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By international standards, unemployment payments are generous in Switzerland – typically 70% of salary. But they come with strict requirements for recipients to show they are engaging in actions deemed necessary to find work. With record numbers of unfilled jobs, pressure is now being put on some to change career, reported RTS. Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.comAccording to one report, there are more than 100,000 unfilled jobs in Switzerland. At the same time...

Federal-Reserve-Gebäude im April 2022. Den Notenbankern gehen allmählich die Argumente für weitere Zinsschritte aus. Das meinen die Ökonomen des Versicherungskonzerns Swiss Life und sagen deshalb für die USA, die Eurozone und die Schweiz nur noch leichte Zinserhöhungen voraus. Konkret erwartet Swiss-Life-Asset-Managers-Chefökonom Marc Brütsch von der Schweizerischen Nationalbank (SNB) im Frühling nur noch eine Erhöhung des Leitzinses um 0,25 Prozentpunkte auf 1,25...

Overview: The continued easing of US price pressures has strengthened the market's conviction that the Federal Reserve will further slow the pace of rate hikes and that the terminal rate will be near 5.0%. The decline in US rates has removed a key support for the US dollar, which has fallen against all the G10 currencies this week. The Dollar Index has now retraced half of what it gained since bottoming on January 6, 2021. Meanwhile, there are positive developments...

The monetary regime in power now—the so-called 2 percent inflation standard—is promising us a “return to normal” after the great pandemic and war inflation of 2021–22. At this time of powerful propaganda—the dismal accompaniment of natural disaster and war—we should be on our guard against such messaging. Even more so when we consider the success of this regime in repudiating blame for the great asset inflation culminating in the global financial crisis of 2008,...

Anyone who has decided to buy gold, or follows the gold price will be aware of how powerful the US Federal Reserve is. This year the Federal Reserve will turn 110 years old, only in recent years is dollar hegemony appearing to falter. Below we look at the central bank’s origins and three lessons we can learn from the history of the world’s most powerful bank, in order to help our investment decisions in 2023.  Is the FED’s institutional history about to repeat...

Overview: The market expects a soft US CPI print today, which has recently been associated with risk-on moves. The US 10-year yield is holding slightly above 3.50%, the lowest end of the range since the middle of last month. The two-year yield is a little above 4.20%, also the lower end of its recent range. Most observers see the Federal Reserve slowing the pace of its hikes to a quarter point on February 1. The dollar has spent the last few days consolidating after...

Apartment buildings and other accommodation in St Moritz, canton Graubünden. The canton registered the biggest rent increases last year (6.7%). Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller Rents in Switzerland rose by an average of 2.8% last year, the largest annual increase in 14 years. Switzerland is unique in Europe with the majority of residents living in rented accommodation. The 2022 increase is the biggest since the annual rent survey began in 2009, according to the Homegate...

In response to the U.S. government’s weaponization of the dollar through such measures as sanctions and trade wars, China, along with Russia and other nations, are making efforts to dethrone the dollar as the world’s international reserve currency. For example, Russia and China are now using the Chinese yuan, rather than the dollar, for payment for Russian oil. Saudi Arabia is now talking about doing the same thing.  One of the interesting aspects of this process...

(Charleston, West Virginia, USA – January 11th, 2023) – Another pro-sound money legislative effort has been introduced in West Virginia. Del. Chris Pritt has introduced House Bill 2333, the “Legal Tender Act.” This measure would establish gold and silver as legal tender in West Virginia, as well as create a nonrefundable tax credit for the use gold and silver in West Virginia on state taxes. Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming have enacted similar measures into law. Idaho has...

The second essential step is to recognize how the spectacles of “news” and entertainment distract our attention from this erosion of basic rights. Hierarchical power structures like city-states arose as problem-solving solutions, not just for the elites who benefited from the concentration of wealth and power but for the citizenry. This dynamic underpins the analysis presented in my recent book Global Crisis, National Renewal: when nation-states and global...