Tag Archives: Featured

Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are snapping up most of the bitcoin. To really understand an asset, we have to examine not just the asset itself but who owns it, and who can afford to own it. These attributes will illuminate the political and financial power wielded by the owners of the asset class. And once we know what sort of...

Who President Trump ultimately picks as the next Federal Reserve Chairman doesn’t really matter. Unless he goes really far afield to someone totally unexpected, whoever that person will be will be largely more of the same. It won’t be a categorical change, a different philosophical direction that is badly needed. Still, politically, it does matter to some significant degree. It’s just that the political division isn’t...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.16% to 1.1602 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 27(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates This has been a good week for the US dollar. The Dollar Index’s 1.25% gain this week is the largest of the year. The driver is two-fold:  positive developments in the US and negative developments abroad. The positive developments in the US...

Social media is becoming increasingly dominant in the Swiss media industry, controlling not only consumer habits but also the advertising market. In addition, television is dying. These are the findings of the latest “Yearbook Quality of the Media” by the University of Zurich. They are strong, they are dominant, they have money – and they are located outside the Swiss sphere of influence: the internet giants or “tech...

– Russia adds 1.1 million ounces to reserves in ongoing diversification from USD – 34 ton addition brings Russia’s Central Bank holdings to 1,779t; 6th highest – Russia’s gold reserves are at highest point in Putin’s 17-year reign – Russia’s central bank will buy gold for its reserves on the Moscow Exchange – Russia recognises gold’s role as independent currency and safe haven Russian Central Bank Gold Reserves, 2006 -...

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported today that sales of existing homes (resales) were up slightly in September 2017 on a monthly basis. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million last month, that was practically unchanged from the 5.35 million estimate for August that was the lowest in a year. On an annual basis, resales in September were 1.5% less than those in September 2016. It was the first...

Political Correctness Hampers Honest Debate What would the world be like today had Europeans never colonized Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, and South Asia? Most of these societies would still not have discovered the wheel. It takes a huge amount of reality-avoidance and ineptitude for outsiders who travel there not to realize that a billion or more people in the Third World still wouldn’t...

Left: the first IKEA store located in Älmhult in Sweden, near the residence of the company’s founder (nowadays the store is a museum); right: a Task Rabbit car. - Click to enlarge Amassing Unproductive Debt Last week, we discussed the marginal productivity of debt. This is how much each newly-borrowed dollar adds to GDP. And ever since the interest rate began its falling trend in 1981, marginal productivity of debt...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.27% to 1.1656 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates It is all about the ECB meeting today. The market was hoping for more details last month, but Draghi pointed to today. The broad issue is well known. While growth has been strong, price pressures are still not, according to the ECB, on a...

Im zweiten Teil dieser Analyse wurde zu zeigen versucht, weshalb es für das eigentliche Verständnis unseres heutigen Geldsystems und dessen spezifischen Eigenschaften wenig sinnvoll ist, in der Kritik desselbigen zwischen Staat, Zentralbank und Geschäftsbank zu unterscheiden. Alle drei Akteure sind für die in Teil Zwei beschriebene «monetäre Revolution» unabdingbar und haben die von der natürlichen Knappheit losgelöste...