Tag Archives: Featured

Last week, the media again tried to ratchet up the public’s fear over covid-19 by labeling it more deadly than the 1918 flu epidemic. “COVID-19 Is Now the Deadliest Disease in U.S. History,” reads one headline from an NBC TV affiliate. Considering the realities of cancer and heart disease, that headline is absurdly false. Perhaps the author meant “communicable disease.” A TIME headline was at least arguably factual, declaring, “COVID-19 Is Now the Deadliest Pandemic...

V for Vaccine? One of many masked guests at Fantasy Basel on Saturday Keystone / Peter Klaunzer The three-day Fantasy Basel festival for fans of films, games, comics, cosplay and manga has re-opened its doors after a two-year break. Fantasy BaselExternal link, also known as the Swiss Comic Con, is one of the biggest events of its kind in Switzerland. Fans of pop culture are drawn to the exhibition halls in Basel, where many visitors dress up in flashy costumes...

Bonds sold off again last week with the yield on the 10 year Treasury closing over 1.6% for the first time since early June. The yield is now down just 16 basis points from the high of 1.76% set on March 30. But this rise in rates is at least a little different than the fall that preceded it. When nominal rates fell from April through July, real rates fell right along with them. The nominal bond yield fell by 63 basis points and the 10 year TIPS yield fell by 57....

US rates and the dollar hardly responded to the disappointing jobs report.  The 194k rise in the nonfarm payrolls was the least this year, but of course, it is subject to revisions the way the August series was revised by more than 50% to 366k. One critical problem was that hiring by local governments for the start of the school season was less than usual, and with the seasonal adjustment, it turned into a decline. On the other hand, the private sector added 317k,...

In my blog post yesterday entitled “Mainstream Press Silence on the JFK Deadline, I took the mainstream media to task for remaining steadfastly silent about the upcoming October 26 deadline for the release of the CIA’s long-secret JFK assassination-related records. Instead, I pointed out, the mainstream media simply continues reveling in labeling people who question the official lone-nut theory of the assassination as “conspiracy theorists.”  Well, who would have...

An attractive target: a Swiss server. © Keystone / Christian Beutler Ransomware attacks by hackers continue to increase sharply, with some 2,700 Swiss firms falling victim over the past year, Beobachter magazine has reported. The figure for the period August 2020 to August 2021 was arrived at by American cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, Beobachter wrote on Wednesday. Measured against the 4,800 attacks over the past five years as a whole, this means a big uptick,...

Tangany has received a license from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) as the third regulated service provider for the custody of digital assets in the country to provide crypto custody business. Furthermore, Tangany plans to apply for further licenses in Germany and Europe in the future and has already received preliminary permission from BaFin to manage registers of crypto securities. Tangany is a B2B white-label crypto custodian regulated...

The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency by John Mueller Cambridge University Press, 2021, 332 pp. The subtitle of John Mueller’s excellent new book suggests that something unusual is in store for the reader. If someone is called complacent, he is hardly being complimented; how then can there be a “case for complacency”? In brief, Mueller thinks that most of the threats and dangers that confront nations are really not that much to...

The Pando (pictured here) appears to be 107 acres of forest, but scientists have concluded that the nearly 47,000 genetically identical quaking aspen trees share a common root system.  It is a single organism.  It is estimated to be around 80,000 years old and weighs something of the magnitude of 13 million pounds. It may be dying. Many market participants also struggle to distinguish the forest from the trees.  It is not a personal failing; it is systemic. The...

A Crypto AG encryption device Keystone / Ennio Leanza A special public prosecutor has been named in connection with the Crypto spying affair involving manipulated encryption devices which the CIA and the German intelligence agency used to spy on half the world. Peter Marti, a former judge and district attorney, will look into the violations of official secrecy that took place during the investigation, the supervisory authority of the Office of the Attorney General of...