Tag Archive: newsletter

Monetary Metals Provides Gold Loan to Sector Resources

2020-06-10

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2020-06-10

The loan is denominated in gold with interest and principal paid in gold. Scottsdale, Ariz., June 9, 2020—Monetary Metals® announced today that it has loaned gold to Sector Resources Canada Ltd., a British Columbia based gold mining company. The private transaction was conducted off-market, and the interest rate and terms were not disclosed.

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The Search for Yield

2020-06-10

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2020-06-10

A no-holds-barred discussion of the economy after the coronavirus shutdown and George Floyd protests. Are we facing another Great Depression? Can there be a V-shaped recovery or is this wishful thinking? What will all the new money and credit created by Congress and the Fed mean for the dollar? What kind of economic mess will Trump or Biden inherit in 2021? How far will Fed chair Powell go to keep markets propped up?

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Switzerland Unemployment in May 2020: rose to 3.4percent, seasonally adjusted rose to 3.4percent

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

Switzerland Unemployment Rate n.s.a., May 2020
Registered unemployment in May 2020 - According to surveys by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), 155,998 unemployed people were registered with the regional employment centers at the end of May 2020, 2,585 more than in the previous month. The unemployment rate rose from 3.3% in April 2020 to 3.4% in the reporting month. Unemployment rose by 54,628 people (+ 53.9%) compared to the same month in the previous year.

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FX Daily, June 9: Profit-Taking Gives Turn Around Tuesday Its Name

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

Overview: The S&P 500 turning higher on the year was the last straw before an arguably overdue bout of profit-taking kicked-in and is the dominant feature today in the capital markets.  It began slowly in the Asia Pacific region. Equities were mixed, and Australia's 2.4% rally and the 1.6% gain in Hong Kong stood out.  Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 was off for a second day (~1.3%), and US stocks are trading heavily, warning that the S&P 500 may give...

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Coronavirus: Switzerland to reopen borders with EU, EFTA and UK on 15 June

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

Switzerland recently announced that it will lift existing entry restrictions with all EU and EFTA nations and the UK on 15 June 2020. In mid-May the Swiss government announced plans to fully reopen borders with France, Germany and Austria. On 2 June 2020, it decided to hold off on a full reopening of borders with Italy despite Italy’s decision to fully reopen its borders with Switzerland on 3 June 2020.

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Global Crisis: the Convergence of Marx, Kafka, Orwell and Huxley

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

The global crisis is not merely economic; it is the result of profound financial, sociological and political trends described by Marx, Kafka, Orwell and Huxley. The unfolding global crisis is best understood as the convergence of the dynamics described by Marx, Kafka, Orwell and Huxley. 

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Someone’s Giving Us The (Trade) Business

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

US Trade in Goods, SA 2014-2020
The NBER has made its formal declaration. Surprising no one, as usual this group of mainstream academic Economists wishes to tell us what we already know. At least this time their determination of recession is noticeably closer to the beginning of the actual event. The Great “Recession”, you might recall, wasn’t even classified as an “official” contraction until December 2008 – a full year after the NBER figured the thing had begun.

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Central Bankers Gone Wild: It’s a New Era at the Fed

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

Editor's Note: We keep hearing from the Fed's defenders that the current spate of new stimulus and bailouts from the central bank are really not a big deal and are all very prudent and moderate. I asked Senior Fellow Bob Murphy to provide some much needed perspective.

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The Importance of Economic Theory in Understanding Historical Data

2020-06-09

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2020-06-09

It is a common belief that sound economics must be based on facts and not on theoretical reasoning as such. Some commentators are dismissive of economic analysis that is not derived from the true data, since it is not describing the facts of reality as depicted by historical data. The use of the free market economy framework, without the central bank and government intervention and with businesses as a foundation to derive valid conclusions, is...

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Lockdown led to big jump in worker productivity

2020-06-08

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2020-06-08

Thanks to more focus and flexibility, productivity per worker increased by up to 16% during the Covid-19 lockdown in Switzerland, a study has calculated. The study by the Swiss Trade Association (SGV), reported in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, found that while hours worked dropped by 10% in the first quarter of 2020, GDP sank by just 2.6%.

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What Lies Ahead: Destabilizing Social Stratification

2020-06-08

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2020-06-08

Wealth Inequality
The bill for extreme wealth/income inequality is now overdue, and the penalties for ignoring the bill will be as extreme as the inequality. Our socio-economic-political system--let's call it the status quo--has been hollowed out by extremes of wealth/power inequality driven by financialization and globalization, which have enriched the top 5% and left everyone else behind.

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Why GDP Metrics Won’t Tell Us Much about the Post-COVID Recovery

2020-06-08

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2020-06-08

In seeking to measure everything, econometricians gave us the dubious gift of gross national product and gross domestic product, the latter being in fashion today and the former in times past. Although there are different ways of measuring it, GDP is commonly taken as a measure of spending, comprised of household spending, government spending, investment spending, and net exports.

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WEF unveils dual physical and virtual Davos summit in 2021

2020-06-07

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2020-06-07

The World Economic Forum (WEF) annual conference in Davos will take place in January with fewer physical participants – but with a new “virtual” connection to more than 400 cities around the world.

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Is the lack of inflight social distancing on SWISS airlines a risk?

2020-06-07

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2020-06-07

Over two days last week, Thailand reported a score of new coronavirus cases. All were Thai nationals returning by air from the Middle East. Otherwise, there have been almost no new community or ‘inside country’ cases since mid-May.

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ECB Doubles Its QE; Or, The More Central Banks Do The Worse You Know It Will Be

2020-06-07

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2020-06-07

ECB/Eurostaff Inflation Projections, 2017-2020
A perpetual motion machine is impossible, but what about a perpetual inflation machine? This is supposed to be the printing press and central banks are, they like to say, putting it to good and heavy use. But never the inflation by which to confirm it. So round and round we go. The printing press necessary to bring about consumer price acceleration, only the lack of consumer price acceleration dictates the need for more of the printing press.

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Entrepreneurship in the Time of COVID-19

2020-06-07

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2020-06-07

Per Bylund, author of The Seen, the Unseen, and the Unrealized: How Regulations Affect Our Everyday Lives has commented extensively here at mises.org, and in a variety of entrepreneurship-focused publications, about the economics of entrepreneursip. Editor Ryan McMaken recently asked Professor Bylund to comment on what challenges entrepreneurs face right now in a rapidly changing legal and economic landscape.

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Parliament approves extra CHF14.9 billion for Covid relief

2020-06-06

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2020-06-06

A further CHF14.9 billion ($15.5 billion) has been agreed by parliament to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Most of it will go towards unemployment insurance, which finances short-time work compensation.

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Coronavirus: Switzerland holds off on open borders with Italy

2020-06-06

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2020-06-06

Switzerland’s Federal Council announced on June 2 that it plans to maintain border restrictions with Italy until further notice as a reciprocal border arrangement with Italy would be premature.

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What Did Everyone Think Was Going To Happen?

2020-06-06

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2020-06-06

Unemployment Insurance, Continued Claims, 2017-2020
Honestly, what did everyone think was going to happen? I know, I’ve seen the analyst estimates. They were talking like another six or seven perhaps eight million job losses on top of the twenty-plus already gone. Instead, the payroll report (Establishment Survey) blew everything away, coming in both at two and a half million but also sporting a plus sign.The Household Survey was even better, +3.8mm during May 2020. But, again, why wasn’t this...

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