Tag Archives: Featured

New rules of the game have consequences be they sanctions, laws, court rulings or even public opinion. The stakes have never been as high for multinationals when it comes to doing the right thing. The war in Ukraine has tested the moral compass of big firms worldwide. Sanctions against Russia came with little notice along with heavy penalties for those who don’t toe the line. Low profile industries can suddenly no longer operate under the radar. Take Swiss steel...

Arguably the most important data next week is the flash PMI. It is not available for all countries, but for those generally large G10 economies, the preliminary estimate is often sufficiently close to the final reading to steal its thunder. Moreover, and this applies to high-frequency data more broadly, given the overshoot of inflation in most counties, with some exceptions, notably in Asia, central banks appear to be on set courses.  The near-term data are...

Der Hype scheint ungebrochen. NFTs sprießen aus dem Boden wie nie zuvor und viele Unternehmen haben ihre eigenen NFT-Programme bereits in der Mache. Doch kommen die heutigen Adopter bereits zu spät? Viele NFTs der ersten Stunde haben nämlich inzwischen deutlich an Wert verloren. Crypto News: NFT des ersten Twitter-Tweets verliert massiv an WertEs ist noch nicht lange her, da verkaufte sich ein NFT des weltweit ersten Twitter-Tweets für 2,9 Millionen US-Dollar. Der...

Over the past couple of weeks, we reviewed the U.S. government confiscation of gold by Executive Order in 1933. (see “Gold Confiscation: Will History Repeat Itself?” and “The Facts of Gold Confiscation: The Saga Continues”). One of the points was that the difference between 1933 and today is that gold is not money for banks today. This means banks are not on a gold standard. Some observers have stated that the announcement by Russia’s Central Bank on March 25 to...

Switzerland’s electricity supply to end-users is secured by more than 600 companies. Suppliers range from small regional utilities to international energy groups. Most of them are public sector entities. © Keystone/Gaetan Bally The government has decided to prepare a bail-out plan for Switzerland’s main electricity companies to prevent an energy shortage. The aim is to ensure financial liquidity for companies trading energy on an international scale and to avoid an...

The guy said this was going to be the future. Not just of China, for or really from the rest of the world. Way back in October 2017, at the 19th Communist Party Congress newly-made Emperor Xi Jinping blurted out his grand redesign for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. A country once committed to quantity of economic growth above everything else would, moving forward, come to prioritize instead the quality of it. This message was a clear signal, way back when,...

After posting the daily analysis, the PBOC announced a 25 bp cut in required reserves. This is said to free up around CNY530 bln or around $83 bln. It may help explain the failure to cut the benchmark Medium-Term Lending Facility. Some rural banks may see a 50 bp cut in reserve requirements. It seems like it is too small of  move to satisfy expectation or address the growing economic challenges. More monetary and fiscal stimulus will be necessary to help offset the...

Overview: Most centers are closed for the holidays today. The Asia Pacific equity markets were open and moved lower following the losses on Wall Street yesterday. The weakness of the yen failed to underpin Japanese shares. China disappointed most observers by failing to cut the one-year medium-term lending facility rate (2.85%) and shares slipped. The dollar is mostly higher.  It is up for the 11th consecutive session against the Japanese yen. The euro fell to its...

There are some important things to note about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Our rights do not come from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. As the Declaration of Independence states, our rights come from nature and God, not from the federal government, not from the Constitution, and not from the Bill of Rights. The purpose of the Constitution was to call into existence a government of limited powers.  The purpose of the Bill of Rights is not to...

Most people would be horrified by a 40% decline in their “investments.” When bubbles pop, speculative assets don’t drop 40%, they drop 90% or even 98%. The irony of the sudden panic about real-world inflation generated by rising wages is two-fold: 1. The status quo never mentions the rampant inflation in assets, because the already-wealthy got wealthier, so asset inflation is wonderful and deserves to be permanent Look at the chart below (courtesy of Mac10) of the...