Tag Archives: Featured

swissinfo.ch/Delali Adogla-Bessa As the world’s second-largest cocoa producer continues to lose swathes of farmland to illegal gold mining, Switzerland’s chocolate makers are waking up to the threat to their raw material supply. SWI swissinfo.ch special series: An African perspective on cocoa Native to Central and South America, cocoa cultivation in West Africa was first recorded in 1868. The archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew refer to a few cocoa trees...

Access to the metaverse is complex and expensive, which is why it is so far used almost exclusively by large companies. The Zurich and Verbier-based PR agency Rent a PR, which has been providing on-demand public relations and communications consulting for five years and has been accepting Bitcoin payments since 2019, is setting another milestone with cooperation and press conferences in the metaverse. The new service covers all the processes companies use to contact...

Many Swiss dream of owning a single-family home in the countryside and passing it on to their children. For most, this dream is increasingly unrealistic. Journalist and deputy head of the swissinfo.ch editorial group for German, French and Italian. Earlier, worked for Teletext and Switzerland’s French-language national broadcaster. More from this author | French DepartmentSamuel Jaberg In 2015, before starting a family, Ophélie* and her partner Laurent*...

All of these are structural dynamics that won’t go away in a few months or years. Let’s explore what’s different now compared to recessions of the past 60 years. 1. Deglobalization is inflationary. Offshoring production to low-cost countries imported deflation (product prices remained flat or declined) and boosted corporate profits. Deglobalization will increase costs and pressure profits. Just as cleaning up the environmental damage of rampant industrialization...

Over the present year we have experienced record-breaking price inflation, a series of interest rate hikes, and an overall fall in stock prices. It is widely accepted that there is a bubble. A good way for Misesians to measure this is by comparing the price of capital (stock prices) to its replacement cost (book value). A normal ratio for the overall market should be close to one. Such a ratio means that value is being properly imputed, and that the structure of...

Overview: The bout of profit-taking on long dollar positions begun last week has carried into the start of this week.  Despite the escalating rhetoric, the yen is not participating today and is trading within the pre-weekend ranges.  The greenback’s lows have been set in the European morning and have stretched the intraday momentum indicators, suggesting that North American dealers may not follow suit. The uncertainty about the Swedish election outcome has not...

Nothing happened last week. Stocks and bonds and commodities continued to trade and move around in price but there was no news to which those movements could be attributed. The economic news was a trifle and what there was told us exactly nothing new about the economy. A report that wholesale inventories rose 0.6% cannot be turned into market moving news no matter how hard the newsletter sellers try. Jobless claims fell 8,000? Yawn. Exports rose $500 million? In a...

In last week’s column, I criticized Jedediah Purdy for the ignorance of economic theory on display in his Two Cheers for Politics. Fortunately, the book contains much of interest, reflecting the author’s wide knowledge of the history of political philosophy. I have to say, though, that the main argument of the book strikes me as utterly unconvincing. Purdy starts off well. He asks, Why are people living today bound by past political arrangements to which they have...

Crypto solutions provider 21.co has raised a US$25 million round led by Marshall Wace at a US$2 billion valuation, making it Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn. The round, which included investors, such as Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners was the company’s first raise in over two years. 21.co is a collection of companies, the largest of which is cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) issuer 21Shares. The platform is...

Next year, average electricity prices in Switzerland are set to rise 27% with significant difference depending on where you live, reported RTS. Photo by Burak The Weekender on Pexels.comIn 2023, an average household consuming 4,500 kWh a year will pay an extra CHF 261 a year for their electricity. However, there will be big differences depending on where you are. In Zwischbergen, a municipality in Valais, 4,500 kWh will cost CHF 383.05 in 2023. The same electricity...