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Submitted by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute, Swiss authorities are currently investigating 480 suspected jihadists in the country. “Radical imams always preached in the An-Nur Mosque… Those responsible are fanatics. It is no coincidence that so many young people from Winterthur wanted to do jihad.” — Saïda Keller-Messahli, president of Forum for a Progressive Islam. Switzerland is the answer to those who...

Submitted by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute, Swiss authorities are currently investigating 480 suspected jihadists in the country. “Radical imams always preached in the An-Nur Mosque… Those responsible are fanatics. It is no coincidence that so many young people from Winterthur wanted to do jihad.” — Saïda Keller-Messahli, president of Forum for a Progressive Islam. Switzerland is the answer to those who...

It’s a common misconception that the world’s major central banks and monetary authorities own large quantities of gold bars. Most of them do not. Instead, this gold is owned by the sovereign states that have entrusted it to the respective nation’s central bank, and the central banks are merely acting as guardians of the gold. Tracing the ownership question a step further, what are sovereign states? A sovereign state is...

Summary Philippine Environment Department suspended 5 mines and closed 21 after a nationwide audit. The Turkish central bank raised its end-2017 forecast from 6.5% to 8% due largely to the weak lira. Central Bank of Turkey finally got around to releasing the schedule of its MPC meetings this year. Fitch downgraded Turkey last Friday to sub-investment grade BB+, as expected. Allies of Brazil President Michel Temer...

Alien Economics There was, indeed, a time when clear thinking and lucid communication via the written word were held in high regard. As far as we can tell, this wonderful epoch concluded in 1936. Everything since has been tortured with varying degrees of gobbledygook. One should probably not be overly surprised that the abominable statist rag Time Magazine is fulsomely praising Keynes’ nigh unreadable tome. We too...

How about moving the power to create money from the apex of the pyramid down to its lowest level? Let’s spend a moment deconstructing the word “capitalism.” Note it contains the word Capital. So far so good. Obviously the key concept here is capital. So what is “capital”? It turns out there are multiple kinds of capital. The most familiar kinds are tangible: cash, orchards, factories, water rights, tools, and so on....

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...

Swiss Franc Switzerland SVME Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), January 2017(see more posts on Switzerland SVME PMI, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge GBP / CHF The pound still remains on the back foot against the Swiss Franc with rates for GBP CHF sitting just below 1.25 for this pair. The pound is struggling to gain momentum against all of the major currencies as Brexit is just around the corner. The...

Investors are anxiously awaiting more details on the new US Administration’s economic policies and priorities.  Part of the challenge is that the cabinet represents a wide range of views and it is not clear where the informal power lies, or whose call is it.   In terms of economic policy, trade is being given priority.    It is seen as the key to the jobs and growth objectives. There have been two initiatives: formally...

© Gvictoria – Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge Tribune de Genève. Last October, Geneva state councillor Mauro Poggia, had his department send out close to 91,000 letters to those receiving social benefits, asking them to contact the authorities if they had failed to declare any assets or income. Laurent Paoliello, a spokesperson from the DEAS, said they received 3,200 letters back. So far, we haven’t been through all...