Tag Archives: Politics

It is a regrettable fact, but a fact nonetheless, that too many students of economic and monetary history have no idea where the principles and theories they espouse really came from. So many important thinkers, with unconventional and truly inquisitive minds, have been shut out of mainstream textbooks and were robbed of the prominent place they deserved in all our memories to make room for those with more expedient ideas.  One such man is Gordon Tullock, an economist and law...

Interview with Simon Hunt: Part II of II Claudio Grass (CG): Taken together, the moves by Russia and China, especially on the monetary front, with their plans of a gold-backed digital currency, appear to pose a direct challenge to the status quo and America’s central role in it. Do you think we might be witnessing a tectonic shift already, and do you expect to see the US and the USD decline in influence and relevance? Simon Hunt (SH): As I shift through your questions, none can...

Interview with Simon Hunt Part I of II As my friends and clients know very well, but also anyone who has read any of my writings before, I always held that understanding history and geopolitics is one of the most important elements of sound investing. Most mainstream investors, “experts”, as well as the financial press tend to ignore these forces, as does the public at large, of course. “Who cares what happened decades ago in some faraway land? I just need someone from Wall Street...

Part II of II, by Claudio Grass Slippery slope  However, interesting as those experiments and observations might be, they are still the result of specific parameters within a particular setting and an environment that doesn’t resemble real life. Serious and honest behavioral economists both understand and freely admit this. Just because there was one experiment in which 12 university students chose to receive 1 chocolate today rather than 2 tomorrow, one cannot extrapolate from...

The percentage of women in senior management positions at companies listed on the Swiss SMI and SMIM indexes rose from 13% in 2020 to 19% in 2021. © Barbara Helgason | Dreamstime.comThe rise reflects an increase in the number of women being nominated for these positions in 2021. During the year 4 out of 10 nominees were women, according to a study by the placement agency Russel Reynolds Association. Most of the newcomers (92%) were women from the US, UK, Germany and France. SMI...

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass The field of economics has long and often very embarrassing history of absurd theories, blatantly wrong assumptions and hypotheses, spectacularly wrong predictions and entirely avoidable policymaking blunders; a few of them hilarious, most of them catastrophic, some of them literally murderous.  Overconfidence and a generous amount of hubris appear to be at the heart of the problem, as is so often the case nearly every time that “experts” and...

Over the second half of January, we witnessed a fresh wave of volatility in equity markets, culminating in a pullback that caused widespread concern and endless headlines in the mainstream financial press. There was speculation of a full blown correction, other “experts” disagreed and predicted that central bankers would never allow that to happen, while others still tried to account for the market’s moves by using the same explanations we’ve been hearing throughout the covid crisis...

Switzerland was ranked tenth in the latest 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published by Transparency International this week. © Szabolcs Stieber | Dreamstime.comThe index ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, with results ranging from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). This year’s index reveals that corruption levels are at a worldwide standstill, said the organisation, with the global average remaining...

According to recently released data by the World Gold Council (WGC), as of September 2021, the total amount of gold held in reserves by central banks globally exceeded 36,000 tons for the first time since 1990. This 31-year record was the result of the world’s central banks adding more that 4,500 tons of the precious metal to their holdings over the last decade and it provides ample support for the investment case for gold, in both directly performance-related...

According to recently released data by the World Gold Council (WGC), as of September 2021, the total amount of gold held in reserves by central banks globally exceeded 36,000 tons for the first time since 1990. This 31-year record was the result of the world’s central banks adding more that 4,500 tons of the precious metal to their holdings over the last decade and it provides ample support for the investment case for gold, in both directly performance-related terms, but also from a...