In their war against free speech, progressive governments are now denying dissidents use of the banking system.
Original Article: ""Debanking": The Latest Assault on Freedom of Speech"

The strength of the Swiss franc (CHF) has been the topic of countless “expert” analyses for over a year and it has received considerable coverage in the mainstream financial press. In fact, the last time the currency garnered this much interest was probably in 2011, when its celebrated “safe haven” status backfired, as investors fled to it in droves and pushed the price to levels that forced the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to intervene and peg it to the euro. Or perhaps it was when that cap was lifted in 2015, again making intentional headlines.

The renewed attention it has been attracting more recently, however, has nothing to do with truly “breaking news” of that nature. It has to do with its impressive performance, comparative to other currencies, and arguably with the fact that

Part II of II

The big shift 

Of course, this is the Left, but also the Right, of the good old days. The days of gentlemanly conduct and of real sportsmanship during a debate. These were the days when cultivated, curious and humble people argued passionately, but honourably. These were the days of decency, of common courtesy and civility. 

But also these were the days of ideological integrity and consistency. For example, the arguments and the sentiments that were employed by many decent citizens against the Iraq war were largely aligned with those that were employed against the Vietnam and Korean wars. Most readers will likely remember whence any meaningful opposition emerged against the last “big” war – the US “intervention” in Iraq: Much like before, even though the US

Threats to freedom of speech and efforts to suppress dissenting views and voices have been on the rise over the past decades. They were exponentially intensified since the ascent of social media, and as the political polarization in the West truly took hold of our societies, the powers that be have been using any and all tools at their disposal to “defend” the interests of the establishment against those who might try to publicly question its policies (or even worse, its purpose).
Many of us who have been keeping tabs on restrictions on all kinds of individual freedoms have been aware of this dangerous trend for quite some time already. However, it was during the covid crisis that it became obvious to a lot more people too. Anyone reluctant to fully embrace and follow the state’s edicts

Part I of II

Those of us who have read and studied political history, who have closely observed its evolution and especially those who have taken note of all the tactics and ploys used over the last couple of decades, will surely not be surprised by any of the findings and ideas I’ll outline in the following analysis. I would still encourage the reader to read on, though. Because for the majority of citizens, taxpayers, savers and investors, this all might still be “breaking news” and even for those who have considered these points before, it can still inform them of future possibilities they didn’t know were possible or never thought could be. 

The illusion of choice

From Europe to Australia and to the US, our western democracies, our “enlightened” societies

On November 15, 2021, almost twenty-one months ago, I once again had the rare and delightful opportunity to have a conversation with Prince Michael of Liechtenstein. His insights, especially with his directness and unequivocal honesty, have frequently provided me with a lot of food for thought in the past. This interview was no different. His candid and unfiltered responses to a wide variety of questions and topics made this conversation as illuminating as it was enjoyable.
Good things take time—that’s why I always thought I would release this interview once I personally believed the time was right or, at least, when I would have hope that people might better understand (or better yet, remember) that the concept of cause and effect still applies. Actions have consequences: this is an

Threats to freedom of speech and efforts to suppress dissenting views and voices have been on the rise over the past decades. They were exponentially intensified since the ascent of social media and as the political polarisation in the West truly took hold of our societies, the powers that be have been using any and all toolsat their disposal to “defend” the interests of the establishment against those who might try to publicly question its policies (or even worse, its purpose).

Many of us who have been keeping tabs on the restrictions on all kinds of individual freedoms have been aware of this dangerous trend for quite some time already. However, it was during the covid crisis that it became obvious to a lot more people too. Anyone reluctant to fully embrace and follow the State’s

Part II of II

If this kind of theoretical reasoning seems too abstract, let us think about it more practically: Any public servant, any member of government, and even the leader of a nation, has very different motivations than any private sector decision-maker. Their financial compensation is a given and their time preference is dictated by their job description. 

The company owner on the other hand has no such guarantees regarding their livelihoods. Everything depends on how hard they work and how well they perform and they have no “job security” and no fixed 4-year terms. They are thus more more heavily incentivised to make choices with a long-term view and they do not have the luxury of adopting people-pleasing but eventually toxic policies, as they know they will have to

Part I of II

For decades already, one of the most popular and commonly employed attacks of Keynesians and other left-leaning economists was the one against the idea of “trickle down economics”. They ridiculed the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats or plainly put, the obvious fact that when job creators thrive, so do the people that hold those jobs and sustain themselves and their families thanks to them. 

The main objection to this idea is that such a “trickle down” impact could never actually take place, because of the selfishness and greed of those lucky enough to be at the top. The argument goes: Those privileged few, those “rich and entitled” ones, would never let any advantage “trickle down” – they would surely find a way to cheat and to rip off the people below them

Part II of II

A good start

Whatever one might think about which currency is better suited to be used in trade or as a benchmark or as a central bank reserve, the fact remains that the USD’s days as the “only right answer” to that question are numbered. It might not happen tomorrow, but a credible challenger will eventually emerge. 

As Patrick Barron also highlighted in his analysis: “Led by China and later by Russia, some nations of the world, not wholly within the US orbit, have been building the necessary infrastructure and rules for conflict resolution and increasing trade and investment. Countries representing the vast majority of the world’s population, and also most of the world’s proven commodities, are intent upon industrializing as did the West. The basis for world

Part I of II

Endless ink has been spilled by economists and financial analysts in their efforts to predict the impact of de-dollarization. As might be expected, most of those who embrace a US-centric view of the world and who defend the status quo paint a gloomy picture. They warn of the nightmarish consequences of a Russia- and China-dominated world order, of the threats to freedom and to human rights that this could pose and of a potential breakdown in global trade, due to lack of trust and transparency. 

Without wishing to summarily dismiss these concerns, I do believe it is important to examine crucial shifts like the de-dollarization one rationally and dispassionately. So, for example, it is rather alarmist to predict major trade disruptions because “people do no trust the

On November 15th, 2021, almost 20 months ago, I once again had the rare and delightful opportunity to have a conversation with Prince Michael. His insights, and especially his directness and unequivocal honesty, have frequently provided me with a lot of food for thought in the past. This interview was no different. His candid and unfiltered responses to a wide variety of questions and topics made this conversation as illuminating as it was enjoyable.

Good things take time – that’s why I always thought I would release this interview once I personally believed the time was right. Or at least when I would have hope that people might better understand (or better yet, remember) that the concept of cause and effect still applies. Actions have consequences: this is an everlasting truth

There is clearly a common denominator in the kind of “solutions” that the State comes up with to deal with the problems that it caused (and that’s most problems). Not only are these remedies worse than the disease, but they are always extremely simplistic, reductionist and they never, ever, take into account anything else apart from the political “optics” and the populistic value of each new measure or piece of legislation. There is no consideration about the impact down the line, the price that the population as a whole would have to pay or the ways society itself could be affected. 

In recent years, we saw this kind of flagrant irresponsibility and recklessness in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, when all western governments and their central banks embraced QE and ZIRP & NIRP as

INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY BLOOM: 

Over the last couple of years, the UK has been increasingly in the news – for all the wrong reasons. The cost of living crisis, in particular, has been monopolizing headlines at home and abroad. Of course, inflation is by no means unique to the country. To the contrary, it has been hovering at similar or higher levels in virtually all advanced economies for quite some time. What is unique to the UK though, is that mainstream analysts and numerous establishment figures have argued that it is yet another one of the toxic consequences of Brexit. 

What is also worrying is the sociopolitical polarization causing dangerous frictions in British society. Strikes have been causing serious disruptions in the country for months and the actions and demands of

In early May, Reuters published a report that truly captured my attention. “European savers are pulling more of their money from banks, looking for a better deal as lenders resist paying up to hold on to deposits some feel they can currently live without,” the article reported. Over in the US, we see a very similar picture. As the FT also recently reported, “big US financial groups Charles Schwab, State Street and M&T suffered almost $60bn in combined bank deposit outflows in the first quarter.”

