Tag Archives: Featured

Switzerland’s second largest bank is replacing bricks and mortar with digital. Credit Suisse Credit Suisse is taking on so-called challenger banks with a new digital service for customers, including a debit card with no foreign transaction fees. The bank is closing down branches across Switzerland and is converting others into a “digital bar” concept. Switzerland’s second largest bank unveiled its new CSX banking app on Thursday with specific features aimed towards...

The town of Siviriez – source Wikipedia According to RTS, a branch of the HFR hospital in the Swiss canton of Fribourg has reached full capacity after a rise in Covid-19 patients following an outbreak in a local nursing home. The rise in hospital admissions follows an outbreak of Covid-19 in a nursing home in the region. Nine new patients have been admitted to the hospital since Wednesday. HFR Riaz, near the town of Bulle, is one of five HFR sites making up the...

Many employees were put on short time work during the lockdown as companies were hit by the pandemic. Keystone / Magali Girardin Government credits and employment support measures have helped stave off a wave of bankruptcies, but they could rise over the longer term, says a survey. Between January and August 2020, which includes the lockdown period, 2,800 firms in Switzerland declared bankruptcy. This is actually 621 fewer than in the same period last year, says the...

The dollar rally ran out of steam; US Senate will hold a vote today on its proposed “skinny” bill US reports August PPI and weekly jobless claims; US will sell $23 bln of 30-year bonds today after a sloppy 10-year auction yesterday BOC delivered a hawkish hold yesterday; Peru is expected to keep rates steady at 0.25% ECB is expected to keep policy steady; there were some eurozone IP readings; UK published its so-called Internal Market Bill Japan may go to the polls...

While the Federal Reserve and the Billionaire Class push the stock market to new highs to promote a false facade of prosperity, everyday life will fall apart. How will the status quo collapse? An open conflict–a civil war, an insurrection, a coup–appeals to our affection for drama, but the more likely reality is a decidedly undramatic dissolution in which all the elements of our way of life we reckoned were solid and permanent simply melt into air, to borrow Marx’s...

Simply buying bitcoin does not require a law change but legislation needs to keep up with a host of blockchain developments in finance and the way companies operate. © Keystone / Christian Beutler Bitcoin used to be something of a dirty word, associated with crime and money laundering. Switzerland has now amended its legal code to welcome cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology into the mainstream. Parliamentarians in the Senate rapidly passed a wide-ranging set...

© Denis Linine | Dreamstime.com On 7 September 2020, Switzerland added to its list of quarantine countries. People entering Switzerland from 55 nations must now quarantine for 10 days. On 7 September 2020, 10 nations were added to the list. These include Croatia, French Polynesia, Guyana, Lebanon, Libya, Paraguay, San Marino, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates. From 7 September 2020, anyone who has spent time in these countries over the 14 days prior...

Switzerland and Britain are talking of closer cooperation as two major economies that are not part of the EU. © Keystone / Peter Schneider Switzerland and Britain are thrashing out a post-Brexit financial services treaty that is being billed as a global standard for common sense. It also takes aim at perceived EU inflexibility that has seen the Swiss stock market frozen out of European markets. The proposed treaty to “deepen cooperation” on a whole range of financial...

Scapegoating dissenters only hastens the disunity and disarray that accelerates the final collapse. Authoritarianism is imposed on us, but its sibling intolerance is our own doing. Intolerance and authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin: as intolerance becomes the norm, the intolerant start demanding that the state enforce their intolerance by suppressing their enemies via increasingly heavy-handed authoritarian measures. Intolerance and authoritarianism...

If we are going to see negative nominal Treasury rates, what would guide yields toward such a plunge? It seems like a recession is the ticket, the only way would have to be a major economic downturn. Since we’ve already experienced one in 2020, a big one no less, and are already on our way back up to recovery (some say), then have we seen the lows in rates? Not for nothing, every couple years when we do those (record low yields) that’s what “they” always say and yet...