Tag Archives: zero interest

We have recently written several essays about the fallacious concept of Gross Domestic Product. Among GDP’s several fatal flaws, it goes up when capital is converted to consumer goods, when seed corn is served at the feast. So we proposed—and originally dismissed—the idea of a national balance sheet. It’s easy (conceptually) to add up all the assets and the liabilities. But the problem is that the falling interest rate...

In previous articles, we have outlined in great detail the many faults of the current monetary policy direction of major central banks and the large-scale economic impact of keeping interest rates artificially low. Among the worst offenders is the ECB, that is unapologetically persistent on continuing this exercise in absurdity that are negative interest rates. Over the last few years, the effects of this decision have been felt by pensioners and by responsible, conservative investors,...

In previous articles, we have outlined in great detail the many faults of the current monetary policy direction of major central banks and the large-scale economic impact of keeping interest rates artificially low. Among the worst offenders is the ECB, that is unapologetically persistent on continuing this exercise in absurdity that are negative interest rates. Over the last few years, the effects of this decision have...

There is a popular notion, at least among American libertarians and gold bugs. The idea is that people will one day “get woke”, and suddenly realize that the dollar is bad / unbacked / fiat / unsound / Ponzi / other countries don’t like it / <insert favorite bugaboo here>. When they do, they will repudiate it. That is, sell all their dollars to buy consumer goods (i.e. hyperinflation), gold, and/or whatever other...

Sometimes, one just needs to look in the right place. And often in those cases, it just takes a conversation to alert one where to look. We had a call with a Swiss company this week, to discuss gold financing for their business. They reminded us that there is a negative interest rate on Swiss francs. And then they said that a swap of francs for gold has a cost. That is, the CHF GOFO rate is negative (the dollar based...