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The Federal Reserve is sowing the seeds for its central bank digital currency (CBDC). It may seem that the purpose of a CBDC is to facilitate transactions and enhance economic activity, but CBDCs are mainly about more government control over individuals. If a CBDC were implemented, the central bank would have access to all transactions in addition to being capable of freezing accounts. It may seem dystopian—something that only totalitarian governments would do—but...

Overview: The easing of vaccination, quarantine, and some travel protocols related to Covid in China (and Hong Kong) continues to draw funds back into Chinese stocks, wherever they trade. The Hang Seng rose 2.3% today to close the week with a nearly 6.6% advance. The index of mainland companies that trade there rose 2.5% on the day for a7.3% weekly gain. The CSI 300 of mainland shares rose 1% today and almost 3.3% for the week. Japan’s 1% gain today ensured a gain...

Parliamentarians were split on how to divide the tax revenues © Keystone / Ti-press / Alessandro Crinari Switzerland’s 26 cantons will receive 75% of the additional revenue from the minimum taxation of large companies, the government 25%. On Tuesday the House of Representatives agreed with the Senate on the proposal to tax all companies with a turnover of more than €750 million (CHF740 million) at 15%, in line with a reform decided by the OECD and the G20. This...

Around half of retired taxpayers have gross assets of more than CHF300,000 Keystone / Stephan Scheuer Many retirees in Switzerland can continue to put money aside, with a majority also willing to bequeath the money they have saved. Specifically, 34% of the people surveyed in Switzerland aged 65 and over are building up assets instead of reducing them, according to a Swiss Life survey published on Wednesday. Some 44% said they spent about as much as they receive. The...

Overview: There is nervous calm in the capital markets today.  The weakness of US shares yesterday is taking a toll today. An exception in the Asia Pacific region is the Hang Seng and the index of mainland shares that trade there, which up around 3.5% today on thUe easing of some Covid protocols.  Europe’s Stoxx 600 is off for a fifth day, its longest losing streak in nearly two months. US futures are posting minor gains. Benchmark 10-year yields are mostly little...

Is money distress part of your life? Do the dollars & cents of poor decisions past sneak up on you and rattle around your house like chains? What if I could provide three ideas to tackle 2022’s financial ghosts and put them at rest for good? Listen, ghosts of the financial past are notorious for creeping into the present, especially when holidays roll around. Oh, and watch out for the ghosts of the financial future. They’re dark and ominous and portend to money...

Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann expects 2023 and 2024 to be years of transformation for the bank as it seeks to stabilise after years of mishaps © Keystone / Michael Buholzer Credit Suisse is “definitely stable”, Chairman Axel Lehmann has told Swiss public television, SRF, adding that the embattled bank had seen a stabilisation in the outflows of client funds. The bank has reported sharp outflows as wealthy clients move assets elsewhere, while the bank...

The only rational response to this reality is to opt out, lay flat and let it rot. In my previous post, The Bubble Economy’s Credit-Asset Death Spiral, I described the self-reinforcing feedback of expanding credit and soaring asset valuations and how the only possible result of this financial perpetual motion machine was a death spiral of collapsing debt service, collateral and credit impulse. But this didn’t exhaust the destructive dynamics of this self-reinforcing...

In the laboratory of history, great inflation followed by great disinflation opens the road to monetary regime change. Sometimes the road leads to a better place. Think of the US return to gold in 1879 following the inflationary issue of greenbacks during the Civil War; or the era of the hard deutsche mark when the German Bundesbank responded to the great inflation and bust of the late 1960s and early 1970s by insulating its money from continuing US inflationary...

Overview: The sharp sell-off of US stocks yesterday as sapped the risk appetite today. Equities are being sold. Hong Kong and the index of mainland shares that are listed there led the regional decline with 3.2%-3.3% losses. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is off about 0.65% in late morning turnover, the fourth day of losses. US futures are trading with a lower bias as well. European 10-year bonds are mostly 1-2 bp firmer. The US 10-year Treasury is practically flat at 3.53%....