Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Interview with Godfrey Bloom: Part I of II A lot has been said and written about Britain’s political and economic woes since Brexit, and even more so over the last two years. Overwhelmingly, mainstream media coverage has been negative and many of the nation’s problems have been blamed on Brexit itself. The role of the lockdowns, the forced business closures and especially of the extreme fiscal and monetary interventions during the Covid crisis has been downplayed,...

Interview with Godfrey Bloom: Part I of II A lot has been said and written about Britain’s political and economic woes since Brexit, and even more so over the last two years. Overwhelmingly, mainstream media coverage has been negative and many of the nation’s problems have been blamed on Brexit itself. The role of the lockdowns, the forced business closures and especially of the extreme fiscal and monetary interventions during the Covid crisis has been downplayed, or often gone...

Nothing happened last week. Stocks and bonds and commodities continued to trade and move around in price but there was no news to which those movements could be attributed. The economic news was a trifle and what there was told us exactly nothing new about the economy. A report that wholesale inventories rose 0.6% cannot be turned into market moving news no matter how hard the newsletter sellers try. Jobless claims fell 8,000? Yawn. Exports rose $500 million? In a...

Swiss President Ueli Maurer meets Russian leader Vladimir Putin, November 2019. (Keystone / Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik / Kre) Switzerland performs a delicate dance when it comes to promoting business interests, maintaining neutrality and defending human rights. Daniel Warner looks at recent examples and the stakes at play. Doing business with other countries and promoting human rights can and do go hand in hand, Swiss State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Pascale...

Ueli Maurer reviews guards during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 29 (Keystone / Madoka Ikegami / Pool) Ueli Maurer, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, was set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. It is Maurer’s fourth foreign visit this year that has raised eyebrows in Switzerland. Most controversial was his trip in October to Saudi Arabia, which had already been postponed after the...

– EU and euro face growing risks including trade wars, energy independence and war with Russia in Middle East – Middle East war involving Russia may badly impact energy dependent & fragile EU – Trade and actual wars on European doorstep show the strategic weakness of the EU– Toxic combination due to growing anti-EU and anti-Euro sentiment in many EU nations– Investors should diversify to hedge investment, currency...

– We own gold bullion to “support national security” – Russian Central Bank– Russia warns Washington: Confiscating fx reserves would be “declaration of financial war” – Russia has quadrupled its gold bullion reserves in decade – BRICs discussing ‘the possibility of establishing a single (system of) gold trade’ – Russia, China & maybe Saudi Arabia form alliances to unseat petrodollar – Putin warns state-owned and...

– Russia adds 1.1 million ounces to reserves in ongoing diversification from USD – 34 ton addition brings Russia’s Central Bank holdings to 1,779t; 6th highest – Russia’s gold reserves are at highest point in Putin’s 17-year reign – Russia’s central bank will buy gold for its reserves on the Moscow Exchange – Russia recognises gold’s role as independent currency and safe haven Russian Central Bank Gold Reserves, 2006 -...

On the heels of continued dollar strength, output increases by OPEC (and US production at 2 year highs), and Libya restarting its biggest oilfield, WTI prices are tumbling for the 3rd time this week, back below $50 to their lowest in 3 weeks... As Bloomberg notes, while oil rallied into a bull market last month on the prospect of stronger demand, prices struggled to hold above $52 a barrel as supply grew from the U.S. and two members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting...

Accurately measuring the scope of global wealth inequality is a notoriously difficult undertaking – a fact that was brought to light last year when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers, exposing clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. As the papers revealed, Mossack Fonseca, which is only the world’s fourth-largest provider of offshore financial services, boasted...