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The Ron Paul Institute is holding its annual conference at the Westin Washington Dulles Airport this Saturday, September 3. It stands to be another outstanding one. I have the honor and pleasure of again speaking at it. I will also be speaking at the conference’s program for young scholars the day before. The theme of this year’s conference is “Anatomy of a Police State.” As the conference’s web page states, “Authoritarianism on the march. The police state advances....

Health doesn’t come cheap: and the Swiss are worried about it. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally Healthcare costs, the pension system and climate change are the top three burning issues for the Swiss, according to a survey published by the Tamedia group. Covid has slipped out of sight and mind. The cost of healthcare was most pressing for over two-thirds (67%) of the 26,000 respondents, while pensions and the climate were cited by 60% and 56% respectively, wrote Tamedia...

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Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan spoke at the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium on Saturday. “Structural factors such as the transition to a greener economy, rising sovereign debt worldwide, the demographic transition and ultimately also the fact that globalization appears to have peaked — at least temporarily — could lead to persistently higher inflationary pressure in the coming years” “There are signs that inflation is increasingly...

There is a story of war and peace in the contemporary currency markets. It has a main plot and many subplots. As yet, the story is without end. That may come sooner than many now expect. The narrator today has a more challenging job than the teller of the story about neutral, Entente, and Central Power currencies during World War I. (See Brown, Brendan “Monetary Chaos in Europe” chapter 2 [Routledge, 2011].) Today’s Russia war (whether the military conflict in...

Overview: The reverberations from last week continue to roil the capital markets today. Equities and bonds have been sold and the greenback bought. Most of the large markets in Asia Pacific fell by more 2%, including Japan’s Nikkei, Taiwan’s Taiex, and South Korea’s Kospi. Ironically, the Shanghai and Shenzhen Composites eked out minor gains, but the CSI 300 still eased. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is off 1% after falling nearly 1.7% before the weekend. US futures warn of...

The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have fundamentally changed the constraints on monetary policy. Uncertainty has increased strongly in many respects, and there has been a sharp rise in inflation. In June 2022, the SNB raised its policy rate for the first time in 15 years and announced that further increases may be necessary in the foreseeable future. The decision was taken against a backdrop of high uncertainty. Interpreting the current data is difficult,...

Swiss sockets: currently waiting nervously for the winter ahead. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally The head of the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission (Elcom) reckons a winter energy crisis is virtually unavoidable. However, he said the cause of the problem – war in Ukraine – was also difficult to predict. Speaking to SRF public radio on Saturday, Werner Luginbühl said the “exorbitant rise in electricity prices” was already putting certain Swiss businesses into existential...

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Sherlock Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” From Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 It is hard to determine sometimes what causes markets to move as they do. Take last Friday’s stock market selloff. The widely cited “reason”...

1. NEIN zur Änderung der Verfassung – von Artur TerekhovVerfassung des Kantons Zürich (Änderung vom 31. Januar 2022, Gegenvorschlag zur «Kreislauf-Initiative») Der Gegenvorschlag zur Kreislauf-Initiative der Jungen Grünen sieht die Einführung eines Art. 106a in der Zürcher Kantonsverfassung vor. In diesem steht mitunter, dass Kanton und Gemeinden günstige Rahmenbedingungen für einen schonenden Umgang mit Rohstoffen schaffen und insbesondere Abfälle zu vermeiden sowie Recycling zu...