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In his speech yesterday, following the Treasury's crack down on corporate tax inversions, Obama blamed "poorly designed" laws for allowing illicit money transfers worldwide. Since the speech came at a time when the entire world is still abuzz with the disclosure from the Panama Papers, Obama touched on that as well: "Tax avoidance is a big, global problem" he said on Tuesday, "a lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem" because a lot of it is also illegal. There is one major problem...

A Huge Leak The “Panama Papers” tax haven leak is big … After all, the Prime Minister of Iceland resigned over the leak, and investigations are taking place worldwide over the leak. But Why Is It Mainly Focusing On Enemies of the West? But the Panama Papers reporting mainly focuses on friends of Russia’s Putin, Assad’s Syria and others disfavored by the West. Former British Ambassador Craig Murray notes: Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears...

Investec Switzerland. Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan doesn’t expect cash stockpiling even with negative interest rates and a new series of smaller banknotes. Source: Swiss National Bank “The size has no impact on the cash hoarding,” he said in a Bloomberg Television on Wednesday in Bern after the central bank unveiled a new banknotes that are smaller than those presently in use. “But we don’t really observe a big hoarding in Switzerland. We have a little bit...

Days before the ICIJ released this weekend's trove of "Panama Papers" international tax haven data involving Panamaian law firm Mossack Fonseca, Bloomberg conducted an interview on March 29 with the two founding lawyers. In it, it found that even before the full leak was about to be made semi-public (any of the at least 441 US clients are still to be disclosed), the Panama law firm knew that the game was already largely over. As Bloomberg reports, "during a four-hour interview last week,...

Silver Is Coiled Spring and Will “Explode Higher” Silver bullion's reluctant, sluggish participation in early 2016’s powerful gold rally has been glaringly obvious. Instead of amplifying the yellow metal’s big gains as in the past, silver largely failed to even keep pace. The lack of silver confirmation for gold’s big move has certainly raised concerns. But despite silver’s vexing torpidity in recent months, it is a coiled spring ready to explode higher to catch and surpass gold. Gold (Red),...

For all the media excitement about the disclosed names in the "Panama Papers" leak, in this case represented by the extensive list of Mossack Fonseca clients, this is not a story about which super wealthy individuals did everything in their power, both legal and illegal, to avoid taxes, preserve their financial anonymity, and generally preserve their wealth. After all, that's what they do, and it should not come as a surprise that they will always do that, especially following last year's...

For Japan, the post "Shanghai Summit" world is turning ugly, fast, because as a result of the sliding dollar, a key demand of China which has been delighted by the recent dovish words and actions of Janet Yellen, both Japan's and Europe's stock markets have been sacrificed at the whims of their suddenly soaring currencies. Which is why when Japanese stocks tumbled the most in 7 weeks, sinking 3.5%, to a one month low of 16,164 (after the Yen continued strengthening and the Tankan confidence...

Investec Switzerland. The SMI is set to finish the week (-1.43%) lower, underperforming global equity markets (+1.50%), which were buoyed after US Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that slackening global growth called for a gradual approach to raising rates. With a negative performance of -13.2% year to date, the Swiss index is among the world’s worst performers tumbling almost twice as much as the STOXX Europe 600 Index in the year 2016. The curse lies in the safe...

Investec Switzerland. The Swiss National Bank won’t rule out another interest rate cut, though any measure must be weighed with a view to its potential side effects, Governing Board Member Andrea Maechler said. © Yulan | Dreamstime.com “We’re always looking into other options, if needed — we’re looking into all of them,” Maechler said at an event for financial professionals in Zurich on Thursday. “We’re not excluding any of them, including a possible further reduction in...

Investec Switzerland. Reuters reports that an investigation is taking place after an anonymous whistle-blower accused Novartis of paying bribes through a consulting firm to secure business advantages in Turkey worth around $85 million, citing an email seen by a reporter. © Roger Heil | Dreamstime.com The benefits are reported to include getting medicines added to lists of drugs approved for prescription in government-run hospitals and avoiding price cuts. Novartis says it...