Tag Archive: Politics

Banking crisis: The new bailout strategy

2023-03-29

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2023-03-29

Part II of II To be fair, it is true, this time is different. Indeed, this time the rescue plan for the bust banks is not comparable to what we saw in 2008. In the US, the guarantee for deposits up to $250.000 comes from funds that are maintained by participating banks and not from the taxpayer. The official answer to how they’re going to pay everyone back is also plausible and possible: Some, or even most, of the money can and will be recovered...

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Banking crisis: The new bailout strategy

2023-03-27

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2023-03-27

Part I of II The recent turmoil that has roiled the global banking sector has placed central bankers in an impossible position: Cut rates and avert a domino-style disaster in the industry and a possible deep and prolonged recession in the wider economy or stay the hiking course to combat the still untamed inflationary pressures? Arguably the great losers in both cases will be the taxpayers and the average working household.  The recent...

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Modern Monetary Theory: Reality check

2023-03-10

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2023-03-10

I’ve written extensively over the past years about the rise of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and all the terrible dangers it entailed from its very birth, not just for our economies, but for our societies too. Although it captured media interest and monopolized a lot of “expert” debates at the time, one wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it was merely a “flash in the pan”, just another crazy idea that the establishment entertained for a while to...

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The “great Ponzi scheme” coming to an end?

2023-03-04

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2023-03-04

In a recent conference, the EU’s Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, gave a dire warning: “We have a shrinking workforce all across Europe, all countries are losing their workforce.” Indeed, in just 10 years, the EU lost 5 million people in the working-age population, as the most recent report on demographic change by the Commission showed. The report revealed other interesting data and trends too. For example, it showed that...

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Switzerland: Still a bright beacon of freedom

2023-02-27

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2023-02-27

Switzerland’s long-standing and well-deserved reputation as one of the last bastions of individual and financial liberty has been recently vindicated and reaffirmed. It was a much-needed boost of confidence for Swiss citizens like myself who had come to worry over the last years whether the governmental trespasses of our neighboring nations and the way they rule their people might one day come to influence or even corrupt our own system of...

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Central planning hubris and the medication crisis in Europe

2023-02-23

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2023-02-23

I’ve written countless articles on the topic of central planning and its failures, practical, economic, political and moral. In some cases, the arrogance of the central planners results in real devastation, often in actual loss of life and property, and the price for their mistakes is paid by not just the people they directly hurt but even by the generations to come.  In other cases, their blind ego and their unshakable belief that they can do...

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Davos Man Will Fail, World Will Move Toward Decentralization

2023-02-10

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2023-02-10

I truly enjoyed the conversation with Hrvoje Morić. I hope you will enjoy it 2. Happy Weekend! In liberty, Claudio Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for my articles by clicking here

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“Fundamentals and technical analysis are two sides of the same coin”

2023-02-07

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2023-02-07

Interview with Laurent Halmos For most die-hard physical gold investors and students of history like myself and most of my readers and clients, technical analysis is often seen as a bit of a taboo, or at best something irrelevant to our worldview and investment approach. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the old saying about politics, just because you are not interested in the charts doesn’t mean that the charts are not interested in you.  I met...

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US Federal Reserve Sticks To The Script But For How Long?

2023-02-04

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2023-02-04

Those watching the gold price and price of silver will have noticed the sharp uptick following the Federal Reserve’s announcement, yesterday. This was despite the Fed doing exactly what everyone expected them to do. For now, the Federal Reserve is sticking to its relatively well-telegraphed plan but how long will it be until they need to move the goalposts in order to do so?

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Colossal tax dodging: the odd case of billionaire Pierre Castel

2023-02-01

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2023-02-01

The bill comes to CHF410 million. The amount demanded by the Geneva revenue administration from French billionaire Pierre Castel has drawn the attention of the international press and made waves locally.

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2022 is the end of big tech and the beginning of the 11 years commodity cycle from 2023 – 2033

2023-01-29

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2023-01-29

Don’t miss my latest talk with my “political incorrect” friend Jeremy on TNT Radio – about the World Economic Muppet-Show called WEF and much more Click on the below link, to listen to the show. https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/claudio-grass-on-jerm-warfare-with-jeremy-nell-24-january-2023/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Therefore please feel free to share and you can subscribe for...

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Swiss government aims to cut 2 billion from 2024 budget

2023-01-27

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2023-01-27

Like many governments across the world, Switzerland’s federal government is spending more than it collects. Extraordinary spending on Covid and refugees has pushed Switzerland’s finances into the red, a situation Karin Keller-Sutter, the current finance minister, hopes to eliminate by 2024.

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The death of the middle class is the death of civil society

2023-01-27

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2023-01-27

Part II of II by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland The blame game  As we know from every crisis in human history, and especially the more recent ones, the most important item on any politician’s agenda is to find someone else to blame for it. It can be a foreign foe in the form of a hostile state, it can be an “enemy within”, usually long-standing political opponents and their supporters, or it can even be some invisible villain like...

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Retirement at 68.2 to cover Swiss pension shortfall, says UBS

2023-01-26

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2023-01-26

Swiss resident’s are regularly reminded of the large financial gap is Switzerland’s state pension system. Despite this, several attempts at reform have failed to gain sufficient support. Those that have still leave a large shortfall. On 24 January 2023, UBS published four additional reform scenarios. Only the fourth, with a life expectancy adjusted retirement age of 68.2 years eliminates the current projected shortfall.

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The death of the middle class is the death of civil society

2023-01-25

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2023-01-25

The middle class in the West has been shrinking for years, but after the covid crisis and especially after the inflation explosion, whatever was left of it is now basically under threat of extinction. This has immense sociopolitical implications.

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What happens if the debt ceiling raises

2023-01-20

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2023-01-20

It’s that time again when the US government has to prepare itself for an internal battle to raise the debt ceiling so it can meet various obligations. This is a merry dance that has been danced before, as we mention below.

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“Markets and civil society are win-win institutions, government and politics are zero-sum.”

2023-01-03

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2023-01-03

Division, friction and polarization have been on the rise in the West for at least a decade, but the escalation we saw during the “covid years” was especially worrying. Over the last year, this “worry” has become a truly pressing concern, even a real emergency one might argue, as inflationary pressures and an actual war were added to the mix of political and social tensions.  

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A grateful goodbye to 2022, a hopeful hello to 2023

2022-12-30

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2022-12-30

Even though what we saw during the height of the pandemic was shocking enough for most people, what we saw during 2022 was arguably even more astonishing. During the lockdowns and quarantines and the forced business shutdowns, the sheer number of all the rights and freedoms that were coercively “suspended”, as though that’s a thing one can do with true liberty, left so many fellow citizens in disbelief. However, what many people found even more...

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Gold is money – everything else is credit!

2022-12-14

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2022-12-14

What physical precious metals investors can expect 2023 and beyond Throughout the better part of 2022 there has been one question that has consistently, and predictably, popped up in conversations with my friends, clients and readers. Those who know me and are familiar with my ideas are well aware of my position on precious metals and the multiple roles they serve, so I can’t blame them for them for being curious whether I still “stick to my...

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“It begins”: The rise of the digital dollar

2022-12-05

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2022-12-05

In mid-November, while the whole world was focused on the Ukraine crisis, the US midterms or whatever other “big story” the media decided was more important, a truly momentous shift took place in the global financial system. It might seem like a small step on the surface, but it has the potential to bring about a real and possibly irreversible sea change in the way we use money; or better said, the way it uses us.  As Reuters reported on the...

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