Tag Archives: Featured

[caption id="attachment_994215" align="alignleft" width="400"] The Swiss commodities trader is taking legal action. Keystone / Martial Trezzini[/caption] Swiss commodities trading company Trafigura says it has been defrauded to the tune of $577 million (CHF530 million) by fake nickel shipments. The firm has launched legal action against a Dubai-based metals trader and the group of companies he runs out of the Middle East emirate. “The fraud...

Until the publication in 1920 of Ludwig von Mises’s work on the problem of economic calculation in socialism, there was no scientifically useful analysis of the economics of the socialist economy. With that work , and its development in the comprehensive treatise Die Gemeinwirtschaft (1922 and 1932, published in English in 1951 as Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis), Mises demonstrated that because of the absence of private ownership of the means of...

Die Zürcher Kantonalbank profitierte von der Krise der CS und machte im vergangenen Jahr Rekordgewinne. Das sagt die ZKB-Führung dazu. Fassade der Filiale der Zürcher Kantonalbank bei der Hardbrücke im Industriequartier. Quelle: imago images / Andreas Haas Zwei Zahlen stechen beim Jahresabschluss der ZKB ins Auge: Zum einen knackt die grösste Kantonalbank der Schweiz zum ersten Mal in ihrer Geschichte die Marke von einer Milliarde Franken beim Gewinn. Der Überschuss...

After selling off sharply in the past four months, the dollar rebounded. Since the FOMC meeting on February 1, it has enjoyed one of the strongest bounces since it topped out in late September/early October. The incredible US jobs data, sharp bounce in the January services ISM, speculation of BOJ Governor Kuroda’s successor, and some easing of the euphoria over China’s re-opening have been notable drivers. The dramatic rise in the US two-year note illustrates the...

The Biden administration has increased federal government spending by a record $3.4 trillion since January 2021. That includes such signature bills as the American Rescue Plan Act of $1.8 trillion, the Inflation Reduction Act of $50.6 billion, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of $764.9 billion. As well as providing official costings for those bills, the Congressional Budget Office has found that a number of executive orders contribute nearly another $1...

Demonstrators in Lausanne on February 9: Vaud is the third-largest (by population) of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. © Keystone/ Valentin Flauraud Around 3,500 public sector workers in the western Swiss canton of Vaud took part in a strike on Thursday. They are calling for wage indexation to keep up with inflation and rising living costs. Thursday’s demonstration in Lausanne is the fourth in two months by public sector workers. It comes after an even bigger gathering in...

What is strategy, and is it useful for business? Business schools want you think it is the critical factor in competitive success or failure. They teach structured markets, divided up by market share, with boundaries and external and internal forces to be assessed and countered. “Where to play and how to win.” They see strategy through their lens of financialization and utilize fictitious economic calculations like discounted future cash flows and market...

I truly enjoyed the conversation with Hrvoje Morić. I hope you will enjoy it 2. Happy Weekend! In liberty, Claudio Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here [embedded content]...

(I am on a business trip and did not intend to post any analysis today. However, there have been a number of unexpected developments that warrant some commentary. Thanks for bearing with me.) Japanese press reports that the BOJ Deputy Governor Amamiya turned down the opportunity to become the next BOJ governor. Instead, next week, former BOJ board member Kazuo Ueda will be nominated. The market reacted dramatically, taking the yen sharply higher and sold JGBS....

Won’t go to waste: but plastic in Switzerland is not always so well recycled. Keystone / Urs Flueeler The Federal Audit Office says there needs to be more transparency around the various fees and taxes which fund Switzerland’s recycling system. The auditors wrote on Wednesday that CHF176 million ($192 million) in recycling taxes and fees were collected in 2019: these included state-organised prepaid disposal fees on glass and batteries, and voluntary, private...