Tag Archives: Featured

Vaccine rollout is advancing at snail pace in the European Union. At the same time, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel are moving quickly to get large parts of the population vaccinated as promptly as possible. As Europe debates the success or failure of its vaccine policy, some countries want to be one step ahead and discuss the possibility of so-called vaccine passports. The concept is straightforward: those who have been...

The meltdown has crashed the currency, prompted a sovereign default and doomed at least half the population to poverty, prompting protests. Keystone / Wael Hamzeh The Swiss attorney general’s office has requested legal assistance from Lebanon in the context of a probe into “aggravated money laundering” and possible embezzlement tied to the Lebanese central bank, Reuters reports from Beirut. The probe is looking at money transfers by Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor...

Are you familiar with the GoldNewsletter podcast? They boast over 200 episodes on the topics of investment, economics, and geopolitics. This week, hosts Fergus Hodgson & Brien Lundin interviewed Monetary Metals’ CEO Keith Weiner on the topic of falling interest rates and how cheap borrowing comes at the expense of capital productivity. [embedded content] Did you enjoy this episode? Subscribe to the GoldNewsletter podcast via...

Students use cell phones to carry out online learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 20, 2020. Keystone / Hotli Simanjuntak Infectious diseases, extreme weather events and cybersecurity problems pose key threats to society in the next two years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warns. The Covid-19 pandemic looks set to have a lasting impact in the next ten years. “In 2020 we saw the effects of ignoring preparation and ignoring long-term...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.07% to 1.0754 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 19(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The animal spirits are on the march today. Equities are mostly higher, peripheral European bonds are firm, and the dollar is mostly softer. After posting the first back-to-back decline this year, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index bounced back today, led by a 2.7% gain in Hong Kong...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) or officially named “Producer and Import Price Index” describes the changes in prices for producers and importers. For us it is interesting because it is used in the formula for the Real Effective Exchange Rate. When producers and importers profit on lower price changes when compared to other countries, then the Swiss Franc reduces its overvaluation. The Swiss PPI values of -6% in 2015 (see below), compared to -3% in Europe or -1% in...

(Note: This article is dedicated to the memory of Carl Watner, who died on December 8, 2020 at the age of 72. A long-time defender of individual liberty and free markets, his 1976 article in Reason magazine, “California Gold, 1849-65,” helped renew awareness and appreciation for private money in American history). Put the federal government in charge of the supply of money, let it outlaw private competition and bestow a “legal tender” privilege on its own paper and...

President-elect Biden will be inaugurated Wednesday; security in Washington DC and many state capitols has been beefed up due to concerns of violence; the Senate reconvenes Tuesday and will immediately begin work on confirming Biden’s cabinet choices; reports suggest that if asked, Yellen will disavow a weak dollar policy whilst affirming commitment to a market-determined exchange rate Weekly jobless claims data Thursday will be the highlight of an otherwise quiet...

18. Januar 2021 – von Thorsten Polleit [Ein Vortrag gehalten auf der 8. Jahreskonferenz des Ludwig von Mises Institut Deutschland am 10. Oktober 2020 im Hotel Bayerischer Hof in München.] In diesem Vortrag argumentiere ich, dass (1) Eigentum und Umwelt- beziehungsweise Ressourcenschutz keine Gegensätze sind; dass (2) man vielmehr auf das Eigentum setzen muss, wenn Umwelt und Ressourcen wirksam geschützt und ein tyrannischer Weltstaat verhindert werden sollen; und...

In the debate over whether or not China will soon rise to challenge the United States as the world’s hegemon, it is often assumed that states with large aggregate economies are necessarily more militarily powerful ones. This stems from decades-old methods that remain popular among scholars and pundits who write on international relations and foreign policy. The theory goes like this: states that rule over economies with a large gross domestic product (GDP) have more...