Tag Archives: Economics

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part II of II Claudio Grass (CG): A lot people still consider it safer to go with a huge, established corporation, thinking these solutions would be more reliable and robust, especially for business applications. What is your take on this view? Bernd Rodler (BR): This is a perfectly understandable view, at least from the standpoint of a manager applying the „cover your a…“ strategy. Who can blame him if the SAP project fails? Well, they are the...

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part I of II Those who know me and who have read my writings before will be very well aware of how important the topic of decentralization is to me and to my way of looking at the world, at our societies and our economies. I truly believe that there is no future to be had, at least not one that respects human dignity, should we continue down this same path of top-down control, mindless conformity and blind obedience to technocrats, bureaucrats and...

Gold is doing what it is supposed to do! Equity markets are tumbling, “NASDAQ 100 Rout Erases $1.5 Trillion in Market Value in 3 Days” reads one Bloomberg headline. The big names such as Apple lost over US$225 billion, Microsoft almost US$200 billion, Amazon and Tesla each lost US$175 billion market value over the three trading days from May 4 to May 9. Bonds are also declining in value as yields are rising. The market selloff has been the most extreme in the tech...

By Axel Leijonhufvud, September 1973, Economic Inquiry. The Econ tribe occupies a vast territory in the far North. Their land appears bleak and dismal to the outsider, and travelling through it makes for rough sledding; but the Econ, through a long period of adaptation, have learned to wrest a living of sorts from it. They are not without some genuine and sometimes even fierce attachment to their ancestral grounds, and their young are brought up to feel contempt for the softer living...

Part II of II The big picture here is clear and it is essential to understand that it represents a very significant paradigm shift. Whether it is online or offline, whether it is through a mobile app, an exchange or even through physical contracts, ownership titles to gold holdings keep changing hands. And thus, no matter the vehicle that is used to facilitate these transactions, the fact of the matter is that it acts as a gold-backed currency. This alone...

Part II of II The big picture here is clear and it is essential to understand that it represents a very significant paradigm shift. Whether it is online or offline, whether it is through a mobile app, an exchange or even through physical contracts, ownership titles to gold holdings keep changing hands. And thus, no matter the vehicle that is used to facilitate these transactions, the fact of the matter is that it acts as a gold-backed currency. This alone is remarkable: After eons...

Part I of II For decades, physical gold investors have had to contend with superficial, naive and wholly ahistorical “arguments” from the mainstream financial press, from economists and experts of all stripes, claiming that gold is nothing but a barbarous relic. To them, the yellow metal is akin to investment superstition. It has no yield, it serves no practical purpose and the only attraction they could conceive of is merely symbolic, or perhaps,...

Part I of II For decades, physical gold investors have had to contend with superficial, naive and wholly ahistorical “arguments” from the mainstream financial press, from economists and experts of all stripes, claiming that gold is nothing but a barbarous relic. To them, the yellow metal is akin to investment superstition. It has no yield, it serves no practical purpose and the only attraction they could conceive of is merely symbolic, or perhaps, political. Thus, who in their...

It has been a rough week in most markets with both equities and bonds declining sharply. Tech stocks have been pummeled with many ‘big names’ plunging more than 50% (from their 52-week high). Some of the bigger names include Zoom Video -75%, PayPal -73%, Netflix -72%, Meta Platforms (Facebook), -53%. . The equity market decline is coupled with announced layoffs. Robinhood, the popular online trading platform, announced a 9% reduction in full-time staff this week for...

Gold and the US Federal Reserve have a love-hate relationship. Hate because they both enjoy it when the other one performs badly, but love it because the Fed owns over 8,000 tonnes of gold and would rather no one else had any. So it was a funny thing when a former Chair of the Federal Reserve proposed measures this week that would go a long way to boosting many aspects of the gold market, including the price of gold bullion… ...