Tag Archives: Featured

When we hear of political movements in favor of decentralization and secession, the word “nationalist” is often used to describe them. We have seen the word used in both Scottish and Catalonian secession movement, and in the case of Brexit. Sometimes the term is intended to be pejorative. But not always. When used pejoratively — as was the case with critics of Brexit — the implication is that the separatists seek to exit a larger political entity for the purposes of...

Post Hoc Fallacy On Tuesday, at the precise moment Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell commenced delivering his semiannual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee, something unpleasant happened. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) didn’t go up. Rather, it went down. Were the DJIA operating within the framework of a free capital market it would be normal for the index to go both up and down. But remember, the U.S. stock market is hardly a...

The lull in US consumer spending on goods has reached a fifth month. The annual comparisons aren’t good, yet they somewhat mask the more recent problems appearing in the figures. According to the Census Bureau, total retail sales in January rose 4.58% year-over-year (unadjusted). Not a good number, but better, seemingly, than early on in 2019 when the series was putting out 3s and 2s. As has been the pattern in these things, global synchronized downturns, the...

The price of gold rose $14 and the price of silver fell $0.07. The gold-silver ratio rose further with this price action. Welcome to our new Gold and Silver Market Report, or “Market Report” for short. We are separating this from the economics essay, which was attached for many years. As they used to say in many toy commercials of yore, “batteries sold separately”—or in this case essays. The new Market Report is going to depart from the familiar old format of four...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.02% to 1.0635 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: It is only a US holiday today, but the global capital markets are subdued. In the Asia-Pacific region, equities traded lower with China and Hong Kong, the main advancers. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has fallen in only two weeks since the end of last November, and that was during the...

We get the first February data from the US manufacturing sector this week; the US economy remains strong; FOMC minutes will be released Wednesday Canada reports some key data this week Preliminary eurozone February PMI readings will be reported Friday; UK has a busy data week Japan has a busy data week; Australia reports January jobs data Thursday Concerns about the coronavirus are likely to keep risk sentiment under pressure, as the ultimate impact is still...

© Daniel127001 | Dreamstime.com Earlier this week, Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) announced it had contacted the cantons at the end of January 2020, informing them it had not set a date for switching on 5G networks. However, mobile networks plan to continue installing 5G equipment after rolling out more than 2,000 antenna last year – a map showing where the new antenna are can be viewed here. FOEN says it needs more time to test the potential...

In einem Beitrag auf LinkedIn am 29. Dezember 2019 wirft Prof. Erwin Heri von der Universität Basel in die Runde, dass negative (Real-)Zinsen möglicherweise vernünftig sind. Sie wären das natürliche Ergebnis der Präferenzen der Wirtschaftssubjekte – und nicht primär das Ergebnis einer Manipulation von Zentralbanken. Als Indizien werden angeführt: die über Jahrhunderte stetig sinkende Tendez der Realzinsen die Demographie der materielle Wohlstand Aus folgenden...

Zug-based firm Crypto sold encryption technology to around 100 countries, some of which was manipulated for use by the CIA and German intelligence services. (Keystone / Str) The Crypto leaks scandal continues to shake the Swiss political establishment. The Sunday papers report that some former federal ministers and parliamentarians had ties with the Swiss firm that helped the CIA and German intelligence listen to conversations of foreign powers for decades. As a...

The Fed must now accept responsibility for what happens in the end-game of the Moral-Hazard Monster Bubble it created. Contrary to popular opinion, the Federal Reserve didn’t set out to create a Monster Bubble that has escaped its control. Also contrary to popular opinion, the Fed will be unable to “never let stocks fall ever again–ever!” for the simple reason that the monster it has created– a monster mania of moral hazard in which all risk has vanished...