Many analyses have attempted to explain this phenomenon dubbed “bank walk”, by pointing to deposit interest rates. They argued that the problem was that while banks were quick to increase their rates for lending to customers once central banks started their “tightening”, they severely

The roots of the injustice that brought over a million to the streets 

It is the core of a long running joke that the French love to strike more than they like to work – and for good reason. Demonstrations, strikes and even riots, have been a common occurrence for decades. However, this latest round seems to be interestingly persistent, despite the fact that it’s receiving increasingly sparse media coverage.  

The last time that the French took to the streets and stayed there, and the mainstream press paid attention, was the Yellow Vest movement back in 2018. Back then, the original trigger was an unpopular new fuel tax, but the list of grievances and demands grew quickly to encompass all kinds of policy areas. Before long, the movement was essentially a vehicle to express

Part II of II by Claudio Grass

A real systemic crisis

If there was one thing more telling than the bank failures themselves, it was the governments’ reaction to them. The sheer panic that shook US, Swiss and Eurozone officials was almost pitiable to behold. The way they all rushed to make statements denying that this would be a repeat of 2008 was alarming instead of reassuring. And their apparent, urgent desperation to be believed was perhaps reason enough why they shouldn’t have been. We were told that the failed banks would be rescued, of course, so depositors and the market at large had nothing to worry about, but “by no means would they be bailed out”. Honor, once again, was sorely lacking in all those statements and assurances. Because as I pointed out in my last article, a

Part I of II by Claudio Grass

It might sound like an old-fashioned notion, the sort of thing that one reads about in period novels and romantically sighs “oh, the good old days”. It might sound like old timely advice, perhaps of the kind that our grandparents would have given to our parents: “It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, even if you lose everything, as long as you still have your honor”. Sure. But in our cynical, jaded and largely pedestrian day and age, the idea of honor has no real value except for a sentimental and poetic one. Today, everyone is pretty much expecting everyone else to exercise this virtue selectively, conditionally and rarely, save perhaps for our own close friends and family (and even that’s often bitterly regretted). 

Of course, there still are

I hope you will enjoy my latest interview with Maneco64.

[embedded content]
Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

Part II of II

To be fair, it is true, this time is different. Indeed, this time the rescue plan for the bust banks is not comparable to what we saw in 2008. In the US, the guarantee for deposits up to $250.000 comes from funds that are maintained by participating banks and not from the taxpayer. The official answer to how they’re going to pay everyone back is also plausible and possible: Some, or even most, of the money can and will be recovered from winding down the failed bank’s operations and selling assets. And if all that is still not enough, then the Fed can basically just print some money to cover the difference. Obviously, that could be construed as ultimately costly to the taxpayer, due to the inflationary impact it would have. However, realistically, that impact would

Part I of II

The recent turmoil that has roiled the global banking sector has placed central bankers in an impossible position: Cut rates and avert a domino-style disaster in the industry and a possible deep and prolonged recession in the wider economy or stay the hiking course to combat the still untamed inflationary pressures? Arguably the great losers in both cases will be the taxpayers and the average working household. 

The recent turmoil in the banking sector, both in the US and in Europe has captured public attention and understandably so. The lessons learned in 2008 are still crystal clear in the minds of many people (especially those who were directly affected) and the mere prospect of a repeat of that experience is truly unconscionable. 

When news that the Silicon

I’ve written extensively over the past years about the rise of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and all the terrible dangers it entailed from its very birth, not just for our economies, but for our societies too. Although it captured media interest and monopolized a lot of “expert” debates at the time, one wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it was merely a “flash in the pan”, just another crazy idea that the establishment entertained for a while to appease the most left-leaning elements in their ranks, but one that thankfully, quickly fizzled out. 

Indeed, it’s been a long time since we saw any mention of it in the mainstream financial press. Most likely, the unsuspecting news consumer would reason, it just fell out of favor, it was simply too ridiculous to try and seriously defend.

In a recent conference, the EU’s Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, gave a dire warning: “We have a shrinking workforce all across Europe, all countries are losing their workforce.” Indeed, in just 10 years, the EU lost 5 million people in the working-age population, as the most recent report on demographic change by the Commission showed. The report revealed other interesting data and trends too. For example, it showed that over a third of all households in Europe consist of one adult person, with or without children, and those are increasingly people aged 65 or over, while households composed of a couple with or without children declined.

The Commission blamed all kinds of factors for the squeeze, from covid to Brexit, and identified many dangers ahead

Switzerland’s long-standing and well-deserved reputation as one of the last bastions of individual and financial liberty has been recently vindicated and reaffirmed. It was a much-needed boost of confidence for Swiss citizens like myself who had come to worry over the last years whether the governmental trespasses of our neighboring nations and the way they rule their people might one day come to influence or even corrupt our own system of governance and our way of life. This development, especially considering the present geopolitical pressures and threats, served to renew faith in our small alpine nation, not just my own and that of many of my fellow countrymen, but also that of countless international investors who have chosen this jurisdiction precisely because of its history and

I’ve written countless articles on the topic of central planning and its failures, practical, economic, political and moral. In some cases, the arrogance of the central planners results in real devastation, often in actual loss of life and property, and the price for their mistakes is paid by not just the people they directly hurt but even by the generations to come. 

In other cases, their blind ego and their unshakable belief that they can do no wrong, for they know better than anyone else, alive or dead, just results in comical blunders. Stupid policies to rectify stupid non-problems that nobody really cares about frequently backfire and make the original non-problem worse. Nobody gets hurt in the process. Sure, taxpayers get to pay for all these blunders and they keep paying the

I truly enjoyed the conversation with Hrvoje Morić. I hope you will enjoy it 2.

Happy Weekend!

In liberty,

Claudio

Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

Interview with Laurent Halmos

For most die-hard physical gold investors and students of history like myself and most of my readers and clients, technical analysis is often seen as a bit of a taboo, or at best something irrelevant to our worldview and investment approach. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the old saying about politics, just because you are not interested in the charts doesn’t mean that the charts are not interested in you. 

I met Laurent Halmos in the summer of 2020 when he fled to Switzerland with his family in search of more freedom. He was shocked that he had previously been imprisoned for months in Panama with his family and that they were only allowed to leave their apartment for 3 hours a week. Today, he lives with his family in the south of Switzerland and feels

Don’t miss my latest talk with my “political incorrect” friend Jeremy on TNT Radio – about the World Economic Muppet-Show called WEF and much more

Click on the below link, to listen to the show.

https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/claudio-grass-on-jerm-warfare-with-jeremy-nell-24-january-2023/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

Part II of II by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland

The blame game 

As we know from every crisis in human history, and especially the more recent ones, the most important item on any politician’s agenda is to find someone else to blame for it. It can be a foreign foe in the form of a hostile state, it can be an “enemy within”, usually long-standing political opponents and their supporters, or it can even be some invisible villain like a virus. To the politician, it doesn’t make a huge difference; they care not who and what is seen as the evil-doer, as long as they don’t have to take any responsibility for any of their decisions, their weakness, their greed and their ambition and various other failings and incompetencies.

For the body politic, however, it does make a

The middle class in the West has been shrinking for years, but after the covid crisis and especially after the inflation explosion, whatever was left of it is now basically under threat of extinction. This has immense sociopolitical implications.

Division, friction and polarization have been on the rise in the West for at least a decade, but the escalation we saw during the “covid years” was especially worrying. Over the last year, this “worry” has become a truly pressing concern, even a real emergency one might argue, as inflationary pressures and an actual war were added to the mix of political and social tensions.  

Even though what we saw during the height of the pandemic was shocking enough for most people, what we saw during 2022 was arguably even more astonishing. During the lockdowns and quarantines and the forced business shutdowns, the sheer number of all the rights and freedoms that were coercively “suspended”, as though that’s a thing one can do with true liberty, left so many fellow citizens in disbelief. However, what many people found even more horrifying was the way it was seemingly all forgotten in mere months. 

