SNB & CHF

There’s a growing palpable sense of optimism among many economists and journalists that the United States economy is heading toward a growth phase while avoiding recession. They are in turn lauding the Federal Reserve for its strategic handling of inflation—with economic growth and low unemployment rates—as well as praising the efficacy of the Biden administration in reining in prices through social pressure on profit-making and through increases in production via...

As the Biden administration ramps up new government spending—and budget deficits—to unheard-of peacetime levels, reality sets in. No economy and no currency can withstand this explosive assault for very long. Original Article: The Dollar See-Saws between Two Views on Fiscal Explosion [embedded content] Tags:...

The Great Money Bubble: Protect Yourself from the Coming Inflation Stormby David A. StockmanHumanix Books, 2022; 229 pp. David Stockman served for a short while as budget director during Ronald Reagan’s first term as president, but he soon resigned owing to Reagan’s refusal to cut government spending. He has since that time worked as a private investment adviser, at which difficult profession he has been highly successful, and he has written a number of books, among...

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Fort Myers, Florida, 4 November 2023. Special thanks to Murray and Florence M. Sabrin for making this event possible. Read Bob's book Understanding Money Mechanics: Mises.org/Mechanics The Fed and the Fate of the Dollar | Bob Murphy Video of The Fed and the Fate of the Dollar | Bob Murphy [embedded content]...

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Fort Myers, Florida, 4 November 2023. Special thanks to Murray and Florence M. Sabrin for making this event possible. Are We Headed for a Recession in 2024? | Patrick Newman Video of Are We Headed for a Recession in 2024? | Patrick Newman [embedded content]...

While the ruling elites and the Federal Reserve try to sell digital money as “modern” and “convenient,” it poses threats to financial privacy and civil liberties. Original Article: "The Dangers of a ""Cashless"" Economy [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Trading, forecasting, aggregating, and innovating—referred to from here on out as the Four—are activities that people have engaged in since the beginning of humanity. They are part of the human fabric because they stem from mankind’s peculiarities—heterogeneity, inclination to forecast, sociality, and inventiveness. The Four are key social interactions in human life at both the individual and aggregate levels. In 2022, the value of worldwide global exports amounted...

Overview:  A poor reception to the 30-year Treasury sale and Federal Reserve Powell pledged to raise rates again, if necessary, not exactly a new ground, but it spooked the doves--driving rates sharply higher and fueling a strong dollar recovery. There was a large five basis point tail on the bond sale. The eight-day rally in the S&P 500 and nine-day advance in the NASDAQ was snapped like dry kindling. The S&P 500 comes into today down on the week. The...

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) last week left the target policy interest rate (the federal funds rate) unchanged at 5.5 percent. This "pause" in the target rate suggests the FOMC believes it has raised the target rate high enough to rein in price inflation which has run well above the Fed's arbitrary two-percent inflation target since mid-2021. I say "believe," but perhaps the more appropriate word here is "hope."  That is: the...

As in the Gulag it replicates, the innocent are swept up with the guilty in a disconcertingly unjust ratio. The human mind is not particularly well-adapted to polycrisis: we struggle to adapt to the drought, then the earthquake knocks down the village walls, then the tsunami pounds what was left, followed by the epic flooding, then the hurricane batters the survivors, who witness the volcano erupting and wonder what they did to anger the gods and goddesses so...