Tag Archives: newsletter

As I sit here writing this Sunday afternoon, the US has just shot down a third UFO in the last 3 days in addition to the Chinese “weather” balloon last week. I have no insight into what these things might be but I do wonder if we haven’t declared war on the National Weather Service. The federal government has become so sprawling that it could easily  be the case that NORAD has no idea what the NWS has up in the air. And with all the UFO shooting going on, the NWS...

Widespread analysis of what went wrong at Credit Suisse converges on a constant theme: an international bank that lost touch with its Swiss roots, led by people who put profits ahead of prudence. This has resulted in massive financial losses and a restructuring drive that will see 9,000 staff lose their jobs. Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Körner is leading a major restructuring of the bank. © Keystone / Michael Buholzer What happened? Credit Suisse has lurched from...

[caption id="attachment_994215" align="alignleft" width="400"] The Swiss commodities trader is taking legal action. Keystone / Martial Trezzini[/caption] Swiss commodities trading company Trafigura says it has been defrauded to the tune of $577 million (CHF530 million) by fake nickel shipments. The firm has launched legal action against a Dubai-based metals trader and the group of companies he runs out of the Middle East emirate. “The fraud...

Until the publication in 1920 of Ludwig von Mises’s work on the problem of economic calculation in socialism, there was no scientifically useful analysis of the economics of the socialist economy. With that work , and its development in the comprehensive treatise Die Gemeinwirtschaft (1922 and 1932, published in English in 1951 as Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis), Mises demonstrated that because of the absence of private ownership of the means of...

Die Zürcher Kantonalbank profitierte von der Krise der CS und machte im vergangenen Jahr Rekordgewinne. Das sagt die ZKB-Führung dazu. Fassade der Filiale der Zürcher Kantonalbank bei der Hardbrücke im Industriequartier. Quelle: imago images / Andreas Haas Zwei Zahlen stechen beim Jahresabschluss der ZKB ins Auge: Zum einen knackt die grösste Kantonalbank der Schweiz zum ersten Mal in ihrer Geschichte die Marke von einer Milliarde Franken beim Gewinn. Der Überschuss...

After selling off sharply in the past four months, the dollar rebounded. Since the FOMC meeting on February 1, it has enjoyed one of the strongest bounces since it topped out in late September/early October. The incredible US jobs data, sharp bounce in the January services ISM, speculation of BOJ Governor Kuroda’s successor, and some easing of the euphoria over China’s re-opening have been notable drivers. The dramatic rise in the US two-year note illustrates the...

The Biden administration has increased federal government spending by a record $3.4 trillion since January 2021. That includes such signature bills as the American Rescue Plan Act of $1.8 trillion, the Inflation Reduction Act of $50.6 billion, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of $764.9 billion. As well as providing official costings for those bills, the Congressional Budget Office has found that a number of executive orders contribute nearly another $1...

Demonstrators in Lausanne on February 9: Vaud is the third-largest (by population) of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. © Keystone/ Valentin Flauraud Around 3,500 public sector workers in the western Swiss canton of Vaud took part in a strike on Thursday. They are calling for wage indexation to keep up with inflation and rising living costs. Thursday’s demonstration in Lausanne is the fourth in two months by public sector workers. It comes after an even bigger gathering in...

What is strategy, and is it useful for business? Business schools want you think it is the critical factor in competitive success or failure. They teach structured markets, divided up by market share, with boundaries and external and internal forces to be assessed and countered. “Where to play and how to win.” They see strategy through their lens of financialization and utilize fictitious economic calculations like discounted future cash flows and market...

I truly enjoyed the conversation with Hrvoje Morić. I hope you will enjoy it 2. Happy Weekend! In liberty, Claudio Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here [embedded content]...