In the beginning of the year that is almost behind us, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took center stage – and justifiably so, it was the definition of “breaking news” after all. But, the thing is, the conflict never left the front pages. Weeks and months passed by, and it

While monetary authorities and progressives would like to have a digital currency implemented, it is a backward step for monetary freedom.

Original Article: "And So It Begins: Digital Currency Becomes Possible in our Future"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

I had the pleasure to have a conversation with Jerm about left and right, the logic of political correctness, Western Civilization and Christmas.I hope you like it.

click on the link below to listen to it

https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/claudio-grass-on-jerm-warfare-with-jeremy-nell-23-december-2022/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

What physical precious metals investors can expect 2023 and beyond

Throughout the better part of 2022 there has been one question that has consistently, and predictably, popped up in conversations with my friends, clients and readers. Those who know me and are familiar with my ideas are well aware of my position on precious metals and the multiple roles they serve, so I can’t blame them for them for being curious whether I still “stick to my guns” in this era of irrationality in the markets and the economy. Especially for those not versed in monetary history, which is regrettably the vast majority of the population, it is natural to wonder: “If gold is such a great hedge against inflation, why hasn’t it skyrocketed now that inflation is finally here?”. 

Well, there are a couple

In mid-November, while the whole world was focused on the Ukraine crisis, the US midterms or whatever other “big story” the media decided was more important, a truly momentous shift took place in the global financial system. It might seem like a small step on the surface, but it has the potential to bring about a real and possibly irreversible sea change in the way we use money; or better said, the way it uses us.

In mid-November, while the whole world was focused on the Ukraine crisis, the US midterms or whatever other “big story” the media decided was more important, a truly momentous shift took place in the global financial system. It might seem like a small step on the surface, but it has the potential to bring about a real and possibly irreversible sea change in the way we use money; or better said, the way it uses us. 

As Reuters reported on the 15th of November, “Global banking giants are starting a 12-week digital dollar pilot with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Citigroup Inc , HSBC Holdings Pl,  Mastercard Inc and Wells Fargo & Co are among the financial companies participating in the experiment alongside the New York Fed’s innovation center, they said in a statement. The

A practical roadmap to reclaiming individual and financial sovereignty – Part II of II

Essential ingredients

There have always been people with a passion for liberty. Since the earliest historical records, we can find questioners, dissenters, “trouble makers”, contrarians and all kinds of free and inquisitive minds. In this day and age, however, technology has played a decisive role in the influence they can have. Sure, the “bad guys” might be taking advantage of all the latest innovations for their nefarious goals and their devious plans. But the “good guys” have also massively benefitted. 

For one thing, over the last decade, it has become extremely easy to find, engage with, learn from and debate with like-minded people. Too many of us take this for granted, but if you

A practical roadmap to reclaiming individual and financial sovereignty – Part I of II

Those who are familiar with my ideas and my writings undoubtedly know that one the issues I’m most passionate about is individual freedom, on all levels. I believe that free-thinking people know what’s best of them and they need no “guardians”, no “nannies” and certainly no bailiffs and enforcers, to limit or to dictate their choices “for their own good”. As long as those choices cause no harm or damage to nobody else and they violate no property that isn’t theirs, all that should govern the individual’s choices is their own conscience. 

However, today’s “leaders”, in politics and in the corporate world alike, clearly think otherwise. They view humans as fundamentally flawed, as eternal

Https://www.regentreff.de/vortrag-dezember-2022/

Vortrag von Claudio Grass am Samstag, 17. Dezember 2022 in Regen

Der «Great Reset»

und was es wirklich bedeutet

Claudio Grass stellt die  «geistigen Täter» der heutigen Gesellschafts- und Systemkrise vor und erklärt, was hinter dem Schlachtruf «der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen» steckt. Er beleuchtet die Geschichte des Geldes und des heutigen Bankensystems. Was bedeutet Inflation und wer ist dafür verantwortlich? Wir besprechen die künstlich aufgeblähten Finanzmärkte und die toxische Rolle der Zentralbanken. Das Ziel ist, den Zuschauern aufzuzeigen, warum wir uns bereits in einer globalen Weltwirtschaftskrise befinden und wie sich der Einzelne davor schützen kann.

Der Referent:

Claudio Grass aus der Schweiz ist

To many of us, no matter how well versed in history, in political affairs or in socioeconomic issues, the present conditions in the West, and especially in Europe, can sometimes seem like the plot of a bad movie. It is often said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme, and what we’re seeing today is a great example of that.

Claudio begins his discussion with the pandemic, the people are waking up and they are now seeing that the criminals lied to them. The war is a show and as the economy implodes on itself the people understand that its not Putin fault, it is the criminal politicians that are causing the problem. Claudio says that more and more people are waking up.

It can be argued that the world has reach the sorry state it’s in today largely because academics, politicians and “distinguished experts” or “recognized authorities” did not have the humility to admit their own mistakes, or to at least recognize the limits of their knowledge. Of course, this is far from a new affliction in our societies and political systems. Hubris was one among the most terrible sins that the ancient Greeks warned against and there have been too many narcissists in positions of power to count, since the emergence of the first organized society. People who believe they know best, not just for themselves, but everyone else too, are naturally attracted to roles that would allow them to impose their will, their morality and their values on their neighbor. 

However,

In today’s world, dominated as it is by the ephemeral, the superficial, and the inconsequential, it can be hard for a rational, dispassionate observer to make sense of what is going on—politically, socially, economically, and philosophically.

Interview with Godfrey Bloom: Part II of II (click on this link for Part I)

Claudio Grass (CG): With everything that’s been going on, it could be argued that very few of Liz Truss’s predecessors had worse luck in their first month in office. The Queen’s death dominated international mainstream media for weeks and it reignited a lot of old debates about Britain’s past and about the monarchy itself. What is your own view on the monarchy? Is it just a useless relic and a burden on the taxpayer? 

Godfrey Bloom (GB): The death of Her Majesty was neither unexpected nor, obviously, unprecedented. The funeral and period of mourning showed the deep-rooted strength of the monarchy and it certainly didn’t trigger any republican feeling in Britain. Remember we had a civil war in the 1600s,

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 entirely unmentioned. 

By Claudio Grass, Hünenberg, Switzerland

It will come as no surprise to friends and regular readers that I hold but a handful of contemporary intellects in high esteem, given the present Zeitgeist, the current state of state education and the level of public discourse. It will be even less surprising that Fernando del Pino Calvo-Sotelo is one of them. He is a free and independent thinker, whose original, unshackled and unadulterated ideas I have often found inspiring and stimulating, and whose writings have long served as food for thought and for enlightened debates that always leave those who engage in them wealthier in spirit once over, or at the very least, more curious than before.

The analysis that follows, entitled “The decline of Reason in the West”, which I urge you to

Interview with Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

In today’s world, dominated as it is by the ephemeral, the superficial and the inconsequential, it can be hard for a rational, dispassionate observer to make sense of what is going on – politically, socially, economically and philosophically.

It is that last aspect that gets the least “oxygen” in mainstream media, in public education and in pretty much all debates and disagreements we grapple with as a society. Perhaps the very discipline of Philosophy, academically speaking, has grown too “foreign” and intimidating for most citizens, or maybe the idea of tackling problems that are greater than or exclusive to ourselves or the “here and now” has tumbled to the very bottom of our list of priorities. Both explanations seem plausible, given

Precious metals analyst and expert Claudio Grass returns to SGT Report to discuss the World Economic Forum and the New World Order.

Click on the below link – the content is too much for YouTube and therefore we have to protect on rumble to avoid the “spin-doctors” from the “Ministry of Truth”.

Enjoy and stay free

Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland

https://rumble.com/v1i6fwx-humanity-rising-destroying-the-nwo-with-truth-claudio-grass.html

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

It’s been a tumultuous couple of months in UK politics. After a troubled time in office, plagued by scandal, internal party frictions and much public embarrassment, Boris Johnson exited the stage leaving behind a big old mess for his successor to clean up. An economy in tatters, inflation at record highs and an energy crisis the likes of which this generation hasn’t seen before. 

