Business

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In the year 1517, one of the most important innovations in financial history was invented in Amsterdam: the government bond.

It was a pretty revolutionary concept.

Governments had been borrowing money for thousands of years… quite often at the point of a sword.

Italian city-states like Venice and Florence had been famously demanding “forced loans” from their wealthy citizens for centuries.

But the Dutch figured out how to turn government loans into an “investment”.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has selected Raphael Bostic as its new president, replacing Dennis Lockhart after his retirement last month. 

A few weeks ago, Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, and ECB member Weidmann confirmed the interest rates would continue at a relatively low level as this would be very helpful for the governments of Eurozone countries to get their finances back under control. This indeed seemed to be absolutely necessary to us, and in a previous column we already pointed out the devastating impact on the public finances should the interest rates on government debt increase by 1-2% on average.

Digital Gold On The Blockchain - For Now Caveat Emptor

- Bitcoin surpasses gold price - a psychological and arbitrary headline 

- Royal Mint blockchain gold asks you to trust in the UK government

- Royal Canadian Mint and GoldMoney blockchain product asks you to trust in government and the technology, servers, websites etc of the providers

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, responsible for the kingdom's reforms, left on Monday for Washington to meet President Donald Trump on a visit expected to pitch the world's top oil exporter as an attractive investment destination. It will be the first meeting since Trump took office in January between the U.S. President and the prince who is next in line to lead Saudi Arabia, and is in charge of the kingdom's efforts to revive state finances by diversifying away from falling crude oil revenues, of which the upcoming Aramco IPO will be a critical component.