Monthly Archive: May 2021

COVID in India

2021-05-26

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2021-05-26

I have just returned from a visit to my family in India. It was hard to escape. To get to the US from India, I needed a COVID test. The Indian government has seriously restricted who can provide COVID testing, treatment, and vaccination. Private doctors and hospitals that are not approved face brutal legal consequences if they provide COVID treatment.

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ETC Group Lists Physically Backed Ethereum and Litecoin Crypto ETCs on SIX

2021-05-26

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2021-05-26

Blockchain Bitcoin
ETC Group, a specialist provider of digital asset-backed securities, has announced that it will list its physically backed Ethereum and Litecoin cryptocurrency ETCs on the Swiss Stock Exchange SIX.

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The Real Estate Boom in Vegas Is More Frenzied Than Ever

2021-05-26

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2021-05-26

Audio Mises Wire
In Las Vegas, asset price inflation is combining with rising prices on building materials to create a real estate bubble of remarkable proportions. 

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FOMO Is Loco

2021-05-26

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2021-05-26

We can also posit a general rule that those who inherit wealth and succumb to FOMO are eventually less wealthy while those who are wealthy and take a pass on FOMO / hoarding at the top of the manic frenzy increase their wealth.

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Swiss central banker wary of excessive inflation

2021-05-26

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2021-05-26

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) can expand its balance sheet further if needed, says chairman of the board Thomas Jordan.

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FX Daily, May 25: Softer Yields Weigh on the Greenback

2021-05-25

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2021-05-25

The decline in US 10-year rates to two-week lows below 1.59% is helping rebuild bullish enthusiasm for stocks and weighing on the US dollar. The NASDAQ reached two-week highs yesterday, and almost all the large markets in the Asia Pacific region rose, though India struggled.

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Switzerland and WHO launch global pathogen BioHub

2021-05-25

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2021-05-25

Switzerland and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed to launch the first WHO BioHub Facility. This will enhance the rapid sharing of viruses and other pathogens between laboratories and partners globally.

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U.S. Hypocrisy on Display on Belarus

2021-05-25

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2021-05-25

U.S. officials are shocked and outraged over the forced landing of a passenger airliner in Belarus. The airliner contained a passenger named Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old man who was traveling from Greece to Lithuania.

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Public Debt Got a Lot Worse from The Great Recession to The Great Lockdown

2021-05-25

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2021-05-25

Public Debt by Region
The 2020 recession, which many countries are still going through, now has an “official” name: the Great Lockdown. In economic terms, the public sector’s response in practically all countries has been very swift and bold (which is not necessarily a good thing).1 This has caused the global public debt to skyrocket as never before.

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Fed to Treasury Dealers and Congress: We Can’t Count On You, We’re Taking Charge

2021-05-25

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2021-05-25

Total Assets: Wednesday Level, 2005-2021
The Fed sees itself as trapped by the incompetence and greed of the other players and by its own policy extremes that were little more than expedient "saves" of a system that is unraveling due to its fragility and brittleness.

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FX Daily, May 24: China Action on Commodities and Crypto Featured

2021-05-24

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2021-05-24

The US dollar is firmer in the European morning after starting out with a softer bias in Asia Pacific turnover. The dollar-bloc currencies, sterling, and the Swiss franc are heavy, but ranges are narrow, and consolidation seems to be the flavor of the day.

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FX Daily, May 20: Market Stabilize after Yesterday’s Tumultuous Session

2021-05-20

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2021-05-20

US equity indices finished lower, but the real story was their recovery. Asia Pacific equities were mixed, with Australia's 1.5% rally leading the recovery in some markets, including Tokyo and Singapore. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up a little more than 0.5% near mid-session, led by information technology and industrials, while energy and financials lagged with small gains.

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“Everything Is On Fire”

2021-05-20

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2021-05-20

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,“Everything is on fire” – Heraclitus (535-475 BC)What Heraclitus meant was that the world is in a constant state of flux.But the big problem in the next few years is that the world will experience a fire of a magnitude never seen before in history.I have in many articles and interviews pointed out how predictable events are (and people).

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UBS International Pension Gap Index: Swiss pensions – an international comparison

2021-05-20

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2021-05-20

Pension schemes are as diverse as the cultures of the countries whose working population they insure. Nevertheless, they all aim to guarantee a certain level of income in retirement. The UBS International Pension Gap Index, first released in 2017, analyses the sustainability and adequacy of the pension promises across 24 jurisdictions.

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Where Europeans Get To Work From Home

2021-05-20

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2021-05-20

Work from Home in Europe
The social distancing measures introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many people to work from home and accelerated the trend of remote working. Eurostat have released some interesting new data showing the share of employed people aged between 15 and 64 in Europe who usually do home office.

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Public trust in Swiss banks soars amid pandemic 

2021-05-20

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2021-05-20

Swiss people’s trust in their country’s banks is at its highest in 20 years, boosted by Covid credits and a commitment to sustainability, according to a new survey. People from almost all political camps have a positive perception, with 75% describing their attitude towards Swiss banks as positive or very positive, found the survey conducted by gfs.bern for the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA).

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FX Daily, May 19: Now What Does Bitcoin say About the Dollar and the US?

2021-05-19

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2021-05-19

A setback in commodities and technology are roiling equity markets today. The inability of US equities to sustain yesterday's rally provided an initial headwind to trading in the Asia Pacific region today. Hong Kong and South Korea markets were closed for holidays, but most of the bourses fell, led by Australia, where the market tumbled nearly 2%, the most in almost three months as the drop in mining and energy took a toll.

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Bitcoin Versus Gold: A Tired Debate

2021-05-19

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2021-05-19

Bias vs. LogicWe’ve written elsewhere about the ironic over-use of logic to justify otherwise illogical biases. As Swiss-based precious metals professionals who see physical gold and silver as currency protection outside of an openly illogical (and dangerously fractured) banking system, it is more than fair for some to challenge our own “logic” (bias?) when it comes to precious metal ownership. We understand such critiques.

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Eight Swiss in Bloomberg billionaire ‘rich list’ 

2021-05-19

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2021-05-19

In the latest version of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, eight Swiss or Swiss-resident names figure among the 500 richest people in the world. The richest of the Alpine-based billionaires is Geneva-based Ernesto Bertarelli, who according to his own self-description is a “Swiss entrepreneur active in the fields of business, finance, sport and philanthropy”.

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How Monetary Expansion Creates Income and Wealth Inequality

2021-05-19

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2021-05-19

US Gini Ratio, 1947 - 2019
“Every change in the money relation alters … the conditions of the individual members of society. Some become richer, some poorer.” – Mises, Human Action, p. 414. New money enters the economy at a particular point. It does not enter in the form of a proportional and simultaneous increase in everybody’s incomes.

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