It’s a miracle that anyone in the kingdom could be found that would be willing to assume the responsibility of steering this particular Titanic back to safety, after it has evidently hit the iceberg already. Or at least that’s what any rational human would think, any one of us who is not afflicted by the narcissism required to embark on a political career in the first place. As it turned out, there were

As the citizens of the Eurozone and the UK are increasingly struggling to make ends meet due to record levels of inflation, and as the winter draws closer, a serious cost of living crisis is set to spiral out of control. Skyrocketing energy costs, combined with galloping prices for food and other essential goods and services are bound to erase whatever was left of the “middle class”.

I’m back from Geneva where, among other things, I briefly visited the headquarter of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to express my appreciation for this organization. Check out my picture :-). In addition I enjoyed a conversation with Jose El Niño – you will find the podcast under the below link.

Claudio Grass, Switzerland

If you want to listen, please click on the following link to the podcast: https://josbcf.substack.com/p/is-switzerland-the-last-beacon-of?utm_source=email#details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

Finally, a victory for the State. Central planners and paper pushers of all stripes are not generally known for their acumen or their ability to recognize and successfully seize opportunities in time. They always tend to lag behind more or less every other member of society: from the innovators and entrepreneurs, to the criminal masterminds, which is why all upstanding citizens still retain a modicum of freedom, but also why we all still have to see any evidence that the State is there to “keep us safe” from bad actors. 

For years, I’ve been following very closely all the relevant updates on the State’s war on cash. I’ve read and written a lot about all the direct and indirect efforts to restrict the citizens’ choices and make sure they shift all their transactions and savings to the digital realm, where they can be better monitored, controlled and if need be, confiscated, by central authorities. 

It would appear that the central planners of the Bank of England have very short or very selective memories. After adopting unprecedented easing measures during the covid crisis and after supporting the government in its efforts to flood the economy with fresh cash during that same period, the central bank has put itself in a particularly unenviable position. 

With inflation soaring and living costs exploding for most consumers and taxpayers, hiking interest rates was the only way forward. However, that decision had a very important downside: it was politically untenable and the effects of it would inevitably soon become extremely unpopular, especially for borrowers. This could have a devastating effect on the housing market, which has been in bubble territory for some time

The Fascist Boogeyman awakes again

The threat of a far-right takeover has been around for at least three decades in Europe and Italy has been one of the best “candidates” for the “beginning of the end” since the last European crisis ten years ago. Back then it was the Lega, led by Salvini, that fueled the scaremongering campaigns of the mainstream press, labeling every conservative policy point as basically pure fascism. Of course, none of those grim scenarios actually materialized and there were essentially no real reforms made, “fascist” or otherwise, while Italy continued its “business as usual” politically and economically. Of course, this entire narrative is based on nothing but absolute nonsense and sensationalism. The “far right” threat is nothing more than the other side of

In the case of Italy, it will take a whole lot more – Part I of II

When the collapse of the Italian government was officially announced, on July 21, many political observers both in Europe and across the rest of the West, were aghast. If Mario Draghi, the central banking messiah of the entire Old World, the man, the legend, the hero who rescued the Eurozone and its precious made up currency from the brink of complete annihilation, failed to govern Italy, then those “crazy Italians” must be completely ungovernable.

For the rest of us however, those few that still respect or even remember the concept of the governed having at least some say over who gets to order them around, the collapse was equally, if not more, surprising for very different reasons: How on earth did it not come

While governments have been assaulting private property rights for many years, they now are ramping up the pressure. Nothing less than our civilization is at stake.

Original Article: "If Government Can Take from One Group, It Can and Will Take from Everyone"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

Part II of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland
“Reverse currency wars”?
Although the parity event may have captured the attention of the mainstream financial press and most western citizens, there’s a much bigger shift that has been going on in the background, which received much less coverage.

Even though the downhill trajectory we’ve seen over the last decades in terms of property rights is bad enough, nothing could have ever prepared us for what the covid-19 crisis would bring. Even those of us who have read enough history to know that there’s really no line that the state will not cross in its fervent pursuit of absolute power were sincerely surprised.

There’s been a flurry of articles, news stories and headlines lately over the developments in the FOREX market, specifically over the moves of the EUR/USD currency pair. As headwinds on all levels, economic, geopolitical and social, got a lot worse in recent months for the Eurozone, the news-breaking, headline-dominating “parity” event finally came about, with the euro even breaking below parity on July 13, and it seems to have captivated global mainstream attention – for all the wrong reasons. 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to argue that private property rights, as understood by classic liberal thinkers, by those who embrace Austrian economic theory, and by all members of an enlightened society, are not only the cornerstone, but also the last defense of human civilization and the Western way of life in particular.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

An astonishing acceleration Even though the downhill trajectory we saw over the last decades in terms of property rights was bad enough, nothing could have ever prepared us for what the covid crisis would bring.

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg, Switzerland. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to argue that private property rights, as understood by classic liberal thinkers, by those who embrace Austrian economic theory and by all member of an enlightened society, are not only the cornerstone, but also the last defense of human civilization and the Western way of life in particular.

This not the first time that Václav Klaus’ astute observations and experience-based predictions turn out to be shockingly accurate years later, and I’m pretty confident it will not be the last. Even before the examples that follow and that he clearly laid out in his address at the Marmara Forum, the former President of the Czech Republic has repeatedly proven to be quite prophetic in his assessment of the future. 

The great Ludwig von Mises first described the concept of a crack-up boom as part of the Austrian business cycle theory, based on real life events that to an unsuspecting bystander might have appeared unconnected, or perhaps even quite bizarre and counterintuitive. Indeed, such a bystander might think the same of today’s economy and would likely have trouble making sense of the picture painted by stock markets, by our monetary and fiscal policies and their inflationary impact and by metrics reflecting the financial state of the average household. 

They each tell a different story and it can be hard to discern which is the right one. In fact, they’re all right, in a way. As von Mises aptly observed, it’s not different stories we’re seeing at all; it’s all the same story but from

After months of consumer price increases and after countless working households found themselves in dire financial straits struggling to make ends meet, in the late May, President Biden finally revealed his grand plan to fight inflation in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. The much-anticipated response to the cost of living crisis that has been ravaging the nation sadly did not contain the silver bullet that so many Americans were hoping for. Instead, it consisted of obvious observations and a recipe for “business as usual”.

Not to get mired in too much detail, the plan essentially was threefold: letting the Fed do what it’s already doing, interfering with the free market even more to force prices down in things like housing and prescription drugs and reducing the federal

Interview with Bob Moriarty

As I mentioned many times before, trying to accurately forecast economic events or to “time the market” is a fool’s errand. To the chagrin of all central planners, mainstream analysts and all kinds of “experts”, the economy is a vastly complex, living organism, with too many parameters and too many moving parts to make it predictable or tamable. 

That being said, understanding monetary and geopolitical history certainly helps spot larger patterns and cycles. That’s because even though history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly does rhyme. This is especially true now. A lot of what we witnessed over the last two years was indeed unprecedented, but the patterns we saw unfold were not. Panicked reactions by central planners doing more harm than good,

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part II of II

Claudio Grass (CG): A lot people still consider it safer to go with a huge, established corporation, thinking these solutions would be more reliable and robust, especially for business applications. What is your take on this view?

Bernd Rodler (BR): This is a perfectly understandable view, at least from the standpoint of a manager applying the „cover your a…“ strategy. Who can blame him if the SAP project fails? Well, they are the market leader. So it can not be his fault. 

On the other hand, I have been in the IT business for more than 20 years now and during that time, many large, even world leading corporations like Enron, WorldCom and Yahoo collapsed or merged or fell apart. And I don‘t want to even think about all the products

Interview with Bernd Rodler – Part I of II

Those who know me and who have read my writings before will be very well aware of how important the topic of decentralization is to me and to my way of looking at the world, at our societies and our economies. I truly believe that there is no future to be had, at least not one that respects human dignity, should we continue down this same path of top-down control, mindless conformity and blind obedience to technocrats, bureaucrats and career politicians. Free competition, of goods and of ideas, free speech and free choices are the way forward. 

