Tag Archives: Featured

How many hours must you work to buy a new iPhone? It varies dramatically around the world, reflecting disparities in productivity and purchasing power. According to a recent report by UBS that aims to measure well-being by estimating how many minutes workers in various countries must work to afford either an iphone, a Big Mac, a kilo of bread or a kilo of rice, the average worker in Zurich or New York can buy an iPhone...

How many hours must you work to buy a new iPhone? It varies dramatically around the world, reflecting disparities in productivity and purchasing power. According to a recent report by UBS that aims to measure well-being by estimating how many minutes workers in various countries must work to afford either an iphone, a Big Mac, a kilo of bread or a kilo of rice, the average worker in Zurich or New York can buy an iPhone...

Swiss Franc The EUR/CHF improved today. The OPEC-non-OPEC agreement was the reason. Always when oil gets more expensive, the euro, gold, CHF and the whole “Asian bloc” rises  against dollar and yen. Still it was astonishing that the euro improved more against USD than the inflation hedge CHF. Reason might be that investors now consider the ECB the most dovish central bank. Higher oil prices, however, may lead to more...

The global bond rout returned with a bang, sending 10Y US Treasury yields as much as six basis points higher to 2.53%, the highest level in over two years. The selloff happened as oil prices surged by more than 5% following Saturday’s agreement by NOPEC nations agreed to slash production, leading to rising inflation pressures. At last check, the 10Y was trading at 2.505%, up from 2.462% at Friday and on track for its...

The global bond rout returned with a bang, sending 10Y US Treasury yields as much as six basis points higher to 2.53%, the highest level in over two years. The selloff happened as oil prices surged by more than 5% following Saturday’s agreement by NOPEC nations agreed to slash production, leading to rising inflation pressures. At last check, the 10Y was trading at 2.505%, up from 2.462% at Friday and on track for its...

  Too Smart to Think These days everything must be smart.  There are smart cities, smart grids, smart policies, smart TVs, smart cars, smart phones, smart watches, smart shoes, and smart glasses.  There’s even something called smart underwear. Before long everything around us will be so smart we’ll no longer have to do one critically important thing.  We’ll no longer have to think; smart algorithms will think for us. ...

  Too Smart to Think These days everything must be smart.  There are smart cities, smart grids, smart policies, smart TVs, smart cars, smart phones, smart watches, smart shoes, and smart glasses.  There’s even something called smart underwear. Before long everything around us will be so smart we’ll no longer have to do one critically important thing.  We’ll no longer have to think; smart algorithms will think for us. ...

In a democracy, trust must be earned. It cannot be imposed. In its panicky rush to demonize the independent media via baseless accusations of “fake news,” the mainstream press has sunk to spewing “fake news” of its own. Here’s The Washington Post’s criminally false “fake news” article in case you missed it: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say. So-called “fake news” was...

In a democracy, trust must be earned. It cannot be imposed. In its panicky rush to demonize the independent media via baseless accusations of “fake news,” the mainstream press has sunk to spewing “fake news” of its own. Here’s The Washington Post’s criminally false “fake news” article in case you missed it: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say. So-called “fake news” was...

Headlines Week December 09, 2016 Who has read Milton Friedman knows that the Trump reflation trade is now showing its positive side. US wages are rising by 2.5%, while inflation is still relatively low. According to Friedman, inflation will increase only later. This implies that speculators are long the dollar and short the Swiss franc and the euro. Last week’s ECB meeting showed that the ECB might be dovish for a...