Tag Archives: Featured

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.15% to 1.0948 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 01(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The US dollar fell against most major currencies following the PBOC’s modest move to reduce the upward pressure on the yuan. Follow-through selling was seen earlier today, and sterling reached a new three-year high. However, the dollar found a bid in the European morning, while the...

David Solo’s role in supply-chain firm Greensill’s pursuit of Swiss riches was pivotal Keystone / Steffen Schmidt In late 2014, David Solo lent A$12.2 million (CHF8.5 million) to a little-known supply-chain finance group with eye-catching claims. Greensill Capital, which was trying to muscle in on a corner of finance dominated for decades by banks, vowed to make “finance fairer” and declared that it would be “democratising capital”. The cheque was helpful, but the...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In late May we learned that, after a five-month deployment to one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the American military would finally be going home. Well, not really. They already were home. The dangerous warzone was the American federal capital, Washington, DC. And the “danger” that the military was supposed to be countering was entirely government made.

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.22% to 1.0986 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 31(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: US and UK markets are closed for holidays today, contributing to the rather subdued price action today. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rallied two percent last week, the most in three months, and most markets began off the week with modest gains. Japan, Australia, and Singapore, for...

The hidden tax A lot of people might be aware of historical cases of hyperinflation, like that of Hungary and the Weimar Republic, or even contemporary ones, like that of Venezuela. And yet, these are taught or reported like extreme cases, very far removed from the daily experience of most modern Western citizens. They are presented as though this sort of thing “could never happen here” and very often, the mechanisms and the conscious choices that led to these...

Paper mountain: applications for short-time working compensation in canton Vaud, April 2020. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott The Swiss Federal Audit Office says it is worried by a surge in fraud cases linked to the short-time working system, a key pillar of the country’s economic response to Covid-19. The office’s director Michel Huissoud told public radio SRF on Monday he was “shocked by the number of complaints, mistakes, and abuses” recorded to date. As many as...

That the era of stability has ended and a new era of increasingly chaotic volatility has begun is not on anyone’s radar as a possibility. The standard debate about the future of the economy is: which will we get, high inflation or a deflationary collapse of defaults and asset bubbles popping? The debate goes round and round in widening circles of complexity as analysts delve into every nuance of the debate. A recent conversation with my friend A.T. raised a third...

Death threats, insults, posters vandalised or set on fire: the campaign for two initiatives against pesticides to be put to the vote on June 13 is extremely tense. This toxic climate highlights a deep malaise in the Swiss agricultural world. Scenes of vandalism are becoming regular features as two initiatives that seek to ban pesticides come to a vote in June. Union suisse des paysans “My children live in fear because they have suffered attacks and insults on social...

Over the years, I’ve been pretty hard on the European Union. Both as an editor and a writer, I’ve published articles criticizing its central bank and its unelected, bureaucratic central government. Especially objectionable is the EU ruling class’s propensity for cynical politics built around threatening and intimidating voters and national governments who don’t conform to Brussels’ wishes. Recall, for example, how the EU threatened the United Kingdom with retaliatory...

This week, 5,670 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in Switzerland, down 28% from the week before (7,843), continuing the downward trend of new numbers of recorded infections. © Fabiobalbi | Dreamstime.com The daily number of cases on a 7-day rolling average has more than halved (-58%) in 4 weeks falling from 1,924 to 810. With around 34% of Switzerland’s population vaccinated with at least one dose by 26 May 2021, vaccination appears to be having a positive impact on...