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After last year’s vote to speed up procedures in national centres, the government now plans to cut subsidies for rejected asylum seekers. (Keystone) The government wants to cut its financial contributions to asylum seekers as part of efforts to tighten the asylum procedure in Switzerland. The payments for individuals, currently around CHF6,000 ($6,312), could be reduced by a third, according to the Swiss News Agency....

– Trump could be planning a radical “reboot” of the U.S. dollar– Currency reboot will see leading nations devalue their currencies against gold– New gold price would be nearly 8 times higher at $10,000/oz– Price based on mass exit of foreign governments and investors from the US Dollar– US total debt now over $80 Trillion – $20T national debt and $60T consumer debt– Monetary reboot or currency devaluation seen...

I had the distinct of honor of being on Bloomberg television today with David Gura and Francine Lacqua. Dino Kos, formerly of the NY Fed and now at CLS, joined this segment as well. The broad topic was the Jackson Hole Symposium, and the challenge is fostering more dynamic growth. While short-term market participants are hoping for some clues into the Fed and ECB thinking, We are not convinced that our information set...

Summary India Prime Minister Modi has started a cabinet shuffle. Freeport McMorAn ceded control of the world’s second largest copper mine to the Indonesian government. Central Bank of Russia took over Bank Otkritie, once Russia’s largest private bank. Kenya’s top court nullified last month’s presidential election. Fitch cut Qatar’s rating by one notch to AA- with negative outlook. Chile’s economic team saw a big...

In Ian Fleming’s 1959 spy novel Goldfinger, he makes mention of the Moscow Rules. These were rules-of-thumb for clandestine agents working during the Cold War in the Soviet capital, a notoriously difficult assignment. Among the quips included in the catalog were, “everyone is potentially under opposition control” and “do not harass the opposition.” Fleming’s book added another, “Once is an accident. Twice is...

The Used Goods Question Retail sales in several countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland continue to fall or they remain steady for years. In the United States they have strongly risen recently. We should remind readers, that used goods sold via Ebay or similar, are not contained in this statistics. Still they create economic value for the purchases. By mentality, Swiss, Germans or Japanese pay more attention so...

The growth of diesel-powered cars is stagnating in Switzerland (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Swiss citizens are calling on their government to more quickly require stricter anti-pollution tests for diesel cars. Some 7,200 people submitted a petition to the Federal Chancellery on Tuesday. The petition, also supported by various environmental and consumer lobby groups, asks Swiss Transport Minister Doris Leuthard to...

In August 2017, the KOF Economic Barometer fell by 3.9 points. It thus more than reversed its previous month’s climb. With a new reading of 104.1, however, it still points to a level clearly above its long-term average. This indicates that in the near future the Swiss economy should continue to grow at above average rates. In August 2017, the KOF Economic Barometer fell from 108.0 in July (revised up from 106.8) by...

The Swiss consumption indicator by UBS shows improvements. The indicator is still distant from the highs in 2012. At the time stronger growth in Emerging Markets and the weaker franc helped the Swiss economy. Private consumption vs. UBS Consumption Indicator UBS consumption indicator printed 1.38 in June, pointing to subdued growth in Swiss private consumption in recent months. Relatively weak growth in...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango.  Fundamental Developments The price of gold dropped two bucks, and silver two cents. However, it was a pretty wild ride around the time when some information came out from our monetary masters at their annual boondoggle at Jackson Hole. We will show some charts of Friday’s intraday action, below. The overseers of the...