Tag Archives: Featured

Most Long-Term Trends Have Not Changed A lot has changed over the last 4 months since the COVID virus started to impact the global economy. Asia was infected first with China at ground zero. Their economy succumbed first with a large part of the country shut down to a degree that can only be accomplished in an authoritarian regime. The rest of Asia responded to the initial outbreak better than the Chinese (and most everywhere else we now know) and generally mitigated...

Jay Powell’s 2018 case for his economic “boom”, the one which was presumably behind his hawkish aggression, rested largely upon the unemployment rate alone. A curiously thin roster for a period of purported economic acceleration, one of the few sets joining that particular headline statistic in its optimism resides in the lower tiers of all statistics. The sentiment contained within the ISM’s PMI’s were at least in the same area as the unemployment rate, and...

If you missed Part-1 of our series on the “Theory Of MMT Falls Flat When Faced With Reality,” start there. In Part-2, we complete our analysis of the theory and the potential ramifications. The premise of our discussion was this recent explanation of “Modern Monetary Theory” by Stephanie Kelton. As discussed previously, economic theory always sounds much better than how it works out in reality. The reason is that in “theory,” supply and demand imbalances always...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.07% to 1.064 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 6(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: A new daily high number of contagions globally has been reported, but the risk-appetites have been stoked. Chinese stocks have been on a tear. The Shanghai Composite rallied 5.7% today to bring the five-day advance to 13.6%. Most other regional markets, including Hong Kong, rallied as well...

Defining the exact nature of sustainable finance and measuring its performance is an ongoing process. Keystone / Guillaume Horcajuelo The Swiss financial centre wants to take a lead in ethical investing. NGOs, however, fear the banks are more interested in cashing in than saving the planet. One thing everyone agrees on is the need for a universal definition of sustainable finance and measures to oversee the sector. Sustainable finance invests in the environmental,...

Given the extremes of the stock market’s frauds and even greater extremes of wealth/income inequality it has created, tell me again why the stock market will still exist in 2024? When I read a financial pundit predicting a bull market in stocks through 2024, blah-blah-blah, I wonder: what makes you think the stock market will even exist in 2024, at least in its current form? Given the current trajectory of the real economy into the Greatest Depression while the...

Risk assets remain hostage to swings in market sentiment. Stronger than expected US jobs data last week was welcome news. However, the tug of war between improving economic data and worsening viral numbers is likely to continue this week, with many US states reporting record high infection rates. AMERICAS Brazil reports May retail sales Wednesday. Sales are expected to contract -13.5% y/y vs. -16.8% in April. June IPCA inflation will be reported Friday, which is...

Anyone who has ever been to Japan knows: Japan is special. The country has many strange habits. The Japanese culture is simply different and many peculiarities are hardly understood in the West. But it’s not only the old established traditions that are foreign to us Westerners. Just as disturbing are social developments such as the increasing tendency of Japanese people to overwork, parasite singles who isolate themselves, or the existence of platonic relationships...

It will be very interesting if the police—who did nothing to disperse protests that were obviously in violation of bans on mass gatherings—turn around and arrest business owners and other “violators” of a second round of stay-at-home orders. This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Millian Quinteros. Original Article: “Will the Police Crack Down on Lockdown Violators the Second Time Around?​“...

Queuing up near Vevey on Lake Geneva. © Keystone / Cyril Zingaro Fuel consumption and emissions limits for new cars in Switzerland missed their target in 2019 for the fourth year in a row. This resulted in sanctions totalling CHF78 million for car importers. Last year, the 314,000 new cars registered in Switzerland spat out CO2 emissions of about 138.1 grams per kilometre, a rise of 0.2% on 2018, the Federal Office for Energy said on Thursday. This means new cars...