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There is nothing new under the sun Modern Monetary Theory, or “MMT”, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist, Michael Kalecki (1899 – 1970). MMT as a centralisation tool  MMT says...

All too often, discussion over trade deals focuses almost solely on tariffs. It’s true that tariffs—i.e., taxes—are always a significant barrier to free exchange at all levels, but there are also plenty of ways to block or lessen trade that are not primarily tariff-based. Recent conflicts over the pending negotiations between the UK and the EU are a reminder of this. For instance, The Guardian reported yesterday “The EU will demand the right to punish Britain if...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.20% to 1.0647 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 27(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: A new phase of the Covid-19 is at hand. Yesterday was the first time that the number of new cases in the world surpassed the number of new cases China acknowledged.  This confirms what we have known, namely that the battle for containing it in China has been lost. However, it...

27.02.2020 – In 2019, the Swiss hotel sector registered 39.6 million overnight stays. This represented growth of 1.9% (+755 000) compared with 2018 and constitutes a new record. This result confirms the upward trend started in 2017. Foreign demand totalled 21.6 million overnight stays which represents an increase of 1.1% (+246 000), i.e. a level of overnight stays never seen before. Swiss demand increased by 2.9% (+509 000), reaching the record value of 17.9 million...

USD/CHF trades near a three-week low. Bearish MACD, failures to carry the latest recovery keep sellers hopeful, 50-day SMA acts as near-term key support. 200-day SMA, 61.8% Fibonacci retracement act as near-term key resistances. USD/CHF remains on the back foot around 0.9740, down 0.25%, during the initial trading session on Thursday. That said, the quote fails to carry the previous day’s recovery gains. Even so, a 50-day SMA level of 0.9737 acts as the near-term key...

FX strategist at Scotiabank cites the relative stability of EUR/CHF (above and around 1.06) in the past  two weeks while turmoil in markets elsewhere  suggestive of SNB intervention to hold off strength in the Swiss franc Scotia say sight deposits have risen steadily since the beginning of 2020 – “indicating intervention”. Also make note of the re-inclusion of the SNB on US Treasury Department FX watch list Euro / Swiss Franc (see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click...

The greater the excesses, speculative euphoria and moral hazard, the greater the reversal. A very convenient conviction is rising in the panicked financial netherworld that the Federal Reserve and its fellow dark lords will “save the market” from COVID-19 collapse. They won’t. I already explained why in The Fed Has Created a Monster Bubble It Can No Longer Control (February 16, 2020) but it bears repeating. Contrary to naive expectations, the Fed’s primary job isn’t...

This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in late 2020. In chapter 5 we reviewed the textbook analysis of how a central bank buys government debt in “open market operations” to add reserves to the banking system, with which commercial banks can then advance loans to their own customers. However, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve and other central banks...

[This article is excerpted from a talk delivered on February 22, 2020 at the Austrian Student Scholars Conference, hosted by Grove City College in Pennsylvania.] I. Introduction What a wonderful gathering of students today, on this impressive and beautiful campus. We can see why Hans Sennholz loved this place, and why Drs. Herbener and Ritenour so enjoy living and teaching here. You are all too young to serve as the “remnant,” so we will consider you the vanguard...

Earlier today, Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) confirmed the country’s economy is in recession. Updating its estimate for Q4 GDP, year-over-year output declined by 0.5% rather than -0.3% as first thought. On a quarterly basis, GDP was down for the second consecutive quarter which mainstream convention treats as a technical recession. On a yearly basis, it was actually the third straight. Nothing seems to have changed as 2019 drew to...