Tag Archives: Featured

Last week was only four days due to the President’s day holiday but it was eventful. The big news of the week was the  spike in interest rates, which according to the press reports I read, “came out of nowhere”. In other words, the writers couldn’t find an obvious cause for a 14 basis point rise in the 10 year Treasury note yield so they just chalked it up to mystery. Of course, anyone who’s been paying attention knows that rates have been rising for almost a year –...

A restaurant that has been shut in Geneva Keystone / Martial Trezzini Several cantons have called for restaurants to be re-opened a month earlier than the official nationwide plan presented by the government earlier this week. Canton Graubünden wants restaurants to open their terraces from March 1. The canton has done a lot to fight the pandemic with its mass testing pilot programme, its officials argue. “In the end the government will have to give some...

© Marekusz | Dreamstime.com Switzerland’s federal accounts ended 2020 with a record-breaking deficit of CHF 15.8 billion. The deficit was caused by the pandemic. An unexpected CHF 3.6 billion fall in revenue combined with net CHF 12.5 billion in largely unplanned expenses combined to take the overall result CHF 16.1 billion below the expected positive net result of CHF 0.3 billion to deliver a loss of CHF 15.8 billion for the year. Pandemic-related expenditure...

46.3 On the Economic Road to NothingGoodVilleRecent, low consumer price inflation readings combined with falling US Treasury Bill yields are cautionary sign posts that say this reflationary path may not be the road to recovery but a deflationary cul-de-sac. [Emil’s Summary] Having studied monetary policy for several years it was only natural that your podcaster spent considerable time contemplating the essential elements of fiction. Some experts say there are five...

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted transportation worldwide, sending shockwaves across supply chains, lowering demand and reducing revenue. Shipping and aviation especially experienced a steep financial decline. Companies have had to operate at limited capacity and growth prospects have dropped sharply. According to the World Trade Organization, global maritime trade volumes declined by approximately 10 percent in 2020. The International Civil Aviation...

Carving its own way: ski resorts in Switzerland have remained open this winter. Keystone / Marcel Bieri As a fresh covering of snow brought ideal skiing conditions to the Alpine resort of Piani di Bobbio last weekend, facilities manager Massimo Fossati eagerly anticipated the arrival of the first visitors in nearly a year. Italy’s government had given the go-ahead for the skiing industry to reopen on February 15, raising hopes of a return to normality after 11 months...

19. Februar 2021 – von Ludwig von Mises Ludwig von Mises (1881 – 1973) Weit verbreitet ist die Meinung, der Liberalismus unterscheide sich von anderen politischen Richtungen dadurch, daß er die Interessen eines Teiles der Gesellschaft – der Besitzenden, der Kapitalisten, der Unternehmer – über die Interessen der anderen Schichten stelle und vertrete. Diese Behauptung ist ganz und gar verkehrt. Der Liberalismus hat immer das Wohl des Ganzen, nie das irgendwelcher...

America’s financial system is nothing more than a toxic waste dump of speculation, fraud, collusion, corruption and rampant profiteering. What Poisoned America? The list of suspects is long: systemic bias, special interests dominating politics, political polarization, globalization and the offshoring of productive capacity, over-regulation, the rise of rapacious cartels and monopolies, Big Tech’s gulag of the mind, the permanent adolescence of consumerism, permanent...

© Sam Wordley | Dreamstime.com In 2019, the poverty line in Switzerland was CHF 27,348 (US$ 30,500) for a single person and CHF 47,712 (US$ 53,200) for a couple with two young children. The figures are calculated by SKOS based on the cost of living in Switzerland. People with incomes below these levels in Switzerland are considered to by living in poverty. In 2019, 8.7% of Switzerland’s population was living on less that these amounts, up 0.8 percentage points from...

Most people think in terms of purchasing power: how much can one’s cash buy? In this week’s episode, CEO Keith Weiner & John Flaherty discuss an alternate perspective. Instead of spending your capital, what if you invested it to earn a return? What can that return buy? Along the way you’ll learn: The concept of yield purchasing power & its impact on investing decisions How the Fed keeps us stuck in the purchasing power paradigm The perverse incentives...