Tag Archive: newsletter

The Real Unemployment Rate is 21 percent and Heading Higher

2020-07-22

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2020-07-22

As businesses, agencies and organizations recalibrate to the reality that the V-shaped recovery was nothing but a brief fantasy, 6 million additional jobs lost may be a best-case scenario rather than the worst-case scenario.

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What Capitalism Can Do When Allowed, And Communism Never Will

2020-07-22

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2020-07-22

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.” Maybe, but it sure didn’t start out that way.

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A Rising Demand for Money Won’t Save Us from Inflation

2020-07-22

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2020-07-22

According to popular thinking, not every increase in the supply of money will have an effect on the production of goods. For instance, if an increase in the supply is matched by a corresponding increase in the demand for money, then there will be no effect on the economy.

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Walter Berns and the Cult of “Patriotic” Sacrifice

2020-07-22

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2020-07-22

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In his great new book The Problem with Lincoln, Tom DiLorenzo brought back an old memory. As Tom points out, Walter Berns, who taught political science at Cornell and then worked for the American Enterprise Institute, was one of the main figures urging us to worship Honest Abe.

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FX Daily, July 21: Europe and Tech Lift Risk Appetites

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

Overview: The continued domination of the tech sector and Europe's tentative agreement are lifting equities and risk assets more generally today.  Australia and Hong Kong's 2.3%-2.5% rally led Asia Pacific markets.  The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is higher for a third session and above its 200-day moving average for the first time since February. 

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The World Is Drowning in Debt

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global fiscal support in response to the crisis will be more than $9 trillion, approximately 12 percent of world GDP. This premature, clearly rushed, probably excessive, and often misguided chain of so-called stimulus plans will distort public finances in a way which we have not seen since World War II.

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Swiss Trade Balance Q2 2020: historic decline in exports and imports

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

Switzerland Trade Balance, June 2020
Swiss foreign trade recorded a record decline in the second quarter of 2020. In seasonally adjusted terms, exports plunged by 11.5% compared to the previous quarter and imports even by 16.0%. This result stems from the traffic collapse recorded in April in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, with May and June having regained some color. The trade balance closed with a record surplus of 9.6 billion francs.

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Mandatory masks well accepted on Swiss public transport

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

Passengers on Swiss trams, buses, and trains have adapted well since a rule requiring face masks was introduced a fortnight ago. However, boat operating companies say they are losing business.

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Of Incomplete Plans and Recoveries

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

China Industrial Production, 1999-2020
At the monthly press conference China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) now regularly gives whenever the Big Three economic accounts are updated (this time along with quarterly GDP), spokesman Liu Aihua was asked by a reporter from Reuters to comment on how the global economic recession might impact the Communist government’s long range goal of reaching its assigned GDP target.

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The Dangers Posed by State-Controlled Digital Currency

2020-07-21

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2020-07-21

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.

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FX Daily, July 20: Markets Yawn, Deal or No Deal

2020-07-20

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2020-07-20

Overview: While there are signs that Europe has reached a compromise on the grant/loan issue, the spillover into the markets is quite limited. China, with Shanghai's 3.1% gain, led a few markets in the Asia Pacific region higher, including Japan and India. Most markets were lower, and Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is a fractionally firmer, recovering from initial losses.

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Welcome to the Crazed, Frantic Demise of Finance Capitalism

2020-07-20

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2020-07-20

The cognitive dissonance required to ignore the widening gap between the real economy and the fraud's basic machinery--speculation funded by "money" conjured out of thin air--has reached a level of denial that can only be termed psychotic.

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Gold Protects from Financial Crisis and Crashes Throughout History – Lucey and O’Connor

2020-07-20

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2020-07-20

This is an interesting interview between Professor Brian Lucey and Dr. Fergal O’Connor, lecturer in finance and economics at University College Cork (UCC) on gold’s performance as a safe haven asset in the last 200 hundred years and in recent history including the 2008-2012 global financial crisis. 

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How Central Banks Destroy Money’s Purchasing Power

2020-07-20

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2020-07-20

Without a monopolist central bank, market forces would restrain the issuance of bank notes. But once central banks monopolize money creation, wealth is systematically transferred to the central bank and the privileged few who are favored by the state.

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EM Preview for the Week Ahead

2020-07-20

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2020-07-20

EM FX was mixed last week, with most risk assets continuing to fight a tug of war between improving economic data and worsening virus numbers. Sentiment may be hurt early this week over lack of consensus in the EU and the US regarding further fiscal stimulus. Three of the four EM central banks meeting this week are expected to cut rates.

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Embattled Swiss watch industry targets mainland China

2020-07-19

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2020-07-19

The absence of tourists due to Covid-19 will have significant negative repercussions on the Swiss watch industry. In an attempt to make up for this loss of income, manufacturers are focusing their activities more on mainland China as well as easing off the bling.

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This Is a Financial Extinction Event

2020-07-19

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2020-07-19

The lower reaches of the financial food chain are already dying, and every entity that depended on that layer is doomed. Though under pressure from climate change, the dinosaurs were still dominant 65 million year ago--until the meteor struck, creating a global "nuclear winter" that darkened the atmosphere for months, killing off most of the food chain that the dinosaurs depended on.

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NGOs warn conflict gold can reach Swiss refiners via Dubai

2020-07-19

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2020-07-19

Swiss refiners — chief among them Valcambi — are under scrutiny due to the high risk of conflict gold originating in Africa entering their supply chain via the United Arab Emirates. Two parallel NGO reports on the subject were published on Thursday.

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A Rothbardian Analysis of the Constitutional Convention

2020-07-19

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2020-07-19

Relates to Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, Volume V: The New Republic, 1784-1791 and my forthcoming book, Liberty versus Power: A History of Cronyism in the United States, 1607-1849 (2021?)

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Biggest Swiss-based arms manufacturers revealed

2020-07-18

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2020-07-18

Exporting arms is big business for Switzerland, but who are the actual manufacturers and exporters? After a five-year legal dispute, names can finally be published. Swiss companies exported CHF501 million ($530 million) in war materiel in the first half of 2020, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said on Tuesday, almost twice as much as the same period in 2019.

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