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In June 2017, Switzerland’s Federal Council announced plans to reduce the discounts offered to those willing to risk paying the first chunk of their annual medical bills. The plan included reducing the maximum premium discounts given for opting for deductibles, the amount paid by the insured before insurance kicks in. © Ginasanders | Dreamstime On Tuesday, according to 20 Minutes, a commission for the Council of States, Switzerland’s upper house, said it disagreed with the Federal Council’s...

Would you eat balls made from insects? Last year the Swiss supermarket Coop applied for authorisation to sell insect based products. Then on 14 August 2017 it announced a limited number of its stores and its delivery service Coop@home would start selling the products from 21 August 2017, phasing the products in across other stores between August and the end of the year. Source: Coop.ch “We have been working on this project for a long time and the time has finally come. We are the first Swiss...

According to 20 Minutes, Jacques Bourgeois, the director of the Swiss Farmers’ Union, supports sanctioning farmers who fail to treat their animals properly by cutting the farm subsidies they receive from the Swiss government. © Kate Amiguet In 2015, producer support in Switzerland amounted to around 57% of farm revenues according to an OECD estimate. Swiss farm subsidies are second to only Norway’s and more than three times the OECD average. Bourgeois thinks the “black sheep” who disregard...

Submitted by Sovereign Man This Week's Intelligence American Citizen Held by Immigration Enforcement for Over 3 Years Without Lawyer “I am an American citizen,” Davino Watson pleaded with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents, judges, and jailers. But to no avail; he was held in detention for over 3 years as a deportable illegal immigrant. What did his court appointed lawyer have to say ? Nothing, because he was never assigned one. After all, illegal immigrants are...

According to various newspapers, Swiss Rail placed an advert on a job portal at ETH, a university in Zurich, offering work to cunning vixens, “schlaue Füchsinnen” in German. © Denis Linine | Dreamstime Successful applicants need to dress up as foxes, including fox tails, and run around train stations with posters informing travellers of alternative train connections. 20 Minutes reported that a Swiss Rail spokesperson said that of course male foxes could also apply. The organisation Terre des...

If you have ever wondered how much employees in Switzerland get paid you can check with the online tool Salarium, created by the Swiss government. © Shaunwilkinson – Dreamstime The information is compiled from a database of numbers from a salary survey done in 2014. After entering five required bits of information: region, business sector, occupation, professional position and working hours, the tool calculates the gross monthly median salary and range. It can be further fined tuned with...

On 24 July 2017, the Swiss franc was 1.101 to the euro. One week later on 31 July 2017 it was 1.145, according to Bloomberg. Over the month it dropped from 1.095 to 1.145, a drop Reuters described as the biggest monthly drop in six years. © Wirojsid | Dreamstime The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has been working hard to bring down the value of the Swiss franc. Speaking to the newspaper Le Temps last week, SNB president Thomas Jordan described the currency as “significantly overvalued”. But why...

On 24 July 2017, the Swiss franc was 1.101 to the euro. One week later on 31 July 2017 it was 1.145, according to Bloomberg. Over the month it dropped from 1.095 to 1.145, a drop Reuters described as the biggest monthly drop in six years. © Wirojsid | Dreamstime The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has been working hard to bring down the value of the Swiss franc. Speaking to the newspaper Le Temps last week, SNB president Thomas Jordan described the currency as “significantly overvalued”. But why...

Overnight, the Swiss National Bank disclosed the composition and breakdown of its FX reserves as of June 30. There were no notable changes, as the central bank kept most of its asset allocations unchanged from the previous quarter, with equities, government bonds and "other bonds", at 20%, 68% and 12% respectively. There were also no shifts in the currency composition as shown in the table below. There was one notable - and unexpected - development, and it had to do with the SNB's -0.75%...

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, You know stuff’s going down when I write two posts in a row about Bitcoin, something which almost never happens anymore. In Friday’s piece, Is the Bitcoin Civil War Over? Here’s How I’m Thinking About Bitcoin Cash, I discussed a potential strategy that “big blockers” might attempt to execute should the 2x part of Segwit2x not happen later this year. Today, I want to discuss how the entire episode...