Tag: economy

The Shadowy Past of the Secret Bank That Controls the World

Few people—even diligent media followers—are likely to speak knowledgably about the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Yet, hidden in plain sight in a 20-story tower (with four more stories below ground level) in Basel, the BIS influences the leaders of the world’s top central banks and controls the global economy. Moreover, it cannot be questioned or held accountable for any of its actions. In his 2013 book Tower of Basel, Adam LeBor, a former reporter for The Economist and author of thoroughly researched works such as Hitler’s Secret Bankers, The Last Days of Budapest, and City of Oranges, analyzes the bank’s history to explain how it gained unlimited power.

He also exposes its complete amorality. Thomas McKittrick, the bank’s chief during the war, whom the author calls “Hitler’s American Banker,” kept passing critical information to the Nazi regime. The BIS financed the Holocaust by accepting gold stolen by the Nazis from Belgium and marking it as German, even though a Belgian central banker warned that the gold had probably been melted down and re-stamped with German markings.

Austrian and Czech gold was also accepted as German deposits and kept out of reach. It was common knowledge that, besides gold from the governments of occupied nations, the Nazis were depositing gold stolen by the Devisenschutzkommando (DSK), Hitler’s special squads of treasure-hunting torturers. But that did not matter to the BIS. Kapital über alles, as LeBor titles the first part of the book.

Hunger for profit and disregard for ethics—these seem to be ingrained in the very DNA of the BIS. As recently as 1991, when the Argentinian economy collapsed and the country was $81 billion in debt, the BIS accepted—and thus kept out of creditors’ reach—money that should have rightfully been returned to them. Besides two fund management firms, the creditors were mostly pensioners who had invested in Argentinian bonds. The firms have sued the BIS and brought some attention to its highhandedness.

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Los Angeles is Broke – City Declares Fiscal Emergency

The city of Los Angeles declared a state of fiscal emergency amid a $1 billion deficit. The council approved of the emergency declaration unanimously in a 14-0 vote. This comes after Mayor Karen Bass approved a $14 billion budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1. The city is a prime example of what happens when socialist policies are allowed to run rampant at the expense of the people.

Bass approved of raising the budget from $12.9 billion in FY2024-25 to $14 billion in 2025-26 despite the looming $1 billion deficit. Unsurprisingly, overspending is the main culprit for the deficit, and yet, lawmakers have every intention of spending more. Over 600 public sector workers will be let go as a result of fiscal mismanagement, and although small government is usually applaudable, the city plans to fire 248 LAPD employees, 44 sanitation workers, and 41 firefighters. LA is experiencing a significant uptick in crime, but plans to defund the police to appease the mobs.

California Governor Gavin Newsom boasts of California’s robust economy but fails to acknowledge that it’s a state basically living “paycheck-to-paycheck,” with the payee being the taxpayer. Read the state’s plan to cover its budget deficits – endless taxes. Spending growth from 2025-26 to 2028-29 is 5.8%, above the average of 3.5%. Growth over the same period is just above 4%, “lower than its historical average, largely due to policy choices that end during the forecast window. Taken together, we view it as unlikely that revenue growth will be fast enough to catch up to ongoing spending.” Even residents who choose or are forced to leave the state will incur taxes to cover government thievery. Los Angeles is one of countless examples of how the public sector will virtue signal to rob Peter, not to pay Paul, but to pay themselves, as they are not hiding the corruption.

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France’s Fiscal Reckoning: Is The Eurozone’s Second Giant Next In Line?

France is caught in a debt spiral. Now the president of the French Court of Auditors is warning of the consequences of political inaction.

Pierre Moscovici has served as president of the French Court of Auditors for five years, overseeing regular audits of the nation’s public finances. From 2012 to 2014, he was France’s finance minister and then spent five years as EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs. The man knows his way around empty coffers.

