Tag Archives: newsletter

1. NEIN zu staatlich, symbolischem Klimaschutz – von Andreas PuccioVerfassung des Kantons Zürich (Änderung vom 25. Oktober 2021: Klimaschutz) Bei dieser Vorlage soll in der Kantonsverfassung der Art. 102a eingführt werden, wonach sich Kanton und Gemeinden «für die Begrenzung des Klimawandels und dessen Auswirkungen» einsetzen und dafür sorgen sollen, dass «dazu geeignete Massnahmen» umgesetzt werden. Anlass zu diesem von typisch linksgrünem Aktionismus geprägten Klimaschutzartikel gab...

Das nächste Land hat Bitcoin als legales Zahlungsmittel anerkannt. Dabei handelt es sich um die Zentralafrikanische Republik. Das dafür notwendige Gesetz wurde gestern, dem 27. April, verabschiedet. Und es betrifft möglicherweise auch anderen Cryptocoins. Bitcoin News: Mass Adoption für Bitcoin in ZentralafrikaAus dem Präsidentenhaus wurde dazu eine offizielle Pressemitteilung veröffentlicht:🚨 Official press release from the Central African Republic states Bitcoin is...

The Census Bureau today released its advanced estimates for March trade. These include, among other accounts like imports and exports, preliminary results reported by retailers and wholesalers. That means, for our purposes, inventories. Oh my, was there ever more inventory. It was, apparently, widely expected that following an avalanche of goods building up over the previous five months the situation might calm down a touch. Analysts had figured wholesale...

Decentralization has long been at the forefront of the minds of Austro-libertarians. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, for instance, appeared on Austrian television this month sharing his dream of a Europe “which consists of 1,000 Liechtensteins.” Although principally based on economic reasoning, this policy agenda emerged at least in part out of a celebration of the historiography on the “European miracle,” which posits that the West grew rich because of the existence of...

The quickest way to discredit an intellectual opponent is to accuse that person of being a “conspiracy theorist.” But what happens when real conspiracies occur? Original Article: “Do Conspiracies Really Exist? Murray Rothbard Thought So” It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any “conspiracy theory of history;” for a search for “conspiracies” means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical...

It has been a rough week in most markets with both equities and bonds declining sharply. Tech stocks have been pummeled with many ‘big names’ plunging more than 50% (from their 52-week high). Some of the bigger names include Zoom Video -75%, PayPal -73%, Netflix -72%, Meta Platforms (Facebook), -53%. . The equity market decline is coupled with announced layoffs. Robinhood, the popular online trading platform, announced a 9% reduction in full-time staff this week for...

The Swiss National Bank is today publishing financial accounts data for Q4 2021. Data on household wealth are thus available for the whole of 2021; a commentary is provided below. This is followed by a detailed look at the development of the financial net worth of the Swiss economy’s institutional sectors since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Financial wealth of households increased significantly in 2021 Household financial assets increased by CHF 202 billion...

For the Swiss government, applying such a sweeping set of sanctions is a work in progress. Keystone / Peter Klaunzer There’s a well-worn Swiss bankers joke about the venality of a particular country. The actual country changes with the times but since this is April 2022, it starts like this: “Where is the capital of Russia?” You can guess the punchline. Two months into Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine, however, what is remarkable is just how...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the forefront the NATO treaty to which the United States is a party. President Biden and the Pentagon have steadfastly maintained that a Russian attack on any NATO member automatically obligates the United States to go to war against Russia. That, of course, would necessarily mean the virtual certainly of all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States, a war that would, needless to say, end up destroying both...

We do not like Purchasing Power or Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) as measurement for currencies. For us, the trade balance decides if a currency is overvalued. Only the trade balance can express productivity gains, while the REER assumes constant productivity in comparison to trade partners. Who has read Michael Pettis, knows that a rising trade surplus may also be caused by a higher savings rate while the trade partners decided to spend more. This is partially...