. US prices continue to rise, with the US consumer price index (CPI) for October coming in at its highest in three decades. President Biden made a boldly worded response as inflation becomes a growing focus among politicians with their eyes fixed on next year’s midterm elections. Oil prices fell on investors’ expectations that the US could free up strategic reserves to combat energy inflation. At the same time, bond yields rose on the back of the CPI release, but the...
Read More »Wide variation in pandemic’s impact on post-compulsory education and training pathways
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, academic Baccalaureate holders were much faster to transition to a higher education institution in 2020. This led to a record number of new students in the universities and institutes of technology. Transitions after a federal vocational or specialised Baccalaureate saw hardly any change. In vocational education and training (VET), the coronavirus crisis has only had a slight impact to date. These are findings from two new publications...
Read More »Paging Isaac Newton: Time to Buy the Top of This Bubble
Despite Newton’s tremendous intelligence and experience, he fell victim to the bubble along with the vast herd of credulous greedy punters. One of the most famous examples of smart people being sucked into a bubble and losing a packet as a result is Isaac Newton’s forays in and out of the 1720 South Seas Bubble that is estimated to have sucked in between 80% and 90% of the entire pool of investors in England. Some have claimed that Newton did not buy early in...
Read More »Perversity Thy Name is Dollar
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Breaking Down the Dollar Monetary System If you ask most people, “what is money?” they will answer that money is the generally accepted medium of exchange. If you ask Google Images, it will show you many pictures of green pieces of paper. Virtually everyone agrees that money means the dollar.
Read More »#RestartVienna at an unforgettable 10th Austrian Economics Conference – 1st Day
On November 4-5, the 10th Austrian Economics Conference took place at the Austrian Central Bank (Österreichische Nationalbank). The event was organized in collaboration with the Fundación Bases and the Hayek Institut and received more than 150 academics, researchers, think-tankers, entrepreneurs, and student advocates of the ideas of freedom from all over the world. #RestartVienna became a great motivation for the promoters of the ideas of the Austrian School to...
Read More »The latest wave of covid-19 is harrowing German-speaking countries
“IT IS TERRIFYING, all the arguments and measures to persuade the unvaccinated to get the jab are simply ignored,” said Manfred Güllner, head of Forsa, a German pollster. The cause of his consternation? In a recent Forsa survey, 65% of the 3,048 unvaccinated Germans polled said they would “definitely” not get a covid-19 jab in the next two months. A further 23% were inclined not to. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have the highest shares of unvaccinated people in...
Read More »Will the Next “Skyscraper Curse” Be Found in the Digital World?
The vast majority of Mises Wire readers are already familiar with the Austrian business cycle theory. For those who are not, it is an Austrian perspective on what causes the sudden general cluster of business errors that results in a boom-bust cycle, with the busts being the recessions or depressions that we as a society so dread. Murray Rothbard explains this process in his America’s Great Depression: In sum, businessmen were misled by bank credit inflation to...
Read More »The Greenback Slips to Start the New Week
Overview: While the Belarus-Poland border remains an intense standoff, there have been a couple other diplomatic developments that may be exciting risk appetites today. First, Biden and Xi will talk by phone later today. Second, reports suggest the UK has toned down its rhetoric making progress on talks on the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Equities in the Asia Pacific region were mostly firmer, with China a notable exception among the large...
Read More »Served sanctions fell by almost 21percent in 2020
15.11.2021 – In 2020, 10 945 sentences and measures were executed in Switzerland (2019: 13 810). More than two thirds (67%) were for imprisonment in a penal institution. Community service accounted for less than a third (30%) of executions of sentences while electronic monitoring made up 3%. 86% concerned males and 42% Swiss citizens. The average population in penal institutions decreased by 6%. Data come from the Federal Statistical Office’s (FSO) execution of...
Read More »Look Out Below: Why a Rug-Pull Flash Crash Makes Perfect Sense
It makes perfect financial sense to crash the market and no sense to reward the retail options marks by pushing it higher. An extraordinary opportunity to scoop up mega-millions in profits has arisen, and grabbing all this free money makes perfect financial sense. Now the question is: will those who have the means to grab the dough have the guts to do so? Here’s the opportunity: retail punters have gone wild for call options, churning $2.6 trillion in mostly...
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