Tag Archives: Politics

A recent survey by a Swiss union USS shows that average pay for journalists in Switzerland has barely risen for 14 years. © Maren Winter | Dreamstime.comIn 2006, on average (median) a journalist earned CHF 7,200 a month. By 2020, this figure had risen to CHF 7,333, an average annual increase of 0.13%, which amounts to less than CHF 10. Journalists working for Switzerland’s broadcaster RTS, which is largely funded by an annual fee levied on households and businesses, faired the best,...

Interview with Chris Powell  Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen many crucial and historic developments in the precious metals market. For long-term physical gold investors, who recognized the importance of the precious metal as a safe haven and as a hedge against systemic and monetary risks, the rally has been especially rewarding, while it has also served as an undeniable vindication of their position.  Today, with gold having reached historic highs, there are...

Beyond economics  While the economic forces that drive this rush to precious metals are clearly understandable, there are other, deeper and less obvious factors that must also be taken into account. This “fear of uncertainty”, which pushes demand for gold higher as it has done so many times in the past, is different this time. It goes well beyond mere economic uncertainty and it involves concerns much more serious than just inflation expectations, productivity metrics and...

Gold’s stellar performance throughout the pandemic and especially over the last weeks has managed to capture international headlines and dominate expert analyses and commentary. The media frenzy quickly intensified once the precious metal first broke the $2,000 ceiling in early August, a record that was widely covered by mainstream outlets, bringing gold to the attention of the wider public. So far, the rally been described as “exceptional”, “historic” and “extraordinary”, showing...

The EU Pandemic Relief Deal After intense negotiations, long days and nights of clashes and a distinctly sour note underlying the entire summit, European Union leaders finally agreed on an unprecedented 1.82 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and COVID recovery package. This agreement provided €750 billion in funding meant to counter the impact of the pandemic, while it also includes €390bn in non-repayable grants to the hardest-hit members, with Italy and Spain being the main...

Interview with Jayant Bhandari Claudio Grass (CG): In such a vast and incredibly diverse country like India, can top-down measures and centralized policies like affirmative action or caste-based economic incentives effectively force social change and economic equality? Or can they be seen as merely symbolic moves, or perhaps just political maneuvers?  Jayant Bhandari (JB): The government should get completely out of the business of social engineering. Even under a purely...

Finanz und Wirtschaft, July 25, 2020. PDF. The Swiss National Bank—yes, the Swiss one—feels it must remind politicians of its independence. Parliamentarians from left to right (!) voice demands. To shrink the SNB’s balance sheet? No, for more central bank profits to be distributed sooner rather than later. I discuss misconceptions, possible motivations, and a constructive response. «The best way to defend the independence of a central bank is never to exercise it.»

Interview with Jayant Bhandari: Part I Following the publication of our last conversation with Jayant Bhandari, I received a lot of interesting feedback and remarks. The common denominator of all those comments was the astonishment of many Western readers at the real conditions and dynamics on the ground in India. In fact, I was surprised myself by how little we actually know and understand about a country so vast, so populous and so potentially influential on the world’s...

As the dust is now begging to settle, both from the heights of the COVID panic and from the riots that shook the western world, we are starting to get an idea about where we stand after this unprecedented and tumultuous time. We are able to begin taking stock of the damage that was inflicted by the lockdowns and to evaluate the governmental efforts to help those affected and to provide support to the economy. More interestingly, we are finally in a position to see clearly who amongst...

In this episode of our Inside Geneva podcast, we look at the role of the World Trade Organization as it chooses a new leader amid challenging times. Every country has to trade: to sell goods, and to import others that aren’t produced at home. But who makes the rules around trade? Host Imogen Foulkes is joined by former World Trade Organization (WTO) official Peter Ungphakorn, former Reuters correspondent and trade journalist Tom Miles, and analyst Daniel Warner, to...