Tag Archives: Featured

Financial institutions must be wary of being consumed by the consequences of careless environmental or social decisions. Keystone / Rank Augstein Climate change is forcing financiers to change the way they think and act. This could have a big impact on their balance sheets – and potentially their very survival. “Bankers are no longer purely financial specialists, but also connoisseurs of the environmental and social footprint of investments,” said Yves Mirabaud in...

Whenever a government program or policy produces deaths of innocent people, the way I figure it is that that makes it incumbent on libertarians to take a firm stand against such programs and policies. We all know that there are all sorts of government regulations that deprive people of liberty that we libertarians need to oppose. Recent examples include mandatory lockdowns and mask mandates. But there is something about the finality of death that makes government...

Any animal raised and slaughtered in Switzerland can be labelled Swiss. However, what the animal has been fed could be from anywhere. If animals are what they eat then much of the meat and eggs labelled Swiss aren’t very Swiss. © Sergio Bertino | Dreamstime.com A key challenge for meat, dairy and egg consumers is the absence of information on labels, which is limited to provenance. Information about what an animal has been fed is not contained on the labels of meat,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.14% to 1.0946 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 02(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The US jobs report and OPEC+ decision are awaited. The dollar remains bid. Only the yen and Canadian dollar are showing a hint of resilience, though, on the week, the Scandis and dollar-bloc currencies are off between around 1-2%. The greenback is also firmer against the emerging...

On 1 July 2021, Switzerland’s revised telecommunications law came into effect. The new rules force mobile providers to make certain changes to deals they offer customers when roaming. Some of the resulting changes are positive, but not all. In addition, some operators have retained bundles that don’t comply with the new rules. © Jekaterina Voronina | Dreamstime.com The new rules force mobile operators to change for roaming calls in increments of a second instead of...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently permitted the eviction moratorium established by the Centers for Disease Control to continue, at least until July 31, when the CDC plans to lift it. The Court wrongly decided the matter. It should have immediately lifted the moratorium. Historically, governments have held “inherent” police powers to protect the health of the citizenry. But the federal government is different. It was never intended to have inherent powers. Our American...

Does anyone remember the SLR “cliff?” Of course you don’t, because in the end it didn’t seem to make any difference. For a few weeks, it was kind of ubiquitous if only in the sense that it was another one of those deep plumbing issues no one seems able to understand (forcing all the “experts” to run to Investopedia in order write something up about it). Whatever this thing was and was going to be, it sounded ridiculously earth-shattering. And then, poof, it was...

The unraveling of social cohesion has consequences. Once social cohesion unravels, the nation unravels. My recent posts have focused on the systemic financial risks created by Federal Reserve policies that have elevated moral hazard (risks can be taken without consequence) and speculation to levels so extreme that they threaten the stability of the entire financial system. These risks are well known, though largely ignored in the current speculative frenzy. But...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.0969 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 01(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Soft Asian manufacturing PMIs weighed on local shares after the S&P 500 set new record highs yesterday. European shares are recouping yesterday’s month-end losses, while US futures indices are bid. The US 10-year yield is around 1.47%, and European yields are 1-2 bp higher. The...

01.07.2021 – The consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.1% in June 2021 compared with the previous month, reaching 101.1 points (December 2020 = 100). Inflation was +0.6% compared with the same month of the previous year. These are the results of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).The 0.1% increase compared with the previous month is due to several factors including rising prices for fruiting vegetables. International package holidays also recorded a price...