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The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars, and revolutions is its anti-capitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties are eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. It is an almost unchallenged dogma that capitalism is done for and that the coming of all-around regimentation of economic activities is both inescapable and highly desirable. Nonetheless capitalism is still very vigorous in the Western Hemisphere....

The Ferris wheel in front of Lausanne Cathedral. Almost all expats are happy with the city’s urban environment Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Last year foreign workers in Switzerland loved the quality of life but moaned about how hard it is to settle in. Have they since cracked how to befriend the allegedly surly Swiss? The Expat City Ranking 2021 lists both praise and peeves of newcomers. It’s good news for Basel, which has improved from 24th to 9th in this year’s...

Market reforms in Africa can be thwarted because of propaganda asserting that markets are a Western import. Notwithstanding the currency of this belief, it is patently absurd. Markets flourished in Africa prior to colonialism, and wherever they are repressed, the result is social immiseration, as economist William Hutt points out in his pathbreaking study, The Economics of the Colour Bar. Merchants in precolonial Africa organized large-scale trading networks that...

At Investing Hero, I aim to provide the best investing platform reviews. To support this, some of the providers featured in reviews will generate an affiliate commission which helps pay to run this website. However, this doesn’t influence my reviews. My opinions are my own. The information provided on Investing Hero is for informational purposes only. Please read the disclaimer. In this blog post I’m going to be reviewing the cryptocurrency trading platform,...

In discussions surrounding of the world’s monetary systems today there is usually one thing almost everyone can agree on: that money should be controlled by the organizations we call “states” or “sovereign states.” Nowadays when we say “the US dollar” we mean the currency issued by the US government. When we say “the British pound” we mean the money issued by the regime of the United Kingdom. This assumed need to have state-issued money has not always been the...

© Giuseppe De Filippo | Dreamstime.com The latest Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey of the prices of 200 goods and services in 173 cities placed both Geneva and Zurich in the top 10 most expensive cities in 2021. Overall, the cost of living across these 173 cities has risen by an average of 3.5%, the highest inflation seen in the last 5 years. This compares with inflation of just 1.9% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2019. Supply-chain problems, as well as exchange-rate...

Recent correspondence between U.S. Rep. Alex X. Mooney, R-West Virginia, and the U.S. Treasury Department suggests that the department has given the Federal Reserve and International Monetary Fund unfettered control of a portion of U.S. gold reserves. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on June 9 this year, Mooney posed many questions about the U.S. gold reserves, which are owned by the Treasury. A reply from the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant...

The preference is for “flex crops” like sugarcane that have multiple uses, as well as the potential for mechanisation of cultivation. Keystone / Andre Penner Research by investigative non-profit Public Eye has revealed that trading companies with a Swiss presence – or their subsidiaries – own over 550 plantations covering over 2.7 million hectares. These companies buy and sell commodities like sugar, soy and palm oil from trading offices in Geneva or Zug and include...

Part II of II Unsound money, unsound society  Of course, one of the most important and consequential parts of the incredibly complex organism that is the economy is money itself. It is its lifeblood and as the song goes, “it makes the world go round”. Therefore, manipulating the currency itself is one the most dangerous and hubristic things a central planner can do, which probably explains why it’s their favorite pastime. Ever since the gold standard was officially...

The EU Commissioner for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager. Keystone / Olivier Hoslet The European Commission has ended an investigation of five banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, who colluded in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel. The total fines announced on Thursday came to €344 million (CHF359 million), with British bank HSBC taking the biggest hit of €174 million. UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, escaped a potential fine of €94 million since it...