Tag Archives: Politics

After months of consumer price increases and after countless working households found themselves in dire financial straits struggling to make ends meet, in the late May, President Biden finally revealed his grand plan to fight inflation in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. The much-anticipated response to the cost of living crisis that has been ravaging the nation sadly did not contain the silver bullet that so many Americans were hoping for. Instead, it...

The Swiss authorities have vetoed Denmark’s request to send Swiss-made armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) recently rejected Denmark’s bid to provide about  20 Piranha III infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, Swiss public television, SRF, said on Wednesday. SECO said the ban was in line with Switzerland’s policy of neutrality of not supplying arms to conflict zones, according to SRF. Neutral Switzerland...

The Austrian Economics Center and the Hayek Institut congratulate Deirdre McCloskey on becoming a Fellow of the Erasmus Historical and Cultural Research Forum. Next week, on June 1, the London School of Economics is celebrating its Deirdre McCloskey inaugural lecture as a Fellow of the Erasmus Forum. This inaugural edition of the lecture will be held by McCloskey herself on The Near Impossibility of Policy. We at the Austrian Economics Center want to...

Interview with Bob Moriarty As I mentioned many times before, trying to accurately forecast economic events or to “time the market” is a fool’s errand. To the chagrin of all central planners, mainstream analysts and all kinds of “experts”, the economy is a vastly complex, living organism, with too many parameters and too many moving parts to make it predictable or tamable.  That being said, understanding monetary and geopolitical history certainly helps spot larger patterns and...

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part II of II Claudio Grass (CG): A lot people still consider it safer to go with a huge, established corporation, thinking these solutions would be more reliable and robust, especially for business applications. What is your take on this view? Bernd Rodler (BR): This is a perfectly understandable view, at least from the standpoint of a manager applying the „cover your a…“ strategy. Who can blame him if the SAP project fails? Well, they are the...

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part I of II Those who know me and who have read my writings before will be very well aware of how important the topic of decentralization is to me and to my way of looking at the world, at our societies and our economies. I truly believe that there is no future to be had, at least not one that respects human dignity, should we continue down this same path of top-down control, mindless conformity and blind obedience to technocrats, bureaucrats and...

Business trips are very different these days. It was a wonderful and intense week, but nothing beats coming back home with bags full of supplies! Day 79 May 13 The very real price Ukrainians are paying for other people’s imperial delusions: survivors of the Kramatorsk train station bombing. More than 30 people were killed, and more than 100 injured among about 1000 people waiting to be evacuated from the city.  ...

A major conference on cyber security took place in Switzerland last month with participants from the US government. © Keystone/Anthony Anex Defence Minister Viola Amherd has held talks with United States government representatives on international security cooperation. Amherd said the Russian invasions of Ukraine made it clear that Switzerland should seek closer cooperation, including the US, she told a news conference in Washington on Friday. But she reiterated that...

Day 73 May 7 This is Liza. She is 15 years old. After her town got shelled and two people got injured she volunteered to drive them to get some medical help, because no one else would. First she got through mines on the road, then Russian soldiers shot at the car, injuring both of her legs. But she kept driving until the car stopped. Fortunately, they got picked up by our guys, and this brave little girl and her passengers are recovering right now....

According to the price comparison website Comparis.ch obligatory Swiss health insurance premiums are set to rise by an average of 5% in 2023, in some cases as much as 10%. Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.comKey drivers of the rise are the impact of the pandemic and pressure by the federal government on insurance companies to refund reserves to policy holders, said Felix Schneuwly, a health insurance expert at the company. Before the refunds a number of insurance companies had...