Tag Archives: newsletter

With inflation running at over 6 percent and interest rates on savings near zero, the Federal Reserve is delivering a negative 6 percent real (inflation-adjusted) return on trillions of dollars in savings. This is effectively expropriating American savers’ nest eggs at the rate of 6 percent a year. It is not only a problem in 2021, however, but an ongoing monetary policy problem of long standing. The Fed has been delivering negative real returns on savings for more...

The latest quarterly filing statement of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has been issued. Switzerland’s publicly traded central bank had a decrease in the value of its US stock holdings by around $5 billion in Q3 of 2021, ending the quarter with a value of $157 billion. SNB currently has a profit of over $40 billion for the 9 months ended in the year. Perhaps subjective, it looks like a banner year for an entity who turns a profit through currency manipulation. As for...

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...

Given that political power in America is a pay-to-play auction in which the highest bidder wins, how this incomprehensibly lopsided ownership of wealth plays out is an open question. Wealth inequality easily falls into an abstraction unless we contextualize it in meaningful ways. I’ve annotated two St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED) charts–the net worth of America’s top 1% and the net worth of America’s bottom 50% of households, roughly 66 million households–to show...

By mid 2020, it was already becoming clear that the United States was experiencing a spike in crime. Indeed, by midyear, numerous media outlets were already reporting remarkably large increases in homicide in a number of cities. It was clear that if then-current trends continued, homicide rates in the United States would reach levels not seen in over a decade. With full-year data for 2020 now available from the FBI’s Crime in the USA report, we can see that those...

Singapore, 17 November – UBS is celebrating 50 successful years in Singapore with the official opening of its largest Asia Pacific office at 9 Penang Road. In the launch ceremony officiated by Axel A. Weber, Chairman of the Board of Directors UBS Group AG and Ralph Hamers, UBS Group CEO, the bank marked the occasion with clients, employees, and community activities in Singapore. Singapore’s Minister for Finance, Lawrence Wong, was the guest-of-honor for the event,...

Zum Franken blieb der Euro auch im Tagestief nur noch knapp oberhalb der Marke von 1,05. Aktuell wird die Gemeinschaftswährung mit 1,0511 Franken tiefer bewertet als noch am Morgen und am Vortag. “Die Devisenhändler bei der Schweizerischen Nationalbank dürften wieder etwas strammer vor ihren Bildschirmen sitzen”, heisst es in einem Kommentar der Commerzbank. Die SNB sehe die Marke von 1,05 als aktuelle “Schmerzgrenze”, welche mit Devisenmarktinterventionen...

Over the past year and a half, we have seen some of the largest divides in US state policy in recent history. Certain states such as California have implemented heavy lockdowns, mask mandates, curfews, and other restrictions for months on end, whereas states such as South Dakota never had an official lockdown to begin with. There is now also the heated policy issue of vaccine mandates, with certain locations such as New York City and Los Angeles requiring proof of...

“Crypto’s Crash,” says some financial news headlines. The reality is Bitcoin, Ethereum and others are down about 10-15% in the last few days. The word “crash” may seem appropriate to describe the sharp decline, except 10%+ moves in a matter of days is the norm, not the exception for crypto. Ignoring the crypto crash, the S&P 500 went higher. The index is up over 25% this year. Despite such an outsized gain, the table below from LPL Research argues we should be...

Six out of ten women lawyers in Switzerland work part-time. Keystone / Anthony Anex Women make up half of the highly skilled workforce in Switzerland, but work fewer hours, according to a study published on Tuesday. One in three would like to work more, under certain conditions. Women often opt for part-time work, and the liberal professions are no exception, says the studyExternal link carried out by the Sotomo Institute for the Swiss Union of Liberal Professions...