SNB & CHF

Price Action:  Since the North American markets closed Wednesday, the foreign exchange market has been subdued.  Most of the major currencies are +/- 0.2%.  The Antipodeans and sterling have risen a bit more.  The euro is in the middle of this week’s range (~$1.0850-$1.0965).  The dollar is at the upper end of this week's range against the Japanese yen (~JPY147.15-JPY149.75).  Sterling is trading near the high for the week set in...

The Austrian (TA): At mises.org, we’ve focused a lot on how monetary policy can increase inequality and impoverishment. But the same could be said of many other non-central-bank interventions in the economy. What are some of these interventions that are making us worse off? Per Bylund (PB): I think what is important to remember is that any change in the economy implies a shift in the production structure and thus in how resources are used. This includes innovations...

As the federal government continues its Ponzi scheme of issuing debt to pay for past debts, interest rates will increase to the point where this no longer is a tenable strategy—if it ever was. Original Article: The Interest Rate Shock Will Blow Up the Government’s Ponzi Game [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter...

In my experience of public policy discussions, one of the most frequent weasel words used as an intended trump (not Trump) card has been “fair.” Like another commonly played political trump card, “need,” fairness does not have a clear meaning. That provides a great deal of wiggle room for equivocation, almost always used to justify forcing some Americans to pay for what someone else wants. Fairness has no universal meaning beyond “more for me or those I care about”...

A Cato Institute associate has declared the development of the covid-19 vaccines to be a free-market “triumph.” The only thing that has triumphed in this sorry episode has been the rapid growth of coercive government power. Original Article: Contra CATO: COVID-19 Vaccinations Are Not a Free Market Victory [embedded content]...

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss the aftermath of Javier Milei's election in Argentina. The two discuss the value Milei's victory has for libertarianism and Austrian economics, the challenges he immediately faces, and what steps are necessary for him to turn a winning campaign into an impactful presidency.  "The United States Needs Its Own Javier Milei" by Connor O'Keeffe: Mises.org/RR_161_A "An Anarchist’s Pragmatic...

[The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything, by Ruth Goodman, Liveright Publishing Corporation; 2020. xxi + 330 pp.] The subtitle of Ruth Goodman's book The Domestic Revolution doesn't come close to describing what this book is really about. Yes, this book tells us a lot about coal and how it affected Victorian domestic life. But this book is really about how what we eat and how we prepare food has been closely tied...

The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large.” ― Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, “MAXIMS FOR REVOLUTIONISTS” ― Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology Government as we know it likely won’t be around...

With the release of Ridley Scott's new film Napoleon, viewers encounter a cinematic version of Napoleon caught up in a tumultuous romance against the backdrop of the upheavals of the Napoleonic wars.  This has revived interest in the French military commander and left many wondering what they are to make of the real, historical Napoleon. For many Americans in the audience—who, unlike Europeans, devote virtually no time to Napoleon in school—this may be the first time...

In the aftermath of Hamas's taking hostages in its conflict with Israel, the question arises: Who pays the ransom? State-financed payments lead to the worst outcomes and create moral hazards. Original Article: Hostage Extraction Needs to be Privatized [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter