Tag Archive: newsletter

Over a third of Swiss jobs are part-time

2019-04-24

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2019-04-24

The number of people working in Switzerland is on the rise. Meanwhile, part-time work is much more widespread in Switzerland than in the rest of Europe. In Switzerland, 84.2% of the population aged 15 to 64 had a job in 2018 – an increase of 2.9 percentage points since 2010. Within the European Union (EU), only Iceland has a higher level of employment.

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The Eurodollar, Unfortunately, Is What Is Rebalancing China’s Services Economy

2019-04-24

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2019-04-24

China Nominal GDP, 1995-2019
If the “equation” CNY DOWN = BAD is valid, and it is, then what drives CNY downward in the first place? In conventional Economics, authorities command the currency to affect the level of exports. In reality, that’s not at all how it works. The eurodollar system of shadow money is almost purely calculated risk versus return.

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COT Blue: Distinct Lack of Green But A Lot That’s Gold

2019-04-24

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2019-04-24

US Shortage, Gold, 2017-2019
Gold, in my worldview, can be a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. If it goes up, that’s fear. Nothing good. If it goes down, that’s collateral. In many ways, worse. Either way, it is only bad, right? Not always. There are times when rising gold signals inflation, more properly reflation perceptions. Determining which is which is the real challenge.

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The Two Faces of Inflation, Report 22 Apr

2019-04-23

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2019-04-23

Gold and Silver Price
We have a postscript to last week’s article. We said that rising prices today are not due to the dollar going down. It’s not that the dollar buys less. It’s that producers are forced to include more and more ingredients, which are not only useless to the consumer. But even invisible to the consumer. For example, dairy producers must provide ADA-compliant bathrooms to their employees.

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FX Daily, April 23: Oil Extends Gains While Markets Await Fresh Incentives

2019-04-23

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2019-04-23

Overview: Financial centers that have been closed for the extended holiday have re-opened, but the news stream is light and market participants are digesting developments and positioning for this week's central bank meetings and the first look at Q1 US GDP. The US decision to end exemptions to the embargo against Iran led to a surge in oil prices, which are extending gains to new six-highs today.

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Geneva bans sale of single-use plastic on public land

2019-04-23

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2019-04-23

Starting in 2020, the city of Geneva will prohibit the sale of disposable plastics at events as well as at sales points on public property – a year ahead of a similar EU ban. The new law will apply to kiosks, terraces, vending vans and ice cream parlours, as well as to all city-approved events held on public property. Banned products include plastic straws, cutlery, cups and other disposable containers, which are generally difficult to recycle in...

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How Empires Fall: Moral Decay

2019-04-23

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2019-04-23

Income Inequality and Political Polarization 1947-2009
There is a name for this institutionalized, commoditized fraud: moral decay. Moral decay is an interesting phenomenon: we spot it easily in our partisan-politics opponents and BAU (business as usual) government/private-sector dealings (are those $3,000 Pentagon hammers now $5,000 each or $10,000 each? It's hard to keep current...), and we're suitably indignant when non-partisan corruption is discovered in supposed meritocracies such as the college...

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Cool Video: Discussion of the Deflationary Risks in Japan and Brexit

2019-04-23

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2019-04-23

I joined CNBC Asia’s Amanda Drury and Sri Jegarajah via Skype earlier today as the new week was beginning in Asia. In this three minute clip, we discuss the outlook for the BOJ and sterling. Most of the rise in Japan’s inflation is due to food and energy prices. Despite an aggressive balance-sheet expansion effort, the BOJ has missed its target by a long shot.

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FX Daily, April 22: Surge in Oil Punctures Holiday Markets

2019-04-22

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2019-04-22

Overview: With many centers closed for the extended holiday, the calm in the global capital markets has been punctuated by reports that the US is considering ending its exemption for eight countries to have bought Iranian oil over the past six months.  The waivers were to end on May 2, but previously it was thought that a couple of waivers, like for China and India, would be extended.

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Washington State Politicians Drop Cynical Attempt to Impose Taxes on Gold & Silver

2019-04-22

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2019-04-22

Money and Gold
Well, here’s some encouraging news… Efforts in Washington State to impose sales taxes on gold and silver were SHUT DOWN today thanks to intense efforts by the Sound Money Defense League, a group of in-state coin dealers led by Dan Duncan, the Association of Washington Businesses, and a large number of vocal grassroots supporters.