While a lot of people might agree with these principles in theory, only a few are prepared to and capable of making inroads in that direction in practice. This is why I was so happy to have the

Part II of II

The big picture here is clear and it is essential to understand that it represents a very significant paradigm shift. Whether it is online or offline, whether it is through a mobile app, an exchange or even through physical contracts, ownership titles to gold holdings keep changing hands. And thus, no matter the vehicle that is used to facilitate these transactions, the fact of the matter is that it acts as a gold-backed currency. This alone is remarkable: After eons of having to put up with fiat money, with all our other choices effectively and forcefully removed by decree, an increasing number of people is now once again reclaiming their right to execute voluntary trades with their peers, using what they understand to be real money. 

What’s even more striking

Part I of II

For decades, physical gold investors have had to contend with superficial, naive and wholly ahistorical “arguments” from the mainstream financial press, from economists and experts of all stripes, claiming that gold is nothing but a barbarous relic. To them, the yellow metal is akin to investment superstition. It has no yield, it serves no practical purpose and the only attraction they could conceive of is merely symbolic, or perhaps, political. Thus, who in their right mind would “imprison” their perfectly good and functional fiat money in a gold bar, and then just let it gather dust in a vault for a decade or two? Well, it might have taken a little longer than many of us expected, but now we have an answer that even the most ignorant and unread of mainstream gamblers

Over the last two years, we’ve all witnessed state abuses of power and extreme overreaches the likes of which many average citizens had never imagined they’d see in their own lifetimes. This caused a great part of the body politic in many Western nations to revisit their previously held beliefs about what is and isn’t possible for their governments to do and to question whether there really is such a thing as going “too far” or whether anyone in the political class is subject to the same rules as them. 

For the majority, this was a lesson learned the hard way and a very surprising one at that. But even for those of us who understand the lessons of history and who never harbored any delusions about the nature of the State and the character of anyone who claims to know what’s best

It is undeniable that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine has polarized Western societies to an extent unseen in decades in any other foreign conflict. For over a month, we have been bombarded unceasingly by all mainstream media sources with reports and stories about Russia’s invasion and this conflict has already created deep social rifts in many other nations, and EU members in particular.

Every time we hear government officials announce their big spending plans, their new welfare programs and their ambitious “job creating” schemes, they always present them as being in defense of the poorest and the most marginalized members of our societies. In coordination with their central bankers, they print and spend new money at will, claiming that it is all for the benefit of the weakest among us and that all the freshly created funds will support them without further burdening the taxpayer. According to them, this is the best way to prosperity and its a simple one, really: if we want to help those that don’t have enough money, why don’t we just print some and give it to them?

While the fallacy in this line of “reasoning” might be obvious even to a child, it still escapes

I realize that I shouldn’t be surprised at the way the crisis in Ukraine has divided our societies or at the blind fanaticism the conversations around it have provoked. After all, virtually every other development of consequence has tuned out exactly the same. From covid to the economy and from freedom of speech to science itself, rational, respectful and productive debates are nowhere to be found.

Over the last couple of years we witnessed quite an extraordinary ride in gold prices. An impressive ascent until the last quarter of 2020 was followed by a pullback that scared many speculators away, which in turn transformed into a period of strength and then came another ebb… And recently, once again, we saw the yellow metal shoot up, fueled by inflation fears and the situation in Ukraine. Given that the fundamentals remain unchanged and that the only way is up for gold, another short-lived consolidation is to be expected, before a much bigger leg up, and on and on it goes. For those focusing on the short-term price moves, trying to make a buck off a 2% fluctuation from today to tomorrow, I’m sure these patterns are fascinating. But for those of us who have a time horizon that

One quick glance at different news headlines or just 5’ switching between TV networks suffice to convince even the most naive news consumer that there is something seriously wrong with the way public discourse was (d)evolved in our societies over the last years. Of course, journalism was never entirely devoid of bias, not even in its “golden age”.

Astrid Stuckelberger and Claudio Grass have been on my podcast before.

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 big picture perspective. 

As we are all preparing to bid farewell to 2021, there is a general feeling that this year, much like its predecessor, will not be missed. To my mind, however, it is clear that even though the past 12 months didn’t really teach us anything new, they did help cement the lessons of 2020 and spread important ideas to people who might otherwise have never come to question anything about the status quo.

Of course, one of the most important and consequential parts of the incredibly complex organism that is the economy is money itself. It is its lifeblood and as the song goes, “it makes the world go round”. Therefore, manipulating the currency itself is one the most dangerous and hubristic things a central planner can do, which probably explains why it’s their favorite pastime.

Almost two decades ago, German economist Horst Siebert coined the term the “Cobra effect” to describe the real-world consequences of “well-intentioned” government interventions that go awry and produce the exact opposite results from what they aim for.

Many rational economists and students of history have written countless analyses on the gold standard and the terrible impact that its end has had on the world economy. However, as the Fall of Rome clearly demonstrates, the implications of the introduction of the fiat money system and of the limitless manipulation of the currency by the State reach much further.

President Nixon’s unilateral decision to sever the last link between the dollar and gold had wide ranging and long lasting consequences for the global economy and for the entire monetary system. The end of sound money facilitated and accelerated the concentration of power at the top and the ability to manipulate the currency allowed politicians and central planners to further expand the state’s reach and push ahead with populist, reckless and wasteful policies.

It’s no secret that governments and central planners of all stripes have long detested the rise of private money and independent digital currencies. They have tried to stifle the burgeoning crypto industry from the moment it attracted mainstream attention. For years, they have continued to add regulatory hurdles and threaten crypto holders and investors, as well as companies in this space, with unreasonable tax burdens and unrealistic disclosure requirements that come with hefty fines. 

Part II of II by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland

Case in point: Silver “apes” 

One of the most astounding elements of this shift in retail investing is the proof it offers for what many of us knew along: When people can freely and directly vote with their wallets and put their money where their mouth is, one gets a much clearer picture of what the public, the market or any other large group really thinks and really wants. In this case, we first saw the wrath against hedge funds, banks and institutional investors manifest itself through the so-called “meme stocks” and short squeezes. 

Countless small amateur investors came together online and coordinated voluntarily, without any force and with their own money at stake. They targeted specific stocks that had

2020 certainly was a year of a lot of “firsts”, most them extremely destructive to the economy, to our societies and to our everyday lives. However, there were a few positive developments too, among them being the fact that it was the year that ordinary people discovered and entered financial markets. 

Claudio begins his discussion with him taking a trip from Switzerland to Spain. On his travels he realized that the borders are open for cars and people were not asked for proof of vaccination. The people will begin to come together when they cannot function in everyday life because of inflation. People will look for decentralization because the globalist system does not work for the people.  Freedom is not free you have to fight for it.

A lot of people might be aware of historical cases of hyperinflation, like that of Hungary and the Weimar Republic, or even contemporary ones, like that of Venezuela. And yet, these are taught or reported like extreme cases, very far removed from the daily experience of most modern Western citizens.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been seeing more and more mainstream headlines about inflation fears being on the rise, both in the US and in Europe. Central bankers on both sides of the Atlantic have been doing their best to assuage these concerns, promising that they have everything under control and that the situation will without a doubt normalize soon.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been constantly bombarded by news reports and “expert” analyses celebrating an incredible global economic recovery. They’re not even presented as projections or expectations anymore, but as a fact, as though the return to vibrant growth is already underway.