On Wednesday, Moscovici called on Prime Minister François Bayrou to take urgent steps to consolidate public finances. France’s budgetary situation, he said, has spun out of control, especially in 2023 and 2024. If a turnaround is not achieved soon, the capital markets will force one. “We can still act voluntarily,” he warned the government, “but tomorrow, the markets may impose austerity.”

For Now, Calm in the Bond Markets

Once the dominoes start falling, it goes fast. Investors dump French government bonds en masse. Yields spike, prices plummet, and refinancing the country’s massive debt becomes even more costly. Already, interest payments consume 10.6% of France’s state budget—roughly the same as education spending. As debt levels rise, fiscal maneuvering space shrinks.

With sovereign debt at 114% of GDP, the trap could snap shut unexpectedly. For now, European officials still point fingers at the U.S., whose debt ratios are similar. But no one can say how long that deflection tactic will work. Credit risk materializes suddenly—usually without warning.

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Not Parody: Socialist NYC Mayoral Candidate Lectures Billionaire About How DEI Is Good for Business

As if the Democrat Party — which still hasn’t recovered from the decisive beatdown it suffered at the hands of President Donald Trump in the 2024 election — wasn’t already in a self-inflicted free fall, recent events have only accelerated the decline.

First, Trump’s successful attack on key Iranian nuclear sites, which Democrats frantically continue to downplay (lie about), was a “yuuge,” (as Trump might say) setback for the TDS-riddled among us. 

Then, Zohran Mamdani, the so-called “Democratic Socialist” candidate for mayor of New York City, bested former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democrat primary. Given the demographics of NYC, Mamdani is the hands-down favorite to become the Big Apple’s next mayor. 

Incidentally, I wonder if Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson might soon become the second-worst mayor in America, but I digress.

Anyway, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is among those who fear for the future of NYC, often dubbed “the financial center of the world,” given Mamdani’s socialist positions. Ackman posted an extensive missive on X (formerly, Twitter) on Thursday, in which he shared his concerns about Mamdani. Ackman wrote, in part (emphasis, mine):

I awoke this morning gravely concerned about New York City. I thought “What has NYC become that an avowed socialist who has supported defunding the police, whose solution to lowering food prices is city-owned supermarkets, who doesn’t understand that freezing rents will only reduce the supply of housing, who has no experience managing an organization — let alone a city with a $100+ billion budget and a $2 trillion economy — and who believes chants for ‘Globalizing the Intifada’ are acceptable, wins the Democratic Primary.

After speaking with those supported @ZohranKMamdani, I believe that he won the primary largely not due to his policies, but rather because he is a superb politician who ran a remarkable and inspiring campaign. He is intelligent and articulate. He is young and charming, and he successfully played down incriminating @X posts and statements from his past, pitching a joyful campaign of unity.

Isn’t that — the bolded passage — always what wins elections for Democrats? Think about it. 

For example, Barack Obama soared into the presidency on January 20, 2009, after having declared at the 2004 Democratic National Convention: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.” Yet, when Obama became president, he set about dividing America on class and racial bases for eight years — and then some. 

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Los Angeles Votes for $30 Minimum Wage

Los Angeles lawmakers have advanced a measure that would make the city home to the nation’s highest minimum wage, approving a plan to raise hourly pay to $30 for tens of thousands of tourism workers by 2028, the year the city is set to host the Olympic Games.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 12-3 on Wednesday to approve the proposal, which applies to hotels with more than 60 rooms and businesses operating at Los Angeles International Airport.

Why It Matters

The tourism industry is one of the top five employers in Los Angeles County, supporting more than 540,000 Angelenos, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA).

However, there have been growing concerns about the sector, which has not fully rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, Los Angeles only saw 79 percent of the number of international visitors it had in 2019, according to the AHLA. The association warned that “slower-than-anticipated pandemic recovery” coupled with other factors, including the wildfires, have massively impacted the tourism industry.

Industry groups argue that the wage plan will add pressure to businesses already struggling with staffing and a drop-off in tourism.

