Tag Archives: Politics

20 Minutes. Some who move to Switzerland might not be aware that they are almost certainly required to pay one of the world’s highest broadcasting licence fees. An annual Swiss licence costs CHF 451.10 per household. The onus is on you to determine if you are liable, sign up with Billag, a subsidiary of Swisscom, and pay. Just because you haven’t registered doesn’t mean you are OK. Fines for non-compliance run as high as CHF 5,000. © Piotr Wawrzyniuk | Dreamstime.com Billag AG collects around...

Summary: Many are discussing a possible head-and-shoulders pattern in the Dollar Index. We are skeptical as other technical signals do not confirm. We recognize scope for disappointment over the border tax and the next batch of employment data, but European politics is the present driver and may not be alleviated soon. Here is the chart nearly everyone is discussing.  The Dollar Index appears to be carving...

Martin Armstrong Frames the Issue Famous market forecaster Martin Armstrong wrote a recent article describing the current situation in Europe. Similar to our article, “Trouble Brewing in the EU”, the Armstrong’s piece discusses growing discontent and fractures in the E.U. Martin Armstrong observes that, “The EU leadership is really trying to make Great Britain pay dearly for voting to exit the Community. Like the...

Over the weekend China used the Trump inauguration to warn about the perils of democracy, touting the relative stability of the Communist system as President Xi Jinping heads toward a twice-a-decade reshuffle of senior leadership posts. Without directly referencing the new president, China wrote that democracy has reached its limits, and deterioration is the inevitable future of capitalism, according to the...

As political and business elite gather at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, a new report is shining light on the shocking reality of the wealth gap between the very rich and poor that is “pull our societies apart.” A report by Oxfam released ahead the World Economic Forum in Davos shows the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men...

Submitted by Joseph Jankowski of PlanetFreeWill.com As political and business elite gather at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, a new report is shining light on the shocking reality of the wealth gap between the very rich and poor that is “pull our societies apart.” A report by Oxfam released ahead the World Economic Forum in Davos shows the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men owning...

It is difficult to say exactly how, or when, the next collapse will be triggered, but, as SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo notes, of course all the conditions are ripe for it. What can be certain is that the technocrats intent on controlling the future are already engineering the post-collapse society. Many of the Davos elite have been pushing “universal basic income” for all countries across the globe, and are leading...

For over four decades, many of the planet’s biggest trouble makers and assholes have met each year in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum with the humble mission of, “Improving the state of the world.” Each year since 1978, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has sponsored a symposium in Jackson Hole on an important issue facing the world’s bankers and their pet politicians and government bureaucrats....

If you thought 2016 was full of market maelstroms and geopolitical gotchas, 2017’s ‘known unknowns’ suggest a year of more mayhem awaits… Here’s a selection of key events in the year ahead (and links to Bloomberg’s quick-takes on each). January Donald Trump will be sworn in as U.S. president on Jan. 20.QuickTakes: Immigration Reform, Free Trade and Its Foes, Supreme Court, Oil Sands, Confronting Coal, Climate Change,...

Investors are familiar with a broad set of macroeconomic variables that often drive asset prices.  Many are familiar with corporate balance sheets, price-earning ratios, free cash flow, Q-ratio, and the like. However, political factors are more difficult for investors to integrate into their analysis. Therein lies the main challenge in the year ahead.  There will be many opportunities for political factors to overwhelm...