As we enter the second quarter of 2021, the year during which so many mainstream analysts and politicians have predicted we’ll see a miraculous recovery from the covid crisis, it is becoming increasingly clear that the damage inflicted by the lockdowns and the shutdowns is really very extensive an persistent. Of course, I’m referring to the damage to the real economy, that is, to actual businesses, households and the countless citizens that were rendered unemployed.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been witnessing a historic surge in the Bitcoin price, a seemingly unstoppable ride that the mainstream media headlines can hardly keep up with. Especially following the news that Elon Musks’ Tesla bought $1.5 in the cryptocurrency, sending it to new record highs, most of the media coverage appears to be focused on all the wrong things.

After a year of lockdowns, social isolation, financial uncertainty and extreme political polarization, a lot of people are finding it very difficult to remain optimistic and to see a way back to some kind of normalcy. While the economic, social and political impact of the covid crisis can be easily identified and frequently discussed, the unseen, psychological pressures that millions of people are struggling with often go undiscussed.

A lot has been said and written about the impact of the Covid crisis on the global economy and on the prospects of a strong recovery in 2021. Especially since the start of the year, there seems to be a consensus among government officials, institutional leaders and mainstream market analysts and pundits, pointing to an extremely positive outlook.

INTERVIEW WITH H.S.H. PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN – Part II of II

Claudio Grass (CG): Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve witnessed extreme efforts to increase top-down control and to centralize power in ways that affect almost all aspects of a citizen’s life. Do you expect that this can all be reversed once the crisis is over, or has the Rubicon been crossed? 

HSH Prince Michael of Liechtenstein (PM): I still hope, but I am not very confident, that the Rubicon has not already been crossed. Power is a drug and a technocracy that receives power will be reluctant to relinquish it. The current situation has shown that, due to fear and uncertainty, measures are being accepted that limit individual freedom. Of course, it must be appreciated that governments strive to protect

INTERVIEW WITH H.S.H. PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN – Part I of II

As we’re preparing to leave 2020 behind, a year that will most likely feature prominently in future history books, it is hard to look back on all that has happened without a sense of apprehension and uncertainty over what lies ahead. A lot has changed, economically, socially and politically, and those changes and challenges are unlikely to subside in the year to come. Whether they have paved the way for a darker future or whether they might instead act as powerful catalysts for positive shifts towards more decentralization and more individual freedom, is the greatest question before us now. 

To help me answer it, I turned to H.S.H. Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, a man whose intellect, experiences and sharp

On the last Sunday of November the Swiss citizens once again rejected efforts staged by left-leaning groups and NGOs to chip away at the nation’s long tradition of free enterprise, respect for private property and financial freedom. Two important proposals were brought before the Swiss people in a set of referendums, both targeting private companies and attempting to place unprecedented burdens, threatening their ability to operate freely and profitably.

The 2020 election was a roller coaster experience for both sides and for all International observers who understood its massive economic and geopolitical implications for the rest of the West.

As the long-awaited “second wave” of the corona pandemic sweeps through Europe, another round of severe restrictions, travel bans and rules that prevent the proper function of international business and trade threatens to once again disrupt all kinds of sectors, including the gold industry. 

Rafi Farber, pen name Austrolib, is the publisher of The End Game Investor, a daily market commentary written from an Austrian economics perspective focusing on precious metals, the Comex, and monetary analysis. His work is followed by leaders in the precious metals industry including Eric Sprott. He also writes a weekly column on the gaming industry at CalvinAyre.

By now it is probably obvious, even to the most naive of mainstream narrative followers, that we are well past the point of no return on many fronts. Politics, on a national and global level, are never getting back to “normal”, the economy is already knee-deep in a severe recession, while social frictions and public discontent with governments, institutions and all kinds of rulers and central planners is on a sharp and dangerous trajectory. 

Claudio Grass (CG): This crisis has shaken a lot of industries and core functions of the global economy and international trade. How do you assess its impact on the most important part of the machine, the banking system? Do you see risks there that investors should be worrying about?

We’re less than two weeks away from the US election, and yet this sense of utter confusion, bitter political conflict, and economic uncertainty that has been ominously hovering over the nation, as well as the rest of the world, doesn’t seem to have subsided.

Outlook and wider impact. As showcased during the debates and in the entire campaign rhetoric, politicians in the US but also in Europe, are solely focused on promoting solutions that only serve to paper over the problems and address the symptoms of the disease.

As [D] Mayor de Blasio shuts down schools and restaurants in NYC yet AGAIN, and as cops in Australia arrest women on beaches for traveling outside of 5 KM from their homes, it’s clear that tyrants around the world are openly waging war against their own people. Claudio Grass joins me to discuss.

“The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.

In this surreal policy environment, how has the role and the investment process of the value investor evolved, especially over the last decade?  How can one still identify value in a world of subsidized binge borrowing, extreme indebtedness, and stock buybacks? 

As we move deeper and deeper into this covid crisis, more and more people understand that there’s a lot more to fear besides the disease itself. As the economic impact and the full scale of the damage caused by the lockdowns and the shutdowns become undeniable, there are too many questions lacking any sort of convincing answer and the future for so many employees, business owners, investors and ordinary savers seems bleak and uncertain.

Looking at the damage inflicted upon supply chains, production facilities and global trade in particular, how quickly could these operations snap back even if all COVID-related restrictions were lifted tomorrow? Do you think we’ll eventually get back to business as usual, or have we now experienced a permanent shift to a “new normal”?

While the economic forces that drive this rush to precious metals are clearly understandable, there are other, deeper and less obvious factors that must also be taken into account. This “fear of uncertainty”, which pushes demand for gold higher as it has done so many times in the past, is different this time.

After intense negotiations, long days and nights of clashes and a distinctly sour note underlying the entire summit, European Union leaders finally agreed on an unprecedented 1.82 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and COVID recovery package.

Following the publication of our last conversation with Jayant Bhandari, I received a lot of interesting feedback and remarks. The common denominator of all those comments was the astonishment of many Western readers at the real conditions and dynamics on the ground in India.

If we choose to break the state monopoly of money and allow private digital currencies to compete, a myriad of different solutions will emerge to serve a myriad of different needs.

As the dust is now begging to settle, both from the heights of the COVID panic and from the riots that shook the western world, we are starting to get an idea about where we stand after this unprecedented and tumultuous time.

The corona crisis has already taken a very high toll and caused deep damage in our societies and our economies, the extent of which is yet to become apparent. We have seen its impact on productivity, on unemployment, on social cohesion and on political division. However, there is another very worrying trend that has been accelerated under the veil of fear and confusion that the pandemic has spread.

Claudio Grass (CG): Overall, apart from the obvious economic consequences of the crisis, do you also see geopolitical and social ones, on a wider scale? Given all these “moving parts”, from the upcoming US election and internal frictions in the EU to the Hong Kong tensions and the rising public discontent in Latin America, where do expect the chips to fall once this is over? 

The digital “toll” It doesn’t require too dark an imagination to realize the gravity of the concerns over the digital yuan. China is a true pioneer when it comes surveillance, censorship and political oppression and the digital age has given an incredibly efficient and effective arsenal to the state. Adding money to that toolkit was a move that was planned for many years and it is abundantly clear how useful a tool it can be for any totalitarian regime.

The Václav Klaus Institute urging the Czech Government to reject the dangerous Ursula von der Leyen´s plan. It is rather rare that I share articles on my channel that are not from my own pen. The following article is therefore an exception and for good reason. It is written by none other than the former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus, with whom I have a long-standing relationship, based on great respect and many shared values.

Since the beginning of the year, the corona crisis has monopolized news coverage to the extent that a lot of very important stories and developments either went underreported or were ignored altogether. One such example was the very surprising ruling that came out of the German Constitutional Court in early May, which challenged the actions and remit of the European Central Bank (ECB).

“I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretense of exact knowledge that is likely to be false.” Friedrich August von Hayek

A high German court recently ruled that the European Central Bank has overstepped the bounds of its power. The angry response from high-ranking European bureaucrats tells us a lot about what they want for the EU.

