Tag Archive: Finance

Private property rights under siege – Part I

2022-07-04

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2022-07-04

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.

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Unheeded warnings: Václav Klaus at the Marmara Forum

2022-06-17

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2022-06-17

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. 

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A crack-up boom in the making

2022-06-14

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2022-06-14

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...

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Inflation outlook – A battle lost before it started

2022-06-03

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2022-06-03

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....

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Did Central Banks arrive at their Target Inflation Rate by Mere Fluke?

2022-05-26

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2022-05-26

Have you ever questioned why central banks around the world target CPI inflation at 2%? One might think it would be complicated to explain the lengthy calculations, econometric-based research, and late-night debates that went on in order to come to this figure, but no.

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“Gold is an insurance policy against the stupidity of governments”

2022-05-24

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2022-05-24

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...

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“Real innovation and progress happen beyond Big Tech” – Part II

2022-05-19

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2022-05-19

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...

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“Real innovation and progress happen beyond Big Tech”

2022-05-17

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2022-05-17

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...

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Is Gold Starting to Behave Itself?

2022-05-14

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2022-05-14

Gold is doing what it is supposed to do!  Equity markets are tumbling, “NASDAQ 100 Rout Erases $1.5 Trillion in Market Value in 3 Days” reads one Bloomberg headline.

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Gold: A use case for the modern era

2022-05-04

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2022-05-04

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...

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Gold: A use case for the modern era

2022-05-03

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2022-05-03

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...

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Expect the Unexpected from the Fed

2022-04-28

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2022-04-28

It has been a rough week in most markets with both equities and bonds declining sharply. Tech stocks have been pummeled with many ‘big names’ plunging more than 50% (from their 52-week high). Some of the bigger names include Zoom Video -75%, PayPal -73%, Netflix -72%, Meta Platforms (Facebook), -53%.

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Is Switzerland still a safe jurisdiction for precious metals investors?

2022-04-21

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2022-04-21

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...

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Russia’s “gold peg”: Lessons for Western investors

2022-04-12

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2022-04-12

Putin
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.

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Cantillon effect: Who’s paying the highest price?

2022-04-06

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2022-04-06

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...

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Ukraine conflict: A dispassionate analysis

2022-03-30

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2022-03-30

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.

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Is gold too expensive?

2022-03-22

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2022-03-22

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...

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The forgotten art of Debate

2022-03-17

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2022-03-17

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”.

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JERM WARFARE WITH ASTRID STUCKELBERGER & CLAUDIO GRASS & BREAKING FREE FROM COVID MADNESS

2022-03-09

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2022-03-09

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

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Central Banks’ record gold stockpiling

2022-01-22

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2022-01-22

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...

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