Tag Archive: Featured

Roadblocks and Opportunities for International Trade in 2021

2020-11-18

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2020-11-18

We see significant upside risk for global trade coming from “top down” forces (such as politics), but at the same time we expect the undercurrent reconfiguring many of the existing relationships to intensify. The “Peak Globalization” narrative (at least regarding trade) is being challenged by hopes of a revival of multilateral cooperation under Biden and the latest Asian trade agreement.

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FX Daily, November 17: Greenback Remains Under Pressure

2020-11-17

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2020-11-17

Overview: Moderna's announcement did not spur nearly the magnitude of the disruption caused by Pfizer's similar announcement a week ago.  Still, in the US, the NASDAQ underperformed the other indices, and the US Dow Industrials saw record highs.

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Six Point Nine Times Two Equals What It Had In Twenty Fourteen

2020-11-17

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2020-11-17

China Industrial Production, 1999-2020
It was a shock, total disbelief given how everyone, and I mean everyone, had penciled China in as the world’s go-to growth engine. If the global economy was ever going to get off the ground again following GFC1 more than a half a decade before, the Chinese had to get back to their precrisis “normal.”

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Don’t Blame Covid: The Economy is Imploding from Over-Capacity and Corrupt Cartels

2020-11-17

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2020-11-17

Now that the bubble has burst, the hope is that removing the pin will magically restore the burst bubble. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Here's the fantasy: if we stop the shutdowns, the economy will naturally bounce back to its oh-so wunnerful perfection of Q3 2019. This is a double-dose of magical thinking and denial.

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Covid, November 16: 198 deaths in Switzerland over weekend as infection rate slows

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

Cases in Schweiz
Over the last 72 hours, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported 198 deaths among laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, bringing the death toll to 1,427 since summer and 3,158 since the beginning of the year.

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FX Daily, November 16: Risk-On Despite Surging Pandemic

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, November 16
Despite the surging pandemic and new restriction measure, risk-appetites appear strong to start the week. Led by 2% gains in the Nikkei and Taiwan's Taiex, all of the Asia Pacific region's equity markets advanced. European markets have followed suit and the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is knocking on last week's eight-month high.

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Drivers for the Week Ahead

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

The virus numbers in the US show no signs of slowing; the dollar should continue to soften. October retail sales Tuesday will be the US data highlight for the week; Fed manufacturing surveys for November will start to roll out; the Senate will hold a procedural vote this week to advance Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Fed Board of Governors.

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Ex-Credit Suisse boss recruited by Rwandan government

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

Tidjane Thiam, who resigned as CEO of Swiss bank Credit Suisse in February, has been tasked with using his connections to build up the Rwandan capital Kigali as an international business location, according to Swiss business newspaper Handelszeitung.

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Will vaccination campaign convince hesitant Swiss?

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

Faced with considerable public scepticism towards a Covid-19 vaccine, the Federal Office of Public Health is preparing an information campaign about vaccinations. However, the country’s top hospital hygienist thinks offering incentives is a better way to make people get a jab.

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Prepare for Winter

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

Realism must precede optimism or the optimism will collapse as the tsunami of reality comes ashore. It's time to prepare materially and psychologically for a winter unlike any other in our lifetimes.

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James Mill: Laissez-Faire’s Lenin

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

[An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995)] James Mill (1771–1836) was surely one of the most fascinating figures in the history of economic thought. And yet he is among the most neglected. Mill was perhaps one of the first persons in modern times who might be considered a true "cadre man," someone who in the Leninist movement of the next century would have been hailed as a "real Bolshevik." Indeed, he...

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Vote November 29: Spotlight on ethical business practices

2020-11-15

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2020-11-15

A proposal to make Swiss-based multinationals accountable for their business practices abroad is tabled for a nationwide vote on November 29. An initiative aimed at restricting investments in the arms industry is the second issue on the ballot sheet. 

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Where Is It, Chairman Powell?

2020-11-15

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2020-11-15

CPI less Food & Energy, 1983-2020
Where is it, Chairman Powell? After spending months deliberately hyping a “flood” of digital money printing, and then unleashing average inflation targeting making Americans believe the central bank will be wickedly irresponsible when it comes to consumer prices, the evidence portrays a very different set of circumstance.

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Here’s What Donald Trump Should Do Before Inauguration Day

2020-11-15

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2020-11-15

Audio Mises Wire
Even if he loses, Donald Trump still has time to change military policy, pardon allies, unseat the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and throw a wrench in the deep state apparatus. Original Article: "Here’s What Donald Trump Should Do Before Inauguration Day​". This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.

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Swiss advance plans to take goods transport underground

2020-11-15

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2020-11-15

Building a 500-km tunnel network to transport goods under Central Switzerland is the ambitious aim of the “Cargo Sous Terrain” project. The vision has moved closer to reality since the Swiss government brought forward enabling legislation last month.

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‘Artificial intelligence won’t replace humans’

2020-11-14

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2020-11-14

Artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining ground in our societies, posing a threat to jobs and increasingly invading our private lives. A new centre for AI research at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich wants to put people at the centre of its work.

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Covid: Switzerland to spend 100 million francs more on vaccines

2020-11-14

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2020-11-14

Switzerland’s federal government has increased the amount of money earmarked for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines by CHF 100 million, bringing the total to CHF 400 million.

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Curt Carlson on Innovation Champions

2020-11-14

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2020-11-14

Austrian economics sees an economy in motion, perpetually renewing itself. Economic agents (firms, customers, investors) constantly change their actions and strategies in response to outcome they mutually create. This further changes the outcome, which requires them to adjust afresh.

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“The Great Reset” Already Happened

2020-11-14

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2020-11-14

Shares of gross domestic Income,1960-2020
Put another way: the elites have cannibalized the system so thoroughly that there's nothing left to steal, exploit or cannibalize. The global elites' techno-fantasy of a completely centralized future, The Great Reset, is addressed as a future project. Too bad it already happened in 2008-09. The lackeys and toadies tasked with spewing the PR are 12 years too late, and so are the critics listening to the PR with foreboding.

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Covid, November 13: 553 deaths in Switzerland this week as infection rate slows

2020-11-13

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2020-11-13

Daily Fatalities Switzerland, November 13
Over the 7 days to 13 November 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported 553 deaths among laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, bringing the death toll to 1,229 since summer and 2,960 since the beginning of the year. © Sudok1 | Dreamstime.comThe 553 reported deaths this week represent 19% of the total so far, making the last 7 days the deadliest 7-day period since the virus arrived in Switzerland. There are...

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