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So-called populist political parties and politicians gained considerable traction with Western voters in recent years, despite being dismissed in many cases as “a threat to democracy” and “extremists” by mainstream politicians. With the election of Donald Trump in the US and of Javier Milei in Argentina, the surge in polls and electoral wins of right and far-right parties in several European countries sent shockwaves through the political establishment.The Cambridge...

Overview:  The jump in US rates after the employment report failed to ignite a sustained rally in the dollar and this shaken the market's near-term confidence. The dollar has been mostly confined to narrow ranges and the low yielding Swiss franc and Japanese yen are softest with the G10 complex today. The dollar is knocking on JPY152. The Scandis and Antipodeans lead the advancers. The euro has made little headway despite a much stronger than expected German...

Share this article This question has been at the center of a great many conversations I’ve been recently having with clients and friends. The way I like to answer it is with another question: Expensive compared to what?  Despite its recent surge to record highs, there are compelling reasons why purchasing gold right now is a prudent decision, with strong indications that its value is poised to climb even higher. Making investment decisions solely based on the...

On April 1, California raised the minimum wage for large fast food restaurant franchises to $20 an hour. This law will threaten seven hundred thousand jobs by destroying the state’s food franchising business; however, there is one notable fast food franchise exempted from this minimum wage hike: Panera.Greg Flynn is the second-largest Panera franchisee in the world, but he is also known for his close relationship with California governor Gavin Newsom. This...

Few Americans seem aware of the fact that it was the New England Federalists who plotted to secede from the union a half century before the 1860-61 secession of the Southern states. Their efforts culminated in the Hartford secession convention of 1814 where they decided in the end to remain in the union after all, confident that they would eventually dominate national politics to their economic advantage. The leader of the New England secessionists was Massachusetts...

Government censorship has shifted to the forefront of American conversation with the recent passing of H.R. 752, which would essentially ban TikTok; this development, which has passed the House and is on its way to the Senate, is igniting debating on how much involvement the government should have in social media.This debate is not new, considering the government has been intervening in social media for years. For example, this is not the first time the federal...

According to a new report from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics this week, the US economy added 303,000 jobs for the month of March while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8%. In what has become a familiar pantomime, reporters from the legacy media were sure to declare this a "blowout jobs report" while Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin described the report as "quite strong." This report showed, however, that the jobs economy continues to...

Thirty major central banks are expected to cut rates in the second half of 2024, a year when more than seventy nations will have elections, which often means massive increases in government spending. Additionally, the latest inflation figures show stubbornly persistent consumer price annualized growth.In the United States, headline PCE inflation in February will likely grow by 0.4%, compared with a 0.3% rise in January, and consensus expects a 2.5% annualized rate,...

In the vast pantheon of history, black people have been both victims and oppressors. Yet history has been so politicized that we hear endlessly about the former and almost never about the latter. Rhetoric has eclipsed facts. It is a fact, for example, that Africans participated in the transatlantic slave trade. History is now frequently used as a cudgel to hammer white people into submission.Instead of recognizing nuance and complexity, many who should know better...

The March US employment data were stronger than expected and lend support to the re-acceleration hypothesis and an extension of US exceptionalism. In Q1 24, nonfarm payrolls rose by an average of 276k. It was the strongest quarter in a year and compares with an average monthly job gain of about 251k in 2023. The unemployment rate slipped as the household survey jumped around 500k after falling in the previous two months. The workweek increased, and the participation...