SNB & CHF

. Wildcat mining has devastated large chunks of the Peruvian Amazon, where gold is extracted and makes its way to the refineries and banks in Switzerland. swissinfo.ch visited the southeastern region of Madre de Dios and spoke to artisanal miners who have benefited from the gold rush to educate their families and create jobs, as well as those who have fallen afoul of the law. In the past three decades, 960 square kilometres of forests were lost here to gold mining,...

Sound money is a key to a free and prosperous society. That principle was clearly reflected in the monetary system that the Constitution established when it called the federal government into existence. Our ancestors didn’t trust government officials with power. They believed that the greatest threat to their own freedom and well-being lay not with some foreign regime but rather with their own government. They understood that historically most people had lost their...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.21% to 1.0689 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 30(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The ongoing concerns about the geometric progression of the new coronavirus continues to swamp other considerations for investors. Risk continues to be unwound, as the World Health Organization meets to decide if this is indeed a global health emergency. Several large equity markets...

Returning SBTV guest, Charles Hugh Smith, calls the Federal Reserve an evil organization. Their meddling in the economy results in the concentration of wealth to those at the top of the wealth pyramid and is fueling asset bubbles, creating widening wealth inequality. Charles Hugh Smith is the editor of the OfTwoMinds blog: https://www.oftwominds.com Discussed in this interview: 01:53 Where has the trillions printed gone? 05:12 Gap between Fed's theory vs reality 08:29 Fed-created cartels...

USD/CHF snaps two-day winning streak, reversed from monthly resistance line. Buyers will remain hopeful unless the channel’s support breaks. 50% and 38.2% of Fibonacci retracements could offer intermediate halts during the declines. USD/CHF declines to 0.9728, -0.11%, by the press time of early Thursday. The pair recently reversed from an ascending trend line since December 29, 2019. Even so, it stays inside the short-term bullish technical formation. Considering the...

Returning SBTV guest, Charles Hugh Smith, calls the Federal Reserve an evil organization. Their meddling in the economy results in the concentration of wealth to those at the top of the wealth pyramid and is fueling asset bubbles, creating widening wealth inequality. Charles Hugh Smith is the editor of the OfTwoMinds blog: https://www.oftwominds.com Discussed in this interview: 01:53 Where has the trillions printed gone? 05:12 Gap between Fed's theory vs reality 08:29 Fed-created cartels...

Zermatt is a regular haunt for well-heeled international winter sports lovers. (© Keystone / Christian Beutler) The iconic ski resort of Zermatt has become the second local authority in Switzerland to allow residents to pay their tax bills using the cryptocurrency bitcoin. Zermatt, which lies in the shadow of the Matterhorn mountain, said on Tuesday that it will allow people living there to pay the whole range of taxes in bitcoin with no limit on the amount they...

Nick Puentner from Switzerland took part in the men’s snowboard big air event at the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games, in Leysin, Switzerland on January 22, 2020 (Keystone / Valentin Flauraud) Sports-related activities are worth CHF22.2 billion ($22.8 billion) a year to the Swiss economy, a national report has revealed. Overall, sport accounts for 1.7% of Swiss gross domestic product (GDP), according to a report external linkby the Federal Office of Sport...

The greatest increase in concern has been about radiation from mobile phone antennas, such as this one in Zurich, and high-voltage power lines (Keystone) Dirt, noise, radiation, climate, loss of species: the Swiss population believes that environmental pollution has increased and continues to increase. Some 61% perceive this as a very serious or quite serious problem. In 2015, only 39% were so pessimistic. Well-being and satisfaction have declined in all areas – in...

Everyone expecting a quick resolution to the epidemic and a rapid return to pre-epidemic conditions would be well-served by looking beyond first-order effects. While the media naturally focuses on the immediate effects of the coronavirus epidemic, the possible second-order effects receive little attention: first order, every action has a consequence. Second order, every consequence has its own consequence. So the media’s focus is the first-order consequences: the...