Tag Archives: Featured

The role of energy supply is crucial for economic growth in Switzerland according to KOF director Jan-Egbert Sturm. Keystone / Arno Balzarini Economic researcher Jan-Egbert Sturm expects the Swiss economy to stagnate in the next few months. The director of the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF) at Federal Institute ETH Zurich, said Switzerland had been been quite resilient in the current economic environment. “Resilience is based on stable political institutions, a...

Even before the softer-than-expected US inflation, we had been suggesting the dollar was in the process of carving out a significant high. Our strongest conviction was that sterling bottomed in late September at a record low near $1.0350. Our conviction had also been growing that the greenback has topped against the Canadian dollar, a little shy of our CAD1.40 target. Short-term trend followers and momentum traders have to adjust positions, and long-term structural...

Policymakers have often said that exchange rates should reflect fundamentals. What does that really mean? Can they do anything but that? It begs the question of which fundamental factors they should reflect. Therein lies the rub. We are still struck by the latest Bank for International Settlements figures. Their survey found that the average daily turnover in the foreign exchange market was $7.5 trillion a day. World trade last year was about $22.5 trillion. The...

On July 8 this year, UK prime minister Boris Johnson resigned as Conservative Party leader after a Cabinet revolt over a series of ethics scandals had made his position untenable. A leadership election was then set in motion to allow party members to elect the next party leader who would succeed Johnson as PM. The result was announced on September 5: the winner was would-be Margaret Thatcher, Liz Truss. The queen invited Truss to become PM on September 6. Truss...

A great benefit of the internet age is the capacity to accumulate, accelerate, and intensify connections between entrepreneurs, knowledge sources, investors, mentors, collaborators, and service providers. Businesses with a valid value proposition who are in the launch and early expansion phases can interconnect a network of powerful and qualified resources to support their growth. A good way to do so is to utilize a platform (another product of the internet age)...

Now here’s the headline! Swiss National Bank loses nearly $143 billion in first nine months Reuters reported the Q3 result last week, in which Switzerland’s publicly traded central bank (SNB) suffered its largest loss in its 115-year history. The news release reads beyond belief, not because of the unprecedented amount of value that was lost, but just how nonchalantly this legal counterfeiting ring is being downplayed. The loss … was slightly more than the annual...

Switzerland’s recent vote on state pension reform on 25 September 2022, divided men and women, reported RTS. Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.comThe vote was split into two parts. The first asked whether the state pension age for women should rise from 64 to 65 to bring it into line with the pension age for men. The second part asked whether VAT should rise from 7.7% to 8.1% to fund a looming pension funding shortfall. According to an analysis by the survey firm...

After construction workers went out on strike for two days in French-speaking Switzerland, construction workers protested in Zurich over hours and pay on 11 November 2022, reported RTS. Photo by Rodolfo Quirós on Pexels.comWith inflation in Switzerland running at 3%, construction workers are demanding higher pay. However, the construction industry has responded with an offer of better pay tied to higher maximum hours. The industry would like maximum weekly hours to...

© Jan Gajdosik | Dreamstime.com According to the bank Raiffeisen, a future rental housing crisis is likely in Switzerland as the home vacancy rate moves below 1% in 2024, reported 20 Minutes. The combined forces of higher construction costs and higher interest rates have reduced the number of homes being built, said the bank. This combined with the continued growth of the population and a trend towards more living space is expected to create a squeeze as growth in...

In his Nations by Consent, Murray Rothbard reminds us that the concept of a nation “cannot be precisely defined; it is a complex and varying constellation of different forms of communities, languages, ethnic groups, or religions.” And yet, in most states of the world, this concept of nationality has been transformed from a group with a shared heritage, language, and history into a set of documents that needs to be processed in central facilities. Gone are the days of...