Tag Archive: newsletter

The Japanese Love of Keynesian Economics Might Finally Be Coming to an End

2020-05-24

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2020-05-24

Even those fortunate enough to have escaped infection by the Wuhan coronavirus will by now have noticed one of the virus’ many secondary effects: the disruption of the supply chain. Sick workers at meat plants, closed restaurants, hoarding, and the sudden spike in demand for things like ventilators, masks, and comestibles with long shelf lives have thrown the global flow of goods and services into disarray.

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Why an Economy Can’t Work without Market Prices

2020-05-24

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2020-05-24

It has been a full century since Mises dropped the economic calculation bomb, but the argument apparently still haunts socialists. It should, since Mises managed to show that a socialist economy is not an economy at all but calculational chaos. Yet it is curious that it does, since most have (incorrectly) concluded that Mises’s argument, after decades of debate, was debunked.

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Most want masks made compulsory on Swiss public transport, suggests survey

2020-05-23

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2020-05-23

More than two thirds are in favour of making masks compulsory on Switzerland’s public suggests a survey run by Tamedia, according to the newspaper Le Matin.

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Dollar Firm as China’s Hong Kong Gambit Triggers Risk-Off Trading

2020-05-23

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2020-05-23

Legislation was introduced that allows Beijing to directly impose a national security law on Hong Kong; US-China tensions are still rising; the dollar is bid as risk-off sentiment takes hold. There are no US data reports or Fed speakers today; Canada reports March retail sales; Mexico reports mid-May CPI.

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Banking and Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Austrian Economics

2020-05-23

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2020-05-23

The editors are to be heartily congratulated for putting together this book, which covers an impressive range of topics in monetary economics from an explicitly Austrian perspective. Most of the twelve essays are of a very high quality and one will learn much about money and related topics by a careful reading of them.

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Let’s Hope Deflation Is Headed Our Way

2020-05-23

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2020-05-23

The yearly growth rate of the US consumer price index (CPI) fell to 0.4 percent in April from 2 percent in April last year while the annual growth of the producer price index (PPI) plunged to –1.2 percent last month against 2.4 percent in April 2019.

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FX Daily, May 22: US-China Escalation Sinks Hong Kong and Hits Risk Appetites

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

Overview: The US has ratcheted up pressure on China on several fronts and has sapped risk appetites ahead of the weekend.  Equity markets are lower across the world.  Even in India, where the central bank unexpectedly cut the repo rate 40 bp, shares fell 0.7%.  It was Hong Kong's 5.5% that led the region lower.  Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is off around 1% in late morning turnover to pare this week's gain to about 2.5%. 

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Swiss central bank could take negative rates lower

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

The rate on deposits at the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is currently -0.75%. And while taking the rate further into negative territory is not the base case scenario, it cannot be excluded, according to some economists at the bank UBS.

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Swiss maker of clean aviation fuel gets boost from Lufthansa

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

The Lufthansa Group has entered a partnership with the Swiss solar fuel developer Synhelion. The Swiss start-up is working to produce a fuel that emits 50% less CO2 by 2022 and plans to market a 100% renewable fuel in 2030.

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No Flight To Recognize Shortage

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

If there’s been one small measure of progress, and a needed one, it has been the mainstream finally pushing commentary into the right category. Back in ’08, during the worst of GFC1 you’d hear it all described as “flight to safety.” That, however, didn’t correctly connote the real nature of what was behind the global economy’s dramatic wreckage. Flight to safety, whether Treasuries or dollars, wasn’t it.

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Dollar Firm as US-China Tensions Flare

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

The virus news stream is mixed; the dollar has stabilized; US-China tensions continue to ratchet up. We will get some more US economic data for May; weekly jobless claims are expected at 2.4 mln. Eurozone and UK reported firm preliminary May PMI readings; BOE officials continue to take a very dovish tone.

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Open Letter to Crispin Odey

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

I am writing in response to the comments you made in a letter to investors yesterday, which were widely reported. You have set the gold community afire, with claims that are not new and not true. So I shall attempt to douse the flames. As everyone knows, President Roosevelt outlawed the ownership of gold in 1933. Although gold was legalized in 1975, fears linger today that the governments may repeat this heinous act.

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How Modern Economics Has Lost Its Way: It’s All About the “Unseen”

2020-05-22

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2020-05-22

Economics has lost its way and the study has become both impotent and lacking in relevance. It's easy to see how and why once we recognize that proper economic thinking takes place two steps beyond the apparent. Noneconomists typically take none of these steps, while modern economics has lost the ability to go beyond the first.

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FX Daily, May 21: Markets Pull Back after Flirting with Breakouts

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

Overview: New two and a half month highs in the S&P 500 yesterday failed to have much sway in the Asia Pacific region and Europe today as US-China tensions escalate and profit-taking set in. Perhaps it is a bit of "buy the rumor sell the fact" type of activity on the back of upticks in the preliminary PMI reading and hesitancy about pushing for what appeared to be breakouts.

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FINMA-Aufsichtsmitteilung 06/2020: Verlängerung oder Auslaufen von Erleichterungen infolge der COVID-19-Krise

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

Die Eidgenössische Finanzmarktaufsicht FINMA veröffentlicht eine weitere Aufsichtsmitteilung im Kontext der COVID-19-Krise. Sie passt darin die Fristen von diversen, bereits erteilten Erleichterungen an und präzisiert die Berechnung der Finanzierungsquote NSFR.

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Swiss finance minister concerned about Covid-19 debt crisis in Europe

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

Ueli Maurer has warned that the financial crisis following Covid-19 and the resulting instability in Europe are a danger for Switzerland. In an interview with public broadcaster RTS on Tuesday, he said that he is concerned about the repercussions on Switzerland of a possible debt crisis in certain countries, especially Italy.

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EasyJet customer data hacked

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

Yesterday, EasyJet announced that a “highly sophisticated” cyber-attack had affected around 9 million customers. The company said its “investigation found that the email address and travel details of approximately 9 million customers were accessed. These affected customers will be contacted in the next few days. If you are not contacted then your information has not been accessed.”  

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Dollar Treads Water Ahead of FOMC Minutes

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

The virus news stream is mixed; the dollar has stabilized a bit. FOMC minutes will be released; Canada reports April CPI and March wholesale trade sales; the news from Brazil keeps getting worse. Another group of EU nations will release their own plan in a rebuttal of France and Germany; UK reported April CPI data.

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Krugman: We Need More Unemployment—to Save Us from Unemployment

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

It has been a long time since I read anything by Paul Krugman, and seeing his most recent column simply reminds me why I’ve not missed anything. As both an extreme Keynesian and political partisan, he long ago abandoned economic analysis for something economists should recognize as nothing less than what Mises called metaphysics.

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Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly

2020-05-21

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2020-05-21

Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So BadlyJohn QuigginPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 2019xii + 390 pp. Abstract: John Quiggin’s Economics in Two Lessons alleges a failing in Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson: the absence of a discussion of market failure.

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