifeblood and as the song goes, “it makes the world go round”. Therefore, manipulating the currency itself is one the most dangerous and hubristic things a central planner can do, which probably explains why it’s their favorite pastime. Ever since the gold standard was officially...

The EU Commissioner for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager. Keystone / Olivier Hoslet The European Commission has ended an investigation of five banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, who colluded in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel. The total fines announced on Thursday came to €344 million (CHF359 million), with British bank HSBC taking the biggest hit of €174 million. UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, escaped a potential fine of €94 million since it...

Die letzten zwei Jahre gab es immer wieder Kontroversen, wenn es um Werbung in den sozialen Medien für Cryptocoins ging. Unter anderem Facebook sorgte für ein Verbot von Crypto-Werbung auf seiner Plattform. Doch nun hat man sich offenbar dort umentschieden. Crypto News: Facebook erlaubt wieder Werbung für Cryptocoins Das Unternehmen hinter der Plattform Facebook hat sich erst kürzlich in „Meta“ umbenannt. Unter neuem Namen hat man nun seine vorherige Entscheidung...

But alas, humans do not possess god-like powers, they only possess hubris, and so all bubbles pop: the more extreme the bubble, the more devastating the pop. Long cycles operate at such a glacial pace they’re easily dismissed as either figments of fevered imagination or this time it’s different. But since Nature and human nature remain stubbornly grounded by the same old dynamics, cycles eventually turn and the world changes dramatically. Nobody thinks the...

In Canada, inflation hit 4.7 percent in October, and is expected to go even higher. According to a recent survey, 46 percent of Canadians are struggling to feed their families because of the rising cost of living. Perhaps they are also struggling to understand the logic of the Bank of Canada’s (BOC) mission statement: “We work to preserve the value of money by keeping inflation low and stable.” That’s the BOC’s objective, but it’s impossible to achieve. Preserve...

Mickey Fulp, aka the Mercenary Geologist, interviewed Monetary Metals’ CEO Keith Weiner to discuss the maturity of Monetary Metals’ recent gold bond. Gold bonds are denominated in gold, with principal and interest payable in gold. Mickey and Keith have a wide ranging discussion which covers the history of gold as money in the United States, including the history of gold bonds, which were commonplace until 1933. Listen to their conversation below. [embedded content]...