Tag Archives: Featured

© Radomír Režný | Dreamstime.com The high inflation across the world is rippling as far as Switzerland. During the month of February 2022, Swiss prices rose 0.7%. Compared to the same month in 2021, prices were 2.2% higher, making this the highest price increase in two decades. The 0.66% monthly consumer price rise in February represents an annualised rate of 7.9%. Essentially, if the latest monthly rate of inflation were to continue for 12 months it would push...

If only, like in the aftermath of the Apollo 13 explosion, we could just radio Houston to get started in figuring out just the way out of our fix. Mission Control would certainly buzz all the right people with the right stuff, summoning the best engineers and scientists from their quiet divans to the frenzied and dangerous work ahead. Sadly, in this context all we could ever turn to is Economists. And from Houston, we aren’t like to extract any more oil. The US...

SEZs are loopholes, and capitalism breathes through loopholes. But like all loopholes, they tend to benefit those who can afford to hire the lawyers who can identify said loopholes. Original Article: “What Would Mises Have Thought of “Special Economic Zones”?” This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack. [embedded content] You Might Also Like...

This week, 120,9017 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Switzerland, up 24% from the 97,335 cases reported a week earlier. In addition, the reported number of Covid-19 patients hospitalised edged up slightly from 340 to 352 compared to the week before. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.comThe 7-day average case number had been in constant decline since the end of January. However, the number began to turn upwards in the days leading up to the end of February. On 4...

Switzerland and the European Union have a complicated relationship. The recent decision by the Alpine nation to definitively shut the door on a framework agreement with the EU reaffirms its attachment to its independence. It shows that 30 years after refusing to join the EU, Switzerland’s stance has only been reinforced. We look at some of the main reasons why. For years Bern and Brussels have been working to recast their long-term relationship. In the...

Switzerland’s retirement age of 65 for men and 64 for women puts its state pensioners in the youngest half of OECD retirees. Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.comThis week, when a Swiss parliamentarian asked in which direction pension reform was heading, he received a written response that said the state pension system could be stabilised from 2030 with a rise in the retirement age to 68 for both men and women, reported the NZZ newspaper. Many nations have...

Most people have the impression that these various payroll and employment reports just go into the raw data and count up the number of payrolls and how many Americans are employed. Perhaps the BLS taps the IRS database as fellow feds, or ADP as a private company in the same data business of employment just tallies how many payrolls it processes as the largest provider of back-office labor services. That’s just not how it works, though. In fact, sampling and...

One of the most significant market responses to Russia's attack on Ukraine is in the expectations for the trajectory of monetary policy in many of the high-income countries, including the US, eurozone, UK and Canada.  The market has abandoned speculation of a 50 bp hike in mid-March by the FOMC and the Bank of England.  It has also scaled back the ECB's move to 20 bp this year from 50 bp.  Even after the Russian invasion, the market had discounted a 75% chance that...

Die Sanktionen gegen Russland gehen weiter. Inzwischen schließen sich weltweit Finanzinstitute, Banken und Börsen an. Vier der größten Cryptobörsen Südkoreas haben sich gestern entschieden, russische IP-Adressen zu blocken, zusätzlich wurden bereits 20 Konten eingefroren. Crypto News: Asiatische Börsen schließen Russland ausZu den Börsen gehören Gopax und Upbit, zwei der größten Börsen im ostasiatischen Raum. Und auch in Japan bereiten sich einige Börsen darauf vor...

The financial woes of the giant real estate developer Evergrande, which carries an estimated debt of $300 billion, have rekindled global fears that China’s property bubble is about to burst. Such predictions have occurred repeatedly in the past, in particular since 2010, and have been fueled by the rapid rise of property prices, construction volumes, and real estate debt. Today, many analysts fear that if the property bubble collapses, the impact on the real economy...