Tag Archives: Featured

An oft cited reason given for the need for the state is that it is the only means through which the poor can access sufficient welfare to relieve them from the harsh realities that can accompany their circumstances. Yet despite the promises made over many decades and the huge sums spent on state welfare programs, it is hardly clear that the needs of the poor have been sufficiently met, especially given the constant outcry for more resources and better programs. If it...

Overview:  The US dollar is firm against all the G10 currencies, except for sterling, which is straddling unchanged levels after labor market report that showed an uptick earnings remain elevated, and the unemployment rate ticked up to a new high since September 2021. The dollar reached a new six-day high against the Japanese yen near JPY157.40. The Chinese yuan (onshore) fell to new lows since last November as the mainland markets re-opened from the holiday-long...

When socialist schemes fail, as they inevitably do, our attention is immediately drawn away from the destruction they cause to the “good intentions” behind the schemes. They meant well. Their good intentions override their disastrous results. One reason why good intentions are important to both sides of the political divide is that good intentions play well to voters. A good example of this is the national debt crisis in the United States. The economist Samuel...

According to a new report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, the US economy added 272,000 jobs during May while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.0 percent. As has been repeatedly the case over the past year, the latest monthly job-growth number was described as a “blowout” or “hot” number by major media outlets like CNN. As is typical in the good-news-is-bad-news view on Wall Street, the Dow fell on Friday out of fear that the...

In the late 1960s Edmund Phelps and Milton Friedman challenged the popular view that there can be a sustainable trade-off between inflation and unemployment. In fact, over time, according to PF, loose central bank policies set the platform for lower economic growth and a higher rate of inflation, or stagflation.PF’s Explanation of StagflationStarting from a situation of equality between the current and the expected rate of inflation, the central bank decides to boost...

Overview:  With mixed elements, the market took the US jobs data as relatively strong and took the dollar and US rates higher. The EU Parliament election has shaken up European politics, with the Belgium government collapsing and French President Macron calling a snap legislative election for the end of the month. Holidays in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia made for thinner Asia Pacific trading, but the euro was sold and has reached to one-month lows...

Javier Milei’s chainsaw policy has been without a doubt one of the most interesting and important topics of discussion in world politics. Argentina has taken important measures since Milei assumed the presidency to revert the tragic economic situation that the country was facing. Perhaps one of the most important measures is the adjustments and cuts in the state, the colloquially called “chainsaw policy.”Two months after Milei assumed the presidency, nine thousand...

The idea is to make cities in Ticino, such as Lugano, more attractive for top managers Keystone – Ats / Ti-Press High incomes in the Swiss canton of Ticino will in future benefit from tax relief. A corresponding amendment to the law was approved by voters on Sunday. Compensatory measures for planned pension cuts for cantonal employees were also approved. With a voter turnout of 49.32%, 60,581 Ticino residents voted in favour of the new tax law and 45,908 against,...

The market got caught leaning the wrong way. The weakness in April's high-frequency US data encouraged participants to push the US two-year yield to its recent floor near 4.70% and took the 10-year yield to two-month lows, slightly above 4.25%. The Dollar Index was driven below the uptrend line drawn off the December 2023 and March and May 2024 lows. We have argued that while the US economy is slowing, the April data seemed to overstate the case, and the May jobs...

In his 1949 book The Road Ahead: America’s Creeping Revolution, John T. Flynn warns about the “great tides of thought and appetite that run unseen deeply below the surface of society.” These unseen tides are political waves that shape the law and institutional policy, but because they are unseen, there is no widespread awareness of the danger they pose. They are barely debated in academic or policy circles. They are treated as an uncontroversial aspect of the...