SNB & CHF

All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude. There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their businesses afloat. Traditionally, costs are broken down into fixed costs such as rent...

Scottsdale, Ariz, January 6, 2021—Monetary Metals® is pleased to announce the issuance of a bond paying principal and interest in gold. The term is one year, and the interest rate on invested gold is 13%.  According to company CEO Keith Weiner, Ph.D., it is the first proper gold bond in 87 years. The proceeds fund a loan to Western Australia gold-mining company Shine Resources, enabling the firm to put its Chameleon project into production. Monetary Metals has...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.11% to 1.0837 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 7(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: After the National Guard were called to put down an insurrection in Washington, DC, the dollar is having its best day in around a week. The euro’s three-day rally has been halted even though German factory orders surprised on the upside. The greenback is firmer against all the major...

The water on which the power plant floats helps cool the solar panels thus improving their efficiency. Keystone / Valentin Flauraud A floating solar power plant and a transport project using renewable hydrogen are among the winners of the 2021 Watt d’Or prize. Awarded annually by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy since 2007, the goal of the Watt d’Or is to “showcase outstanding products or services in the energy sector”. The 2021 winners, selected from 64 projects,...

Switzerland was named a currency manipulator by the US Treasury in December 2020. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally For many foreign exchange traders, the US Treasury’s decision to designate Switzerland as a currency manipulator last month comes nearly six years too late and with a good dose of irony. The Swiss National Bank threw currency markets into full-blown chaos in January 2015 when it unexpectedly abandoned its cap on the franc’s value, within days of a senior...

Hundreds of small alpine businesses rely on the fund for support. © Keystone / Christian Beutler A Swiss fund that supports small businesses in alpine regions bailed out 100 firms last year that were affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Schweizer Berghilfe (Swiss Mountain Aid) doled out an extra CHF2 million ($2.26 million) to support Covid-hit enterprises. Volunteers put in 15% more hours evaluating and processing the extra demand for financial support, the...

Marc Chandler, Managing Director, Bannockburn Global Forex

California’s government has become infamous for abusing its citizens, from steep taxation to burdensome regulations to arbitrary covid impositions. But less noticed is how it is also trying to abuse other Americans as well. As reported in a December 28 Los Angeles Times editorial, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), which oversees sales and use tax collections, is trying to retroactively impose sales taxes on out-of-state retailers as far...

Joan Wallach Scott, a historian who is a professor emerita at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, has come up with a most valuable insight. She is decidedly not “one of us,” but her insight makes her sound as if she might be. She says, the notion of the judgment of history rests on a progressive linear view about the necessary superiority, in every domain, of the future as compared to the past, but also—crucially—about the state as the political embodiment...

Swiss rifles were coveted during the American revolutionary and civil wars. Today they’re used for fun by the Swiss Rifle Club of Minneapolis. In the late 1980s, a group of Swiss expats living in Minnesota – all employed by food technology company Bühler – decided to form a shooting club to maintain a tradition from the homeland. They made a deal with a local club willing to share its facilities, and got the green light from the Swiss military, which continues to...