Tag Archives: newsletter

Some companies gave their CEOs pay rises even though the firms were losing money Keystone / Edgar R. Schoepal While the Covid-19 pandemic has caused existential hardship for many employees, CEOs and shareholders have “shamelessly helped themselves”, according to a union study. “The pay gap remains wide open at a very high level,” trade union Unia wrote in its annual pay gap studyExternal link published on Tuesday. The average ratio between the highest and lowest...

Following the same recent pattern as the BLS and its CPI, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) PCE Deflator ran up hotter in May 2021 than its already high increase during April. The latter’s headline consumer basket rose 3.91% year-over-year, its fastest pace since August 2008. The core rate, which excludes food and energy prices, accelerated to 3.39% from 3.11%, the highest since the early nineties. Having gone through this for two consecutive months, the...

Mainstream analysis sees rising consumer prices, and looks for a monetary cause. Also, when it sees an increase in the quantity of dollars, it looks for rising consumer prices. It is a fact that the quantity of what the mainstream calls money (i.e. the dollar) has risen at an extraordinary rate. The M0 measure has nearly doubled since the start of Covid. It is also a fact that many prices have jumped up significantly. So only one question is open for debate. Is...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.18% to 1.096 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 28(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The global capital markets are off to a quiet start of what promises to be a busy week. Quarter and month-end adjustments, Japan’s Tankan survey, the eurozone’s preliminary June CPI, the US employment report, and an OPEC+ meeting are featured. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little...

Cleaning up: Ralph Hamers reckons people trust bankers again © Keystone / Christian Beutler Swiss banks have some catching up to do when it comes to structural change and digitalisation, says Ralph Hamers, CEO of Swiss bank UBS. In his opinion structural change has taken place much faster in other countries and industries than in Switzerland. For example, the dynamics in Asia and Scandinavia are significantly greater, Hamers told newspaper BlickExternal link in an...

There are four firms in the running for the CHF6 billion fighter jet contract. Keystone / Mindaugas Kulbis Ahead of the Swiss government’s decision on a major fighter jet contract, Airbus has made an appeal to the Swiss government to choose a European firm after leaked information from the government revealed US firm Lockheed Martin was out ahead of competitors. “It is important for us that all seven government ministers assess the overall package,” Bernhard Brenner,...

In the wake of the Covid Recession and the drive to pour ever larger amounts of “stimulus” into the US economy, the Federal Government in 2020 spent more than double—as a percentage of all government spending—of what all state and local governments spent in 2020, combined. By the end of 2020, the US’s federal government was spending 68 percent of all government spending in America, while state and local governments spent only 31 percent of all government spending....

The unraveling of America’s social order is accelerating, and denial will not save us from the consequences of the plundering of the social contract. What kind of nation boasts a record-high stock market and an unraveling social order? Answer: a failed nation, a nation that has substituted artifice for realism for far too long, a nation that now depends on illusory phantoms of capital, prosperity and democracy to prop up a crumbling facade of “wealth” that the...

“Capitalism” is not the same as “Corporatism.” Yet, whenever you mention capitalism, there is palpable anger arising from a fundamental widespread misbelief. “‘Evil’ corporations are greedy and take advantage of the system for their benefit.” I have two words for you – “No S***.” Such does not mean capitalism has become “broken.” On the contrary, capitalism created the opportunity for corporations to exist. Things went wrong when corporations took advantage of the...

The risk to bees through pesticides and the ensuing effects on the world’s food crops have been the source of much debate. But do Swiss measures to support the domestic honeybee disadvantage the equally important wild bee? It is not easy to identify the 615 different species of wild bees found in Switzerland. Max Huber After some years in the regional print and broadcast media in French Switzerland, in 2000 I joined Radio Swiss International, which then became...