Tag Archives: newsletter

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can be used effectively for international settlements between financial institutions, as shown in the newest wholesale CBDC experiment concluded by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), the Banque de France (BdF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The recently completed Project Jura explored settling foreign exchange (FX) transactions in euro and Swiss franc wholesale CBDCs as well as issuing, transferring and redeeming...

The Bureau Labor Statistics reported today another huge month for Job Openings (JO). According to their methodology (which I still believe is flawed, but that’s not our focus this time), the level for October 2021 (JOLTS updates are for one month further back than payrolls) was a blistering 11.03 million. It wasn’t a record high, though, as that was set back in July. Yes, the number remains upward in the stratosphere, but it has been in the same general area of it...

Finanz und Wirtschaft, December 8, 2021. PDF. I draw some conclusions from the CEPR eBook on CBDC, namely: Banks will change, whatever happens to CBDC. The main risk of retail CBDC is not bank disintermediation. CBDC may not be the best option even if it has net benefits. It should be for parliaments and voters, not central banks, to decide about the introduction of CBDC. [embedded content] You Might Also Like...

What was it that old Iowa cornfield movie said? If you build it, he will come. Well, this isn’t quite that, rather something more along the lines of: if you reopen it, some will come back to work. Not nearly as snappy, far less likely to sell anyone movie tickets, yet this other tagline might contribute much to our understanding of “growth scare” and its affect on the US labor market. This topic deserves a much deeper dive than I am going to give it (for now). What...

The economic news recently has been better than expected and in most cases just pretty darn good. That isn’t true on a global basis as Europe continues to experience a pretty sluggish recovery from COVID. And China is busy shooting itself in the foot as Xi pursues the re-Maoing of Chinese society, damn the economic costs. But here in the US, the rebound from the Q3 slowdown is in full bloom. Just last week we had pending home sales, ADP employment, both ISM reports,...

Fritz Zurbrügg (links) tritt Ende Juli 2022 zurück. Andréa M. Maechler (rechts) dürfte ihm als Direktorin des III. ins II. Departement folgen. (Bild: PD) Fritz Zurbrügg leitete zunächst das III. Departement (Finanzmärkte, Operatives Bankgeschäft und Informatik) der Schweizerischen Nationalbank. Seit Juli 2015 führt er als Vizepräsident des Direktoriums das II. Departement (Finanzstabilität, Bargeld, Finanzen und Risiken). Seine Tätigkeit bei der SNB stand im Zeichen...

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally Switzerland’s largest trade union issued a statement on Saturday demanding a “massive reduction” of working hours with full wage compensation for lower and income earners. “Nowhere in Europe do people work as hard as in Switzerland. At present, employees work an average of 41.7 hours per week in a full-time job,” the union noted in a statement after its 66 delegates met in the Swiss capital, Bern. While the number of hours worked has...

Major representatives of the European Central Bank—including ECB president Christine Lagarde—continue to warn against bitcoin. In a recent article, addressed to the inflation-adverse German audience, the ECB representative Klaus Masuch together with the former ECB chief economist Otmar Issing has stressed five risks of bitcoin: a lack of intrinsic value, risks to financial market stability, the use in financing organized crime, high energy consumption, and the...

Der Franken neigt dagegen zum Wochenstart etwas zur Schwäche. Entsprechend legen sowohl Euro als auch Dollar zum Schweizer Franken etwas zu. So hat sich das Euro/Franken-Paar bei einem Stand von 1,0418 die 1,04er Marke zurückerobert, nachdem es am vergangenen Freitag so tief notiert hatte wie zuletzt vor sechseinhalb Jahren. Der US-Dollar hat sich die 0,92er Marke zurückerobert und geht aktuell zu 0,9221 Franken um. Wie die jüngsten Daten am Morgen gezeigt haben,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.26% to 1.041 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 6(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The absence of negative developments surrounding Omicron over the weekend appears to be helping markets stabilize today after the dramatic moves at the end of last week. Asia Pacific equities traded heavily, and among the large markets, only South Korea and Australia escaped unscathed...