Tag Archives: Featured

In less than a decade the surface area dedicated to growing sugar beets in Switzerland has dropped from 20,000 hectares to 16,500 hectares Thomas Kern/swissinfo.ch Every year from October to December more than 1.5 million tonnes of sugar beets grown in Switzerland are harvested to supply the country’s sugar industry – an industry being kept alive by massive government subsidies. SWI swissinfo.ch reports from Aarberg, home to the country’s largest sugar factory....

Hiking, and biking, were rare winners in the pandemic. Keystone / Arno Balzarini New data on Swiss travel habits during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic show fewer overnight stays, less air travel and a collapse in trips beyond the borders of Europe. In 2020 the Swiss resident population made a total of 15.1 million trips which included at least one night away from home, according to a report published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Wednesday....

According to the popular narrative, the role of the central bank is to navigate the economy along the so-called path of economic stability. By this way of thinking if various shocks cause the economy to deviate from this path, then it is the role of central bank policy makers to offset these shocks. This is done by means of suitable monetary policies. In line with this way of thinking to counter the shocks from covid-19, the US central bank, the Federal Reserve...

This week’s episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast explores the topic of Central Banks, most notably the US Federal Reserve. Monetary Metals’ CEO Keith Weiner explores why the Fed was created and what deleterious effects it has on our economy including inflation, boom bust cycles and monetary debasement in this recorded talk given to investment bankers. In this talk Keith discusses:[embedded content] Additional Resources Episode Transcript John Flaherty: Hello, again,...

If Xi’s gambit succeeds, China could become a magnet for global capital. If success is only partial or temporary, China may well struggle with the structural excesses that are piling up not just in China but in the entire global economy. As noted here last month, the Chinese characters that comprise “crisis” are famously–and incorrectly–translated as “danger” and “opportunity.” The more accurate translation is “precarious” plus “juncture” or “change point.” (Thank...

Ethereum 2.0 rückt immer näher. Mit dem Update warten zahlreiche große Neuerungen auf uns. Die interessantesten betreffen sicherlich den Energieverbrauch und die Transaktionsgebühren des ETH. Gerade letztere waren im Rahmen der „Scalability“ oftmals Gegenstand der Kritik an Buterins Ethereum. Ethereum News: Vitalik Buterin veröffentlicht „Endgame“ für Ethereum Im Markt war es ein erfolgreiches Jahr 2021 für den ETH. Der Preis stieg nicht nur auf ein Allzeithoch,...

The pandemic has created major challenges at ports delivering goods around the world. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved Swiss economic experts expect a significant economic slowdown as supply chain bottlenecks, inflation and pandemic restrictions persist in many parts of the world. On Thursday, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) announcedExternal link that the economic expert group has lowered the growth forecast for Switzerland...

Interest has a title role in many pre-Keynesian writings as it does in Keynes’s own General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Eugen Böhm-Bawerk’s Capital and Interest (1889), Knut Wicksell’s Interest and Prices (1898), and Gustav Cassel’s The Nature and Necessity of Interest (1903) readily come to mind. The essays in F.A. Hayek’s Profits, Interest, and Investment (1939), which both predate and postdate Keynes’s book, focus on the critical role that...

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can be used effectively for international settlements between financial institutions, as shown in the newest wholesale CBDC experiment concluded by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), the Banque de France (BdF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The recently completed Project Jura explored settling foreign exchange (FX) transactions in euro and Swiss franc wholesale CBDCs as well as issuing, transferring and redeeming...

The Bureau Labor Statistics reported today another huge month for Job Openings (JO). According to their methodology (which I still believe is flawed, but that’s not our focus this time), the level for October 2021 (JOLTS updates are for one month further back than payrolls) was a blistering 11.03 million. It wasn’t a record high, though, as that was set back in July. Yes, the number remains upward in the stratosphere, but it has been in the same general area of it...