This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Millian Quinteros.
Original Article: “The German Court’s Unexpected Blow to the ECB”

Since the beginning of the year, the corona crisis has come to monopolize the news coverage to the extent that a lot of very important stories and developments either went underreported or were ignored altogether. One such example was the very surprising ruling out of the German Constitutional Court in early May, that challenged the actions and remit of the ECB.

Interview with Robert Hartmann, Co-Owner ProAurum, Over the last couple of months, we’ve witnessed unprecedented changes in the global economy, in the markets and in our societies. The corona crisis and the governmental measures that were introduced had a dramatic and direct effect on all of us, as investors and as citizens. 

As we get deeper into this crisis and we get used to our “new normal”, it’s easy to focus on the daily corona-horror stories in the media or the latest shocking unemployment numbers, and lose track of the bigger picture and of what is really, fundamentally important. Even as the lockdown measures begin to get phased out, the scale of the economic damage is unimaginable and the idea of returning to “business as usual” is no longer tenable.

My latest interview about Corona, Liberty, Private Property, Authoritarism, and a fear-mongering global media campaign, which I call borderline criminal

[embedded content]

There have been moments in recent months when many gold owners, myself included, have asked themselves whether gold might have lost its safe haven status, at least in the western world. Was it enough for two generations, who grew up in a paper money system, to forget the history and the 5000-year-old status of gold as real money? 

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” -Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010. Only a couple of weeks ago, if anyone told you that your entire country would be basically shutting down, that events and public gatherings would be outlawed, that you’d be looking at empty shelves in your local supermarket and that the global stock market would be on the brink of collapse, you’d never have believed them.

Modern monetary theory, or MMT, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and that therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist Michael Kalecki (1899–1970).

On December 12, Christine Lagarde introduced her goals and vision in her first rate-setting meeting as the new president of the European Central Bank (ECB). On the actual policy front, there were no surprises. She remained committed to the path set by her predecessor, Mario Draghi, and kept the current monetary stimulus unchanged.

Modern Monetary Theory, or “MMT”, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist, Michael Kalecki (1899 – 1970). 

Claudio Grass (CG): Looking at the interest rate policy of the last years, it would seem that central banks are backed into a corner. They cannot hike borrowing costs without risking a domino effect, as both government and corporate debt have reached record highs, encouraged by the central banks’ own NIRP and ZIRP policies. In your view, is there a “safe” way out of this vicious circle?

As we embark on this new decade, there are plenty of good reasons to be optimistic about gold’s prospects. The global economy and the financial system are already stretched to a breaking point and demand for precious metals is heating up. This, of course, is plain for all to see, even as mainstream investors and analysts still refuse to face facts and prefer to focus on naïve hopes of an eternal expansion.

Menschen werden durch unterschiedliche Motive angetrieben. Die einen sehen das höchste Glück in der Ansammlung von materiellen Werten, und andere sind von geistigen Werten angetrieben. Eine Idee kann genauso wie eine Rolex Glücksgefühle und Ansporn auslösen. Mich persönliche treiben Ideen an.

Over the last few months, gold’s performance has been remarkable. Many market observers and mainstream analysts have pointed to various geopolitical developments in their efforts to explain away the bullishness as a reaction to whatever happens to be in the headlines at the time.

I have long been fascinated by the far-reaching consequences and the great potential of the wave of new technologies and ideas that emerged with the crypto revolution. While most of us first came into contact with these concepts in 2017, this tectonic shift that is only just beginning has been in the making for nearly a decade. Now, we begin to see the basic ideas and tools take shape and give rise to endless exciting possibilities that can affect multiple sectors.

On December 12, Christine Lagarde introduced her goals and vision in her first rate-setting meeting as the new President of the ECB. On the actual policy front, there were no surprises. She remained committed to the path set by her predecessor, Mario Draghi, and kept the current monetary stimulus unchanged.

When I was asked to write an article about the impact of negative interest rates and negative yielding bonds, I thought it was a chance to look at the topic from a broader perspective. There have been lots of articles speculating about the possible implications and focusing on their impact in the short run, but it’s not very often that an analysis looks a bit further into the future, trying to connect money and its effect on society itself.

While I have reportedly highlighted the many risks of the current monetary policy direction and the multiple distortions that it has created in the markets, in the economy, and even in society, one of the most pressing dangers of the unnaturally low rates and cheap money is the staggering accumulation of debt. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the ballooning corporate debt, especially in the US.

When I was asked to write an article about the impact of negative interest rates and negative yielding bonds, I thought this is a chance to look at the topic from a broader perspective. There have been lots of articles speculating about the possible implications and focusing on their impact in the short run, but it’s not very often that an analysis looks a bit further into the future, trying to connect money and its effect on society itself. 

Economists, conservative investors and market observers have been issuing stern warnings for years regarding the severe impact of the current monetary policy direction. In a recent statement, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos warned of potential side effects and risks to the economy resulting directly from the central bank’s policies.

There are numerous and wide-ranging reasons why someone may choose to invest in physical precious metals. A deep understanding of monetary history provides plenty of solid arguments, and so do the mounting geopolitical risks, the spiking probability of a recession and the long-term goal of many conservative investors to safeguard their financial self-determination.

“Negative interest rates are unsustainable and once investors decide to stop paying for the privilege of holding government debt, a banking crisis could result, says James Grant.” Returning SBTV guest, Claudio Grass, speaks with us about the unsustainable pensions, crumbling fiat currencies and a looming financial crisis in a world of insane central bank monetary policies.

“The essence of the interventionist policy is to take from one group to give to another. It is confiscation and distribution. “ – Ludwig von Mises, Human Action In less than a year, we have witnessed an unprecedented monetary policy rollercoaster by the Federal Reserve, which began with a momentous U-turn in the central bank’s guidance in January, and has continued to escalate ever since.

Few investors and market observers were really surprised when Mario Draghi announced the ECB’s next massive easing package in mid-September. Cutting rates further into negative territory and the revival of QE were largely expected sooner or later, as the “whatever it takes” outgoing ECB President is now faced with a wide economic slowdown in the Eurozone.

After a remarkable run over the past few months, gold and silver now appear to have entered a period of consolidation. Many speculators and short-term focused investors have sold their positions fearing a correction, while mainstream market commentators fuel these fears, with analyses that proclaim “the end of the road” for gold and silver.

We’ve recently seen a lot of coverage and even more “expert analyses” on the state of the bond market, to the extent that the average investor, or the average citizen for that matter, is likely to be overwhelmed and very confused about what it all means. Experts from the institutional side and defenders of the current monetary direction argue that it is all the result of policy choices, that’s it’s all under control and that we really shouldn’t worry about the extreme phenomena and distortions we now see in the debt markets.

Even with seasoned precious metals investors, it is often the case that platinum gets overlooked, while gold and silver dominate the conversation over which metal affords the best long-term protection of one’s wealth. Nevertheless, platinum has proved to be an excellent store of value, while it also offers a number of interesting advantages as a long-term investment that could play an important part in a conservative and proactive strategy.

The past few months have been an exciting time for gold investors, as the precious metal has seen a spike in demand after serious economic concerns and geopolitical tensions unsettled the markets. Many mainstream analysts have pointed to a number of recent events, from the US-China trade war escalations to the inverted yield curve, to explain the recent gold rally.

After the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy U-turn earlier this year and the central bank’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in a decade, mainstream investors and analysts believe that holding rates lower and for longer will help keep stock markets afloat and the economic expansion alive.

“The intellectual leaders of the peoples have produced and propagated the fallacies which are on the point of destroying liberty and Western civilization.” Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos. It took multiple meetings and over 50 hours of official negotiations for EU leaders to reach an agreement on the appointments for the top jobs of the EU and the ECB, but in mid-July the results finally came in.

Our readers probably realize by now, what a proud Swiss fellow I am, and how I take every possible opportunity to argue how Switzerland presents itself as a role model to achieve radical decentralization and respect for civil liberties. It also assures the right of self-determination in an environment where municipalities, cities or smaller states are in competition with each other and, by doing so, limiting the power of politicians.