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FX Weekly Preview: Six Events to Watch

2019-04-22

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2019-04-22

The divergence thesis that drives our constructive outlook for the dollar received more support last week than we expected. A few hours after investors learned that Japan's flash PMI remained below the 50 boom/bust level, Europe reported disappointing PMI data as well. And a few hours after that the US reported that retail sales surged in March by the most in a year and a half (1.6%).

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America’s Forced Financial Flight: Fleeing Unaffordable and Dysfunctional Cities

2019-04-22

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2019-04-22

Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers 1925-2000
The forced flight from unaffordable and dysfunctional urban regions is as yet a trickle, but watch what happens when a recession causes widespread layoffs in high-wage sectors. For hundreds of years, rural poverty has driven people to urban areas: cities offer paying work and abundant opportunities to get ahead, and these financial incentives have transformed the human populace from largely rural to largely urban in the developed world.

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Swisscom switches on its 5G mobile network

2019-04-22

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2019-04-22

This week, Swisscom became the first Swiss mobile phone company to switch on its 5G network, according to a press release. Swisscom spokesperson, Esther Hüsler, said that at midnight on Wednesday Swisscom flipped the switch to become the first Swiss operator to put its 5G network into service. It’s 5G network went live across 102 locations across the country, including most of Switzerland’s cities.

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Good Friday, bad Gotthard traffic

2019-04-21

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2019-04-21

Long queues have been reported at the Gotthard tunnel in central Switzerland as holidaymakers head south for the Easter break. The traffic jam at the northern end of the tunnel stands at 12 kilometres, with a wait of almost two hours, the Touring Club of Switzerlandexternal link (TCS) said on Friday morning.

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China: Q1 growth beats expectations

2019-04-21

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2019-04-21

Growth in Chinese Real GDP 2013-2019
The Chinese economy grew at a faster rate than expected in the first quarter as policy stimulus effects kick in.The National Bureau of Statistics of China published Q1 GDP figures along with some key economic indicators for March. The data generally surprised on the upside. While we had previously flagged the upside risk to our earlier GDP forecast following the rebound in PMIs and strong credit numbers, the latest data releases still surprised to...

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Rail bosses worried over train punctuality

2019-04-20

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2019-04-20

Passengers Boarding a Train in Bern Station
The national railway operator, Swiss Federal Railways, has set up a taskforce to look into train punctuality - currently 90.1% - after the rate slipped slightly last year. News of the taskforce was broken by CH-Media groupexternal link and confirmed by the Federal Railwaysexternal link to the Swiss public broadcaster SRFexternal link. The group, made up of experienced management members, is to report back in six weeks’ time.

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Business cycle could define Trump’s re-election chances

2019-04-20

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2019-04-20

Trump's Approval Rates are Stable, 2016-2019
President Trump’s focus on getting re-elected in November 2020 may have implications for his economic policy choices.As we move closer to the 2020 presidential election, Trump has been blatantly leaning on the Federal Reserve to be more accommodative and has been trying to appoint nominees who share his preference for loose monetary policy to the Fed board.

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FX Daily, April 19: Holiday Note

2019-04-19

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2019-04-19

Many financial centers are closed today. These include Australia, India, most European markets, and the US. In Asia, equity markets that were open moved higher. The Nikkei, which gapped higher on Monday, rose 0.5% today for a 1.5% gain on the week. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.6%, lifting the weekly increase to 2.6%.

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Syngenta slammed for hazardous pesticide profits

2019-04-19

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2019-04-19

A United Nations representative is demanding action following reports that Swiss crop science company Syngenta is selling highly hazardous pesticides abroad. “There is an urgent need to end this exploitation of lower standards of protection. This is a morally and ethically unjustifiable situation,” Baskut Tuncak, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and toxics, told Swiss NGO Public Eye on Wednesday.

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China’s Blowout IP, Frugal Stimulus, and Sinking Capex

2019-04-19

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2019-04-19

China Industrial Production 1999-2019
It had been 55 months, nearly five years since China’s vast and troubled industrial sector had seen growth better than 8%. Not since the first sparks of the rising dollar, Euro$ #3’s worst, had Industrial Production been better than that mark. What used to be a floor had seemingly become an unbreakable ceiling over this past half a decade. According to Chinese estimates, IP in March 2019 was 8.5% more than it was in March 2018. That was far more...

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