Tag Archives: Featured

The rise of service sector jobs will continue to boost part-time positions. Part-time work in Switzerland continues to increase, with the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office showing that over a third of employees work less than 90%. The figures, said the statistical office on Thursdayexternal link, show a marked increase in part-time work over the past 20 years: from 26.3% to 36.7%. This puts Switzerland...

The social media/search giants have mastered the dark arts of obfuscating how they’re reaping billions of dollars in profits from monetizing user data, and lobbying technologically naive politicos to leave their vast skimming operations untouched. I’ve been commenting on the cancerous disease that’s taken control of the Internet– what Shoshana Zuboff calls Surveillance Capitalism–for many years. Here is a selection of...

Crypto-friendly Swiss regulation and data security has enticed many people to keep their bitcoin in Swiss vaults. Bitcoin services provider Xapo is winding down activities at its Hong Kong base and transferring key operations to Switzerland. Xapo president Ted Rogers said the move has been driven by Switzerland’s friendlier regulatory environment. “It was once thought that Hong Kong was the holy grail of crypto...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.12% at 1.1332 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 21(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Mixed data from China and the anticipation of Prime Minister May’s “Plan B” are the main talking points, while US stock and bond markets are closed today. Asia Pacific equities were higher, while European markets have failed to follow...

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling,” they cried, as equities plunged in December.  It is signaling a recession, we were told. Instead, global equities have begun the year with a strong advance. The S&P 500 gapped higher ahead of the weekend, extending this year’s rally to about 14%. It has now retraced more than 50% of the decline, not from the December high but from the record high in late September. It has...

The ECB is comfortable with current market expectations for rate hikes. At its latest meeting in December, the ECB turned more cautious, lowering its growth forecasts but showing no sign of panic regarding the loss in euro area economic momentum. Risks were considered as “broadly balanced”, but moving to the downside. Since the December monetary policy meeting, data (PMI and national surveys, industrial production) have...

ABB was among the Swiss companies in big M & A deals last year, selling its power grid division to Hitachi. Its top officials are seen here at a press conference on the USD 9.4 billion deal. The number of merger and acquisition deals involving Swiss companies hit a record high in 2018, according to a report by consultancy firm KPMG. Activity peaked in a number of sectors including financial services, consumer...

The net result of a rigged system is the vast majority of the gains in income and wealth flow to the very tippy-top of the wealth/power pyramid. We often hear how the system (i.e. our economy) is rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many, but exactly how is it rigged? Longtime correspondent Zeus Y. recently highlighted two specific mechanisms that favor the top 0.01%: high frequency trading (HFT) and...

Le scandale de la valeur locative, un revenu fictif taxé Je profite du billet de G Monti pour introduire un thème qui, à lui seul résume ce que peut être l’injustice fiscale. Il s’agit de ce qui est appelée en Suisse la valeur locative de son logement. Il ne faut pas le confondre avec un impôt foncier, ni avec un loyer. En Suisse, quand vous voulez accéder à la propriété, tout sera fait pour pousser les...

Today was supposed to see the release of the Census Bureau’s retail trade report, a key data set pertaining to the (alarming) state of American consumers, therefore workers by extension (income). With the federal government in partial shutdown, those numbers will be delayed until further notice. In their place we will have to manage with something like the Federal Reserves’ Beige Book. It may not be close to the same...