An interview with Prof. Angelo M. Codevilla. Following decades of the propagation of a false historical narrative regarding Switzerland’s role during WWII, an entire generation, especially in the West, has grown up with a distorted version of events, based on unfounded and unsubstantiated claims.

June has been an interesting month for gold, as geopolitical events, market fluctuations and developments on the monetary policy front fueled an exciting ride for the precious metal. As long-term investors with a strict focus on the big picture, short-term moves and speculative angles are largely irrelevant in and of themselves, but they do provide important signals that, without fail, confirm the strategic superiority of precious metals holdings in this highly overvalued and artificially inflated investing environment.

Every seasoned gold investor and every student of monetary history has likely stumbled upon various theories about institutional manipulation of the gold market. While it is true that rarely is there smoke without fire, it is still important to approach this matter rationally and form opinions based on sound evidence and solid research.

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.

Interview with Dimitri Speck. Given the massive intervention and monetary manipulation experiment by central banks over the last decade, the amount of distortions created in the market, as well as the record debt accumulation at all levels of the economy, have given rise to considerable risks for investors. For a more detailed understanding of these issues and for his outlook, I turned to Dimitri Speck, a renowned expert in the development of trading systems and in seasonal analysis, whose experience and successful career spans over two decades.

The value of silver and gold is given by their own nature. Neither gold nor silver has value expressed in other units of account. Their value is expressed directly in their own weights. Everything else that is valuable (other assets, commodities, goods, services, or performed labor) is measured against a certain weight of these metals. In other words, the value of gold and silver is assigned by their own nature, while the value of a transaction is measured by the quantity of the metal that changes hands.

In today’s world, it is obvious that the competition of ideas is under serious threat and with it, the much-needed discussions on how to deal with certain topics or try to understand the world we live in. That is particularly worrying, especially when one considers that the western world went through the process of Enlightenment roughly 200 years ago. In the words of Immanuel Kant:

Late last year, Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner in terms of reserves, made headlines when it announced its acquisition of Randgold Resources, in an $18bn mega-merger that marked a key moment for the mining industry. In January, United States gold giant Newmont and principal rival of Barrick, made public its own plans to buy Canada’s Goldcorp, the world’s third-largest bullion producer by market value, for $10 billion.

Overall, under Mr. Draghi’s watch, the ECB’s balance sheet has ballooned to a previously unimaginable scale and aggressive policies like the extensive QE program and negative rates have encouraged the accumulation of debt and heavily distorted market mechanisms.

At the end of January, only a month after the official end of the QE program of the European Central Bank (ECB), its President Mario Draghi told the European Parliament’s committee that the central bank could resume its bond purchasing, in a questionable effort to assuage concerns over the impact of the policy change.

The latest numbers released by China’s statistics bureau fueled widespread concerns about the outlook of the global economy, as the Asian superpower reported its slowest growth rate since 1990. The figures showed a 6.6% growth for 2018, confirming the view that the growth engine of the world economy is running out of steam.

Numbers from Bizarro-World. The past few months have been really challenging for anyone invested in gold or silver; for me personally as well. Despite serious warning signs in the economy, staggering debt levels and a multitude of significant geopolitical threats at play, the rally in risk assets seemed to continue unabated.

Over the last years, Venezuela has become a modern poster child for the failure of socialism and with good reason. It offers an abundance of lessons and stern warnings for many western nations, but it also provides a very insightful and relevant reminder for individual investors too.

Introductory Remarks: The “Anti-Politician” Godfrey Bloom, by PT
Most of our readers will probably remember former UKIP chief whip and European Parliament representative Godfrey Bloom. As far as we know, he is the only politician who ever raised the issue of the workings of the fractionally reserved central bank-directed monetary system in the EU parliament. This system is of course central to the phenomenon of the recurring boom-bust sequences plaguing the global economy.
 
Godfrey Bloom (left) and interviewer Claudio Grass
 

It is also a major means of redistributing wealth from the poor and the middle classes to those who are already rich and own most of the assets likely to appreciate in price due to monetary inflation (an unavoidable side-effect, irrespective of their wishes).

Todd Horwitz is known as Bubba and is chief market strategist of  Bubba Trading.com. He is a regular contributor on Fox, CNBC, BNN, Kitco, and Bloomberg. He also hosts a daily podcast, ‘The Bubba Show.’ He is a 36-year member of the Chicago exchanges and was one of the original market makers in the SPX.

The 2016 U.S. presidential elections are unprecedented: I don’t believe we have ever witnessed before a campaign year so toxic, so dangerously divisive and full of ad hominem attacks. Both camps have vilified the opposition and their followers, creating a schism in society. There has been no rational dialogue on the issues that truly concern the American public.

In early 2016 gold had a big bull run. The precious metal rose close to 25% this year, pushed higher in a summer rally that peaked on July 10th. Gold experienced a bumpy ride over the remainder of the summer though, as investors became increasingly concerned about a potential rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Uncertainty returned to gold market and has intensified further since then.

In recent months, more and more of our clients and friends from overseas are asking us whether it is safe to travel to Europe. These fears are understandable, given the media coverage of the tragic events that occurred this year. The press painted a sinister and truly graphic picture of Europe as a war zone, as a target of global terrorism.

Mounting Resistance Thousands of people recently demonstrated in Brussels against free trade deals negotiated by the EU. This happened just days before a meeting of EU trade ministers in Bratislava last Friday, which was considered the last push to salvage the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the United States.

This summer witnessed a renewed escalation between Russia and Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of sending saboteurs to attack Russian troops, targeting “critical infrastructure”. Kiev denied the allegations and claimed Russia’s “fantasy” was nothing but a false pretense to launch a “new invasion”.

It has been almost eight years since former U.S. President George W. Bush warned the world that “without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.” The government’s response to the crisis was a USD700 billion rescue package that was supposed to prevent U.S. banks from collapsing and encourage them to resume lending, which was soon to be followed by a series of Quantitative Easing (QE) packages injecting money into the economy.

The Brexit referendum has revealed the existence of a deep polarization in British politics. Apart from the public faces of the opposing campaigns, there were however also undisclosed parties with a vested interest which few people have heard about. And yet, they have been instrumental in transforming Great Britain into a State based on the principles of democratic socialism.

Crumbling Stability. In the past few months, we have witnessed a series of defining events in modern political history, with Britain’s vote to exit the EU, (several) terror attacks in France and Germany, as well as the recent attempted military coup in Europe’s backyard, Turkey. Uncertainty over Europe’s political stability and the future of the EU keeps growing.

A Fragile System. Claudio Grass, Global Gold: Ronald, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you. We’ve known each other for a very long time, both on a personal and professional level. Because of our central banks, we find our economies today operating on artificial stimulus and negative interest rates. How would you summarize the consequences of this policy?

The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros. The sooner the better.

Every freedom loving person on the planet has their eyes fixed on this referendum. A clear majority voting for Brexit and therefore for more decentralization, would show that the British realized they can break free from their self-imposed nonage, and reclaim individual liberty.

  Introductory Remarks – About Godfrey Bloom [ed note by PT: Readers may recall our previous presentation of “Godfrey Bloom the Anti-Politician”, which inter alia contains a selection of videos of speeches he gave in the European parliament. Both eru…

Government Intervention is Making Things Worse. Claudio Grass, the CEO of Global Gold, has recently interviewed legendary Swiss fund manager Felix Zulauf.

  Will the Swiss Guarantee CHF 75,000 for Every Family? In early June the Swiss will be called upon to make a historic decision. Switzerland is the first country worldwide to put the idea of an Unconditional Basic Income to a vote and the outcome of …

  What the Establishment Wants, the Establishment Gets If a person has no philosophical thoughts, certain questions will never cross his mind. As a young man, there were many issues and ideas that never concerned me as they do today. There is one que…

  The War on Cash is on! If you are used to making visits to your bank to make your credit card payments, you may find this no longer an option in the future. Some banks are no longer accepting (or limiting their acceptance) of cash deposits. The war…