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The era of abundance was only a short-lived artifact of the initial boost phase of globalization and financialization. Global corporations didn’t go to all the effort to establish quasi-monopolies and cartels for our convenience–they did it to ensure reliably large profits from control and scarcity. Not all scarcities are artificial, i.e. the result of cartels limiting supply to keep prices high; many scarcities are real, and many of these scarcities can be traced...

Why does the dollar bill in our pockets have value? According to some commentators, money has value because the government in power says so. For other commentators the value of money is on account of social convention. What this implies is that money has value because it is accepted, and why is it accepted? … because it is accepted! Obviously, this is not a good explanation of why money has value.1 The difference between Money and Other Goods Now, demand for a good...

Overview: The animal spirits have been reanimated today. Encouraged by the dramatic reversal in oil and gas prices, a deal in the US that pushes off the debt ceiling for a few weeks and talk of a new bond-buying facility in the euro area spurred further risk-taking today, ahead of tomorrow’s US employment report. The sharp upside reversal in US shares yesterday carried over in Asia and Europe today. The Hang Seng, battered lately, jumped over 3%, and the Nikkei...

Paper or digital? Changing times for the media in Switzerland... Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle - Click to enlarge A cross-party group has handed in signatures opposing a support package for the media passed by parliament in June. The “no to state media” group handed in some 113,000 signatures on Wednesday, more than double the amount needed to force a referendum under the Swiss direct democracy system. The opponents say the law is unconstitutional and a waste of...

Verstärkt gesucht ist mittlerweile auch der Franken. So hat das Euro/Franken-Paar seit dem frühen Handel annähernd einen halben Rappen eingebüsst. Wie es in einem aktuellen Devisenkommentar bei Raiffeisen Schweiz heisst, habe sich das Euro/Franken-Paar im September zwar noch über der Marke von 1,08 stabilisiert. “Die nicht abbrechenden Sorgen um die Corona-Pandemie sowie die Verlangsamung der globalen Konjunkturerholung belasten den Euro aber weiterhin.” Darüber...

* Currencies & metals get ambushed overnight…  * Chuck shows off his math skills…  Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! A quiet night for yours truly last night, as a lot of nights recently have been late… I sat out on the deck that overlooks the beach and ocean, and had my Bose speaker turned up and sang out loud along with the songs being played… I can do that at this time of year, because there aren’t many people here, compared to the winter...

We’ve got one central bank over here in America which appears as if its members can’t wait to “taper”, bringing up both the topic and using that particular word as much as possible. Jay Powell’s Federal Reserve obviously intends to buoy confidence by projecting as much when it does cut back on the pace of its (irrelevant) QE6. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe’s central bank will be technically be doing the same thing likely at the same time. Except,...

Ludwig von Mises noted: “[T]he gold standard is not a game, but a social institution. Its working does not depend on the preparedness of any people to observe some arbitrary rules. It is controlled by the operation of inexorable economic law.” and furthermore: “What the expansionists call the defects of the gold standard are indeed its very eminence and usefulness. It checks large-scale inflationary ventures on the part of governments. The gold standard did not...

06.10.2021 – The UN World Data Forum 2021 (UNWDF) ended Wednesday 6 October in Bern with the adoption of the “Bern Data Compact for the Decade of Action on the Sustainable Development Goals”. This conference, held for the first time in a hybrid format, had a total of 7626 participants registered online, of whom 668 were present in Bern. The Minister of Home Affairs Alain Berset and the UN Secretary General António Guterres highlighted the importance of data to...

Overview: Investors worry that surging energy prices will sap economic activity and boost prices.  It is sparking a sharp drop in equities and bonds while lifting the dollar.  The Nikkei fell for the eighth consecutive session, and today's 1% drop brings the cumulative decline to 9%.  South Korea's Kospi also fell by more than 1%.  Some of the smaller markets in the region, like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, rose by more than 1%.  They are an anomaly. ...