SNB & CHF

Parmelin says the government will try to prevent a second lockdown at all costs. (Keystone/Alessandro Della Valle) Economics Minister Guy Parmelin says it is crucial to end the lockdown and prevent a collapse of the unemployment scheme to ensure Switzerland’s economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Parmelin said the government would decide on an injection of additional funds into the state unemployment scheme at one of its next meetings. Failure to do so would...

Switzerland is the undisputed top dog of the global gold industry, refining a majority of the world’s gold, as well as being the leading exporter. But how seriously does the country take its responsibility to ensure sustainable mining and the protection of human rights? “This position of great global power comes with great responsibility because – here’s another thing too few people know – gold mining comes with its fair share of risks and problems,” notes...

What typifies the phenomenon of the boom-bust cycle is that it is recurrent. What is the reason for this? Loose monetary policies set the platform for various activities that would not emerge without the easy monetary stance. What loose monetary policy does here is to engineer the transfer of real savings from wealth generating activities to artificially stimulated activities, which we can label as bubble activities. Over time, these loose monetary policies begin to...

The Blue Lake in Arolla, southwestern Switzerland Switzerland Tourism has welcomed next month’s re-opening of borders with France, Germany and Austria. It believes the country’s reputation for cleanliness and tidiness could be a selling point once the Covid-19 pandemic dies down. “What doesn’t seem very sexy in normal times can be a big plus in times of crisis,” said Urs Eberhard, deputy director of Switzerland Tourismexternal link, in an interview with news agency...

With potential to expand, solar power covers about 3-4% of Swiss energy consumption. (Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi) Switzerland has placed second in a global index comparing current energy systems and readiness for the transition to cleaner sources. In its new Energy Transition Indexexternal link, the World Economic Forum (WEF) identifies the coronavirus pandemic as a serious threat to the switch to renewable energies. “The transformation of the energy system over...

After years of futility, he was sure of the answer. The Bank of Japan had spent the better part of the roaring nineties fighting against itself as much as the bubble which had burst at the outset of the decade. Letting fiscal authorities rule the day, Japan’s central bank had largely sat back introducing what it said was stimulus in the form of lower and lower rates. No, stupid, declared Milton Friedman. Lower rates don’t mean stimulus they mean monetary policy has...

Forget performing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The real art form is politicking. They sport taxpayer-funded windbreakers, speak with authority and urgency, and lead a brigade of specialists. When a crisis unfolds, whether it is a hurricane or a virus outbreak, politicians stand before the cameras, appearing to be in control of the situation—but they see an opportunity. As the catastrophe intensifies, the public recoils in fear and cowers before their dear leaders,...

© Mangpor2004 | Dreamstime.com On 13 May 2020, Switzerland’s government published more information on the Swiss Proximity Tracing App (Swiss PT), an app designed to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Developed by teams at EPFL and ETHZ, the app uses Bluetooth to detect when your phone comes within two metres of another phone or device with the app. It then records the contact as an anonymous key and the duration of contact, flagging any close contact longer than 15...

Some tyre abrasion particles can be removed from the environment via street cleaning and runoff water treatment. (Keystone/Eddy Risch) Each year some 14,000 tonnes of plastic waste end up in the Swiss environment. A federally commissioned analysisexternal link identifies two main culprits: tyre abrasion (around 8,000 tonnes) and littering (around 2,700 tonnes). The Federal Office of the Environment (FOEN) has published a new web pageexternal link with information on...

The core problem is the U.S. economy has been fully financialized, and so costs are unaffordable. To understand the long-term consequences of the pandemic on Main Street and local tax revenues, we need to consider first and second order effects. The immediate consequences of lockdowns and changes in consumer behavior are first-order effects: closures of Main Street, job losses, massive Federal Reserve bailouts of the top 0.1%, loan programs for small businesses,...