The measure would result in a 48 percent wage increase for hotel workers and a 56 percent rise for airport employees over the next three years.

The minimum wage for large hotel workers is currently two dollars higher than the standard minimum wage in the city, at over $18.

The wage increases would be brought in gradually, starting with $22.50 per hour in July 2025, increasing to $25 in 2026, $27.50 in 2027, and finally $30 in July 2028.

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Marijuana Industry Workers Are The Happiest In Any Job Sector In The U.S., Survey Finds

Hourly workers in the marijuana industry rank at the top of the list of “happiest” employees across multiple sectors—with more than 9 in 10 reporting a “positive sentiment” in their job—according to a new survey.

The annual Shift Pulse Report from the workforce management platform Deputy gauged how hourly workers felt about their jobs in 10 common industries—from cannabis to cleaning services to firearms.

While the overall finding of the report is that American workers are becoming less happy, with the happiness sentiment down to 78.5 percent in 2025 compared to 80 percent the prior year, the sector with the most content employees work at marijuana or e-cigarette/tobacco businesses.

A total of nearly 92 percent of cannabis and tobacco hourly workers said they feel positively about their jobs. By contrast, that sentiment is shared by 91 percent of hourly employees at catering, 90 percent in cafes, 90 percent of those in dentistry, 89 percent in gyms, 87 percent in firearms, 86 percent in sit-down restaurants, 84 percent in cleaning services and 83 percent in childcare.

“This may reflect stronger workplace culture and wage competitiveness in newer, regulated industries that prioritize employee retention as they scale rapidly,” Deputy said.

It’s also notable that cannabis sector hourly workers report higher levels of happiness in their trade considering that the industry faces unique challenges under federal prohibition, which has included an outsized risk of being targeted in robberies since many marijuana businesses operate in a largely cash-based environment.

“This year’s happiest industry sectors reveal a growing trend: purpose, predictability, and a sense of control over one’s workday matter just as much—if not more—than prestige or pay alone,” the report says. “For employers looking to improve sentiment, these industries offer practical lessons in team cohesion, autonomy, and culture-building.”

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Narrative Busted: Immigration Costs France 3.4 Per Cent of GDP, Think Tank Finds

Immigration has failed to produce the promised economic panacea in France and has rather resulted in a negative strain on the economy, costing the nation an estimated 3.4 per cent in GDP, a think tank has claimed.

The Observatory of Immigration and Demography (OID) argued that immigration has not only negatively impacted the social structures within France but has also come with a “budget deficit” in which taxes collected from immigrants only make up 86 per cent of what they cost the taxpayer, Le Figaro reported.

The OID think tank attributed this imbalance to the fact that just 62.4 per cent of working-age immigrants are actively employed in France, the worst performance of any EU nation except Belgium at 61.4 per cent and well below the EU average of 67.5 per cent. In contrast, native French workers have a 69.5 per cent employment rate.

This means, according to calculations from the think tank, that if immigrants had the same employment rate as the native born population, the French GDP would be 3.4 per cent higher than it currently stands and taxable income would be one and a half points higher.

Observatory of Immigration and Demography director Nicolas Pouvreau-Monti said: “Immigration maintains a vicious circle which harms employment and the French economy: it aggravates the structural problems of employment in France, degrades public accounts and indirectly penalizes exposed sectors of the economy.”

Pouvreau-Monti said that while public discussion of immigration is often centred around specific sectors which have frequent short-term labour shortages, such as in the hotel and restaurant, and construction industries.

However, the OID founder said that the “short-term vision prevents us from thinking about the best way to make these professions more attractive for people looking for work.” Meanwhile, such immigration is often focused on low-skilled labour rather than on high-skilled workers that drive innovation.

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The Strait of Hormuz – Incoming Global Energy Crisis?

Supply chain constraints are inevitable during wartime. Shippers are actively avoiding the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea amid the Iranian nuclear tensions. This is a significant disruption as around 20% of global oil is funneled through this passageway.

