Commuters arrive at Cornavin train station in Geneva, Switzerland (Keystone) - Click to enlarge The average commute time to work in Switzerland was 30 minutes in 2016, or 14.8 kilometres (9.2 miles), according to the Federal Statistical Office. This is 7% more than in 2010. Every day, 3.9 million people, out of a labour force of 4.8 million, commuted to work in 2016 – up from 2.9 million in 1990. Some 71%...
Read More »How Global And Synchronized Is A Boom Without China?
According to China’s official PMI’s, those looking for a boom to begin worldwide in 2018 after it failed to materialize in 2017 are still to be disappointed. If there is going to be globally synchronized growth, it will have to happen without China’s participation in it. Of course, things could change next month or the month after, but this idea has been around for a year and a half already. Without China, growth won’t...
Read More »Political Correctness Serves the Ruling Elite
No wonder the Ruling Elites loves political correctness: all those furiously signaling their virtue are zero threat to the asymmetric plunder of the status quo. The Ruling Elites loves political correctness, for it serves the Elite so well. What is political correctness? Political correctness is the public pressure to conform to “progressive” speech acts by uttering the expected code words and phrases in public. Note...
Read More »Emerging Markets: What Changed
Summary India plans to increase spending and widen its budget deficit targets ahead of key elections. India appears to be cracking down on cryptocurrencies. South Africa’s parliament has scheduled a no- confidence vote for Zuma on February 22. Turkish central bank raised its end-2018 inflation forecast in its quarterly inflation report. Peru’s Popular Force party expelled Kenji Fujimori and several of his allies....
Read More »U.S. Debt Is “Extraordinarily High” and Are Stock And Bond Bubbles – Greenspan
– “We have a stock market bubble” warns Greenspan– “Bond bubble will be the big issue” he tells Bloomberg TV (see video)– “Fiscally unstable long-term outlook in which inflation will take hold” – “Ratio of federal debt to GDP which is extraordinarily high” (see chart)– Higher interest rates, inflation and stagflation coming – Gold is the “ultimate insurance policy” – Greenspan Federal Debt Expected Rising, 1790 -...
Read More »Swiss cross-border shopping not always worth it, says study
In 2015, Swiss residents made 24 million shopping trips abroad. The average Swiss-based cross-border shopper travelled 69 kilometres to shop in a neighbouring country, 55 kilometres further than they did when shopping in Switzerland, according to a study published by Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse calculated that, on average, a cross-border shopper would need to spend at least CHF 274 per vehicle to make the journey...
Read More »More fighter jets grounded after cracks found
The damaged part of the first F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet found with a crack in the landing flap. This picture was released on January 31 (Swiss Defence Ministry) The Swiss Air Force has found cracks in a further three of its 30 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets. The aircraft have been taken out of action, the defence ministry said on Friday. A broken hinge was first discovered on a landing flap of an F/A-18C during an...
Read More »Monetary Metals Brief 2018
Short and Long Term Forecasts Predicting the likely path of the prices of the metals in the near term is easy. Just look at the fundamentals. We have invested many man-years in developing the theory, model, and software to calculate it. Every week we publish charts and our calculated fundamental prices. However, predicting the outlook for a longer period of time is much harder. The fundamental shows the relative...
Read More »The Historical Warnings of Money
It’s interesting, to me anyway, that an image of the Roman goddess Juno remains to this day on the logo of the Bank of England. There are many stories about her role as it relates to money, but what cannot be denied is that the very word itself came to us from her temple. The Latin moneta was derived from the word monere, a verb meaning to warn. Moneta was Juno’s surname. One fable has it where the goddess’s sacred...
Read More »Strong growth and Abenomics mean Japanese equities continue to provide opportunities
Momentum in the Japanese economy remains strong Japanese growth momentum is at its strongest in over a decade, with the quarterly Tankan survey of business conditions and sentiment strengthening to an 11 – year high in Q4 2017. The economy may have expanded by 1.8% in 2017, up from 0.9% in the previous year. In 2018, the growth rate may moderate slightly to 1.3%, but should remain well above Japan’s potential growth,...
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