Tag Archives: Politics

Interview with Dimitri Speck Given the massive intervention and monetary manipulation experiment by central banks over the last decade, the amount of distortions created in the market, as well as the record debt accumulation at all levels of the economy, have given rise to considerable risks for investors. For a more detailed understanding of these issues and for his outlook, I turned to Dimitri Speck, a renowned expert in the development of trading systems and in seasonal analysis,...

Interview with Dimitri Speck Given the massive intervention and monetary manipulation experiment by central banks over the last decade, the amount of distortions created in the market, as well as the record debt accumulation at all levels of the economy, have given rise to considerable risks for investors. For a more detailed understanding of these issues and for his outlook, I turned to Dimitri Speck, a renowned expert...

“An eternally high plateau” US markets made headlines once again, as they reached new highs recently, continuing a rally that seems to defy gravity and common sense. Despite the rise in investor anxiety and heightened volatility that seemed to signify a possible end to the bull market at the final quarter of the last year, exuberance has returned since the beginning of 2019, while overall the S&P 500 has risen by more than 300% since its March 2009 lows. Valuations are extremely high...

Spillover effects Turkey’s debt problem, coupled with the plummeting lira, is arguably the most important risk factor for the nation’s economy. To make matters worse, far from it posing a threat just to Turkey itself, it also has the potential to inflict significant damage elsewhere too, starting with key economies in the Eurozone. At first glance, the situation in Turkey might resemble many past similar scenarios of a heavily indebted nation with a plummeting currency that descends into...

Asylum seekers clean a park in Biasca, canton Ticino, in 2017 Over one-third of all asylum seekers and refugees in Switzerland are currently employed, according to State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) figures. But most of the jobs are precarious and the vast majority continue to receive state benefits. In one year, the employment rate for asylum seekers in Switzerland rose from 27% in March 2018 to 32% today, according...

Turkey has been almost constantly in the news over the past year, as troubling headlines about its economy and political situation continue to pile up. In a currency meltdown that escalated last summer, the Turkish lira has plunged by nearly 40%, threatening the Turkish economy as a whole. In January, inflation topped 20%, with skyrocketing food prices having an especially severe impact on the population. At the same time, unemployment hit 14.7%, its highest level in a decade, and a...

In 2019, Switzerland lost one place slipping from 5th to 6th place out of 180, according to the latest world ranking of press freedom by the organisation Reporters Without Borders. © Pavel Abramov | Dreamstime.com The change was largely driven by the stronger performance of Denmark, which moved up into 5th place. According to the report, the press in Switzerland continues to face economic pressure and to suffer from a worrying increase in ownership concentration linked to the digital...

The gap between income and expenditure for Switzerland’s old age pension system continues to widen. (© Keystone/Christian Beutler) Pay-outs by Switzerland’s main state pension plan, which comprises old age insurance and other schemes, far exceeded income last year. Overall, the old age pension scheme recorded a deficit of CHF2.2 billion ($2.2 billion) in 2018 compared with a surplus of CHF1.1 billion the previous year,...

Swiss National Bank chief Thomas Jordan (left), economics minister Guy Parmelin (second from left), president Ueli Maurer and communications manager Peter Minder give a press conference in Washington. Obstacles to implementation of a revised double-taxation agreement between Switzerland and the United States may soon be removed, according to Swiss president and finance minister Ueli Maurer. Maurer was speaking after a...

© Eziogutzemberg | Dreamstime.com In 2016, before the effects of taxes and welfare, the highest earning 20% of Swiss households made on average 40.8 times what an average household in the bottom 20 percent made, an inequality measure known as the S80/S20. However, after taxes and welfare, including low income support, health insurance subsidies, pensions and disability benefits, the same income ratio fell to 4.4....