TRAVELING THE WORLD, WRITING WHAT THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.
TRAVELING THE WORLD, WRITING WHAT THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.
In a stunning vote of “no confidence” in the US monopoly over global payment infrastructure, one month ago Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the US that would allow Brussels to be independent in its financial operations from Washington and as a means of rescuing the nuclear deal Read More…
Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there Read More…
Well, it’s official: “Japan Inc.” is now “Bank of Japan Inc.” Oh, OK, not officially official, but just about. As the Nikkei Asian Review reports, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is now a top-10 shareholder in a whopping 40% of the listed companies in the country. That’s right, having purchased 25 trillion yen ($227 billion) worth of exchange-traded Read More…
Tariffs, counter-tariffs and headlines about trade wars are flowing like wine as the long-anticipated Trump campaign against China is finally shaping up. Given that futures are tumbling, the US trade deficit has just hit a decade low, and, oh yeah, we haven’t seen market volatility like this since the crash of ’87 you might think we have enough ominous financial storm clouds to Read More…
Earlier this month, the United States government released its annual financial report for the year 2017. This is something the government does every year, similar to how large companies like Apple, or Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, publish their own annual reports. Unlike Berkshire and Apple, though, whose financial reports typically show strong, positive results, the US government’s financial Read More…
Once upon a time, the U.S. dollar was backed by the gold standard in a framework that established what was known as the Bretton-Woods agreement, made in 1944. The dollar was fixed to gold at a price of $35 an ounce, though the dollar could earn interest, marking one notable difference from gold. The system ended up Read More…