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The lawsuit paperwork amounts to more than 100,000 pages (© KEYSTONE / ENNIO LEANZA) - Click to enlarge Some 6,000 people in Switzerland have banded together to sue German car manufacturer Volkswagen and a Swiss car dealer for damages related to the exhaust scandal. The Consumer Protection Organisation (SKS)external link announced on Friday that it had filed a claim on behalf of about 6,000 car owners at...

Gold, Bitcoin and the Blockchain Replaces the Banks – Realists Guide To The Future – Futurist guide to 2028 shows a world of uncertainty and disruption– One scenario suggests cybersecurity attacks will result in bitcoin and blockchain’s dominance of financial systems– Cybersecurity threat will still loom large and wreak havoc. Gold, silver and other real assets will benefit.– Adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain...

Financial and political power are two sides of one coin. We all know the rich are getting richer, and the super-rich are getting super-richer. This reality is illustrated in the chart of income gains, the vast majority of which have flowed to the top .01%–not the top 1%, or the top .1% — to the very tippy top of the wealth-power pyramid: Though all sorts of reasons have been offered to explain this trend–I’ve...

Remarkable and Extraordinary Growth Good cheer has arrived at precisely the perfect moment. You can really see it. Record stock prices, stout economic growth, and a GOP tax reform bill to boot. Has there ever been a more flawless week leading up to Christmas? Here’s what really happened: the government’s minions confiscated everything Santa had on him when he crossed the border and then added it to GDP. - Click to...

Note that widening wealth and income inequality is a non-partisan trend. One of the core goals of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies of the past 9 years is to generate the “wealth effect”: by pushing the valuations of stocks and bonds higher, American households will feel wealthier, and hence be more willing to borrow and spend, even if they didn’t actually reap any gains by selling stocks and bonds that gained...

Nestlé, who else? Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos (r) drinks a coffee with Nespresso CEO Jean-Marc Duvoisin in Bogota in November. With a market value of $264 billion (CHF258 billion), Nestlé has claimed second place in Europe behind Royal Dutch Shell ($276 billion) in global rankings published by consultancy EY on Friday. However, that only put them in 17th and 18th place respectively, well below the global...

A plane lands at Zurich Airport, which handled more than two million passengers in November 2017 Swiss business hubs like Zurich are more globally accessible than they were a few years ago. According to the latest “accessibility index” from economic research institute BAK Economicsexternal link in Basel, Zurich has jumped in the rankings from 34 to 28. This is due to improved connections to business hubs in China, India...

Repeating Patterns and Positioning A noteworthy confluence of patterns in gold and gold stocks is in evidence this year. At the close of trading on December 26, the HUI Index has given a (tentative) buy signal by completing a unique chart pattern, which is why we decided to briefly discuss the situation. As usual, things are not as straightforward and simple as they would ideally be, but there is always an element of...

 Swiss balance of payments and international investment position: Q3 2017 Current Account  The Swiss current account surplus went down by 15% against the same quarter in 2016. In the third quarter of 2015. The current account surplus was still at 22 bn. CHF. It seems to be a change in the usual movement that sees higher Q3 surpluses compared to the other quarters. The surplus in Q2/2017 was similar to the one in...

The BoJ remains the last major central bank still firmly committed to large-scale monetary easing. After its Monetary Policy Meeting of December 21, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced its intention to keep its current monetary easing programme intact. The BOJ will continue with its “Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing with Yield Curve Control ”, aiming to achieve and overshoot the core inflation target of 2%....