Tag Archives: Featured

Overview:  The US dollar is winding down this week on a quiet note. Most of the G10 currencies are trading within yesterday's ranges. On the week, only the Scandis are set to close with gains, though with a little effort, the Australian dollar could too. The Japanese yen and Swiss franc are the laggards off 0.65%-0.75% this week. Most emerging market currencies outside of central Europe are firmer. The South African rand is the strongest this week, followed by four...

Regarding the surprisingly strong employment data, Fed Chair Powell said the quiet part out loud. The media hopes you didn’t hear it as we head into a contentious election in November. Over the last several months, we have seen repeated employment reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that crushed economists’ estimates and seemed to defy logic. Such is particularly the case when you read commentary about the state of the average American as follows. “New...

In recent months, stories from both the legacy media and the independent media have continued to pile up on how undocumented foreign nationals—also known as “migrants” and “illegal aliens”—are able to take advantage of a vast network of taxpayer funded benefits in daycare, medical care, housing, and more. For example, both the New York Post and Denver Post report that these foreign nationals have “overwhelmed” the Denver Health hospital system in Denver, and that the...

Government and state are terms typically used synonymously these days. But if a state is an institution with a monopoly on the allowable use of aggression in a given territory, is a government always this as well? We know governing is needed in lots of private non-monopoly-wielding institutions, from large manufacturing corporations to local tennis clubs. So if we think outside the state, we can find ways that private governments can be established and developed to...

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop are joined by Doug French to discuss the health of US banks, the specific dangers of commercial real estate debt, and the risks of industry consolidation. Discussed on the Show “The Fed Claims the Banking System is “Sound and Resilient.” The Banks’ Balance Sheets Say Otherwise” by Douglas French: Mises.org/RR_173_A “The Fed Prepares for a Bank Crisis While Telling Americans the Economy is Strong” by...

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most common measure of national wealth and economic growth. Yet the layman—and even many businessmen and economists—is taken aback when mainstream commentators and professionals get very excited about changes to GDP, which seem to have little to no impact on real economic conditions. While GDP can sometimes reflect real economic conditions, this is often when conditions are very favorable or unfavorable and where other techniques...

The New Year is usually associated with a new beginning, a fresh start, or a “clean slate”. Unfortunately, for millions of Americans, these are wishes that are bound to remain unfulfilled – for them, the New Year has nothing “new” to offer at all: it will only perpetuate all the same burdens, obligations and worries of the past year and of the ones that came before. One physical, practical manifestation of this (though it is certainly not a unique, or even a rare,...

Overview: There has been a string of disappointing economic news today. Japan’s economy surprisingly contracted in Q4 23 and the Q3 contraction was a little deeper than initially estimates. Australia’s jobs growth was weaker than expected and unemployment rose to 4.1%, matching the highest since November 2021. The UK’s economy contracted more than expected in Q4 23, its second consecutive quarter without growth. That seems like poor news ahead of today’s two...

15.2.2024 - In Switzerland, a total of 15.9% of employees worked shifts in 2022, just over half of them with rotating working hours (8.6% of employees). The distribution of shift work varies widely among the different economic activities. The economic activities with the highest percentages of shift work, i.e. in which more than 20% of employees undertake shift...

UBS has launched Hong Kong’s first investment-grade tokenised warrant, leveraging the Ethereum public blockchain. This product is part of the bank’s UBS Tokenise initiative, aimed at advancing its in-house tokenisation services. The product is a call warrant with Xiaomi Corporation as the underlying stock. The tokenised warrant is also reportedly the first natively issued warrant on a public blockchain that was sold to OSL Digital Securities Limited, a licensed...