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Consumer prices have risen sharply in Switzerland, increasing the attractiveness of tangible assets such as residential property © Keystone / Christian Beutler The value of residential property in Switzerland continued to rise strongly in 2021 in the wake of Covid-19. Property prices are likely to rise further this year, according to an analysis. Owners of freeholder apartments saw an increase in value of 7.3% over the course of the year. The increase for...

With new mask and vaccine mandates, New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul has reaffirmed the state’s status as the nation’s most zealous practitioner of covid cultism. Original Article: “New York State Has Imposed New Covid Rituals. This Time There’s Some Resistance.” Friday, December 10, New York State governor Kathy Hochul reaffirmed the state’s status as the nation’s most zealous practitioner of covid cultism with the announcement of a new statewide “vax-or-mask”...

The cost of energy is a less important factor for the Swiss consumer price index than in other countries. Keystone/Alessandro Della Bella Consumer prices in Switzerland increased by 0.6% on average last year, according to the Federal Statistics Office. The rise is due in particular to higher prices for petroleum products and for housing rentals. In contrast, prices for international package holidays and medicines decreased, the officeExternal link said on Tuesday....

Since the Federal Reserve is not in the money business, their recent hawkish shift toward an increasingly anti-inflationary stance is a twisted and convoluted case of subjective interpretation. Inflation is money and if the Fed was a central bank the issue of consumer prices wouldn’t necessarily be simple, it would, however, be much simpler: is there or isn’t there too much money flowing through the economy. News to the vast majority of the public, no one at any...

In 1969, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison brought a criminal prosecution against a man named Clay Shaw. In the trial, Garrison rejected the lone-nut theory of the assassination of President Kennedy. He alleged instead that Kennedy was assassinated in a highly sophisticated regime-change operation spearheaded by the U.S. national-security establishment. Garrison alleged that Shaw had played a role in that operation. Although Shaw was quickly acquitted,...

Die SNB dürfte laut UBS für das Gesamtjahr 2021 einen Gewinn von fast 20 Mrd. Franken ausweisen. Dieser ist einer starken Aktienmarktperformance zu verdanken trotz belastender Zins- und Währungsveränderungen. Im letzten Quartal hingegen dürfte die Nationalbank wegen der deutlichen Aufwertung des Frankens gegenüber den meisten Währungen einen Verlust von über 20 Mrd. Franken erlitten haben. Nach Berechnungen der UBS dürfte die SNB für 2021 einen Gewinn von 18...

To listen to the audio version of this article click here. The Ship of Theseus is an old philosophical thought experiment. It asks a question about identity. Suppose you replace all of the boards of a ship with new ones—is it still the same ship? We are not going to try to resolve this millennia-old paradox. Instead, we are going to add one more element, and then tie it to the monetary system. The additional element is what if the replacement boards are adulterated...

Planes belonging to SWISS and Helvetic Airways at Zurich Airport last month Keystone / Michael Buholzer The Covid pandemic has hit Zurich Airport, one of the biggest employers in the region, hard. But CEO Stephan Widrig says there are sufficient financial resources to get through the crisis, including the Omicron variant. “We don’t need any state aid even in a difficult 2022, apart from the short-time work compensation,” Widrig told newspaper Blick in an...

On December 15, the Federal Reserve announced numerous quantitative tightening measures that have the intended goal of combating the rising inflation that has been bogging down the American economy. As of November 2021, the rate of inflation has reached 6.8 percent, the highest since 1982, and is unlikely to have peaked yet. Despite Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell originally proclaiming this inflation spiral to be transitory, the Federal Reserve has announced...

What seemed so permanent for 13 long years will be revealed as shifting sand and what seemed so real for 13 long years will be revealed as illusion. Magical thinking isn’t optimism, it is folly. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but let’s look at what we already know about 2022. Viewed from Earth orbit, 2022 is Year 14 of extend and pretend and too big to fail, too big to jail and Year 2 of global supply chains break and energy shortages. The essence...