Oman’s Musandam Peninsula hosts a narrow passageway with Iran that is only 30 miles wide but large enough for mass oil tankers to navigate. These strategic route allows for the shipment of around 21 million barrels per day. One-third of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) primarily from Qatar, rely on this crucial route. An estimated $1.7 billion of oil can pass through this channel on an average day, and any disruption has the ability to cause ripples throughout the global economy.

The United States, India, China, Japan, and South Korea are among the many developed economies that rely on this strait for its energy needs. Even a temporary pause in shipments would cause oil prices to skyrocket and disturb international trade. Iran has repeatedly used this passageway as leverage in negotiations. The Iranian government is well aware of the power it wields and have threatened to prevent passage during times of unrest and sanctions.

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New World Bank Rankings Reveal “Numbskull” Fed Chair Powell Is Intent on Punishing American Working Families

On Thursday, President Trump lashed out at Jerome Powell for his refusal to lower interest rates despite the stellar economic numbers that are

“Too Late” Jerome Powell and the Fed kept interest rates extremely low at 0.25% during most of Barack Obama’s administration.

Then when President Trump entered office with his pro-growth policies, Jerome Powell immediately began raising the interest rates to slow down the economy. At one point President Trump in his first term could have started to pay down the US debt because of the strength of his economy. Jerome Powell raised interest rates again to make sure that didn’t happen.

Today, despite the strength of the Trump economy, Jerome Powell refuses to lower interest rates. It is truly unexplainable – especially when you see where America stands in relation to the rest of the world.

President Trump lashed out at Powell on Thursday, for his irresponsible and dangerous policies. Powell is targeting and punishing the American worker.

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Josh Hawley Wants To Raise the Minimum Wage

Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) has introduced a bill to increase the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2008. Hawley wants it to be $15 an hour. Many of us thought that the minimum wage issue was settled, but here we are again.

This is freshman-level economics: If you introduce a price floor on labor, the supply of people willing to work at that wage will exceed the demand, resulting in unemployment. If an employer can either have three employees making $10 an hour or two at $15 an hour (and one on public assistance), which do you think he would choose? Politicians like Hawley seem to think companies will simply accept lower profit margins. But they won’t—they’ll raise prices, cut staff, or go out of business.

Since hardly anyone earns $7.25 an hour these days, the federal minimum wage doesn’t cause serious economic distortion. A $15 mandate, by contrast, would wreak havoc, especially in low-cost-of-living areas. A simple thought experiment would be to imagine what would happen if we had a $10,000-an-hour minimum wage. This would obviously eliminate most jobs. The same principle applies to smaller hikes, even if the effects would not be as drastic. If prosperity could be legislated, we would have done it long ago.

Hawley is an interesting mix: socially conservative, economically populist. He has supported tax hikes on the rich, expanding the power of unions, capping credit card interest rates, expanding Social Security, imposing tariffs, and imposing prescription drug price controls. He’s frequently on the same side as such left-wing figures as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). In fact, he and Sanders, a self-described socialist, co-sponsored the bill to cap credit card interest rates.

What does it mean to be a Republican these days? What defines Republican economics? It used to be lower taxes or balanced budgets, but no longer. The Democrats are getting a lot of mileage out of being anti-tariffs, but that’s not because they are philosophically committed to free trade—most of them are reflexively opposing Trump. If a Democrat is elected in 2028, there’s a good chance they’ll maintain his tariffs. Voters don’t have many free market choices remaining.

We are a long way from 2005, when President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary John Snow made an honest attempt at privatizing Social Security, or from 1998, when President Bill Clinton was pondering a bipartisan move along similar lines.

The camera loves Hawley; he’s handsome, articulate, and dangerous. When it comes to economics, there isn’t much daylight between him and the furthest-left factions of the Democratic Party. It is all about the packaging. If Hawley seems less crazy to the average voter than Warren and Bernie, that should worry us all.

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