Tag Archives: Switzerland

In the NZZ, Michael Schaefer reports about a study that analyzes the portfolio composition of public sector entities and social security institutions. Cantons and the Federation mostly hold cash. The SNB’s portfolio is among the riskiest.

Authorities in Switzerland and Singapore are punishing BSI, the private bank based in the Ticino region of Switzerland, for alleged money-laundering offenses, shutting their activities in Singapore and seizing part of its profits. Switzerland’s attorney general has opened criminal proceedings against BSI Bank in connection with alleged money-laundering and corruption by Malaysia’s statement investment fund 1MDB. In a separate move, the country’s financial market regulator said the bank was...

On June 1, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will take a break from their respective domestic crises and attend a ceremony to inaugurate the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in Switzerland. While the US has been focused on resolving LGBT rights issues and deciding whether or not the Confederate flag can fly in cemeteries, Switzerland has focused on something that's actually productive. After 17 years of work, and at a cost of $12 billion, Switzerland has engineered and constructed the...

On June 1, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will take a break from their respective domestic crises and attend a ceremony to inaugurate the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in Switzerland. While the US has been focused on resolving LGBT rights issues and deciding whether or not the Confederate flag can fly in cemeteries, Switzerland has focused on something that’s actually productive. After 17 years of work, and at a cost of $12 billion, Switzerland has engineered and constructed the world’s...

What do financing your retirement as well as finding affordable healthcare and the possibility of losing your job all have in common with each other? Easy, at least for an American, these days. Those are the top three worries that we wake up to in this country and that 60% of people believe are very much more than just nightmares gone wrong. They could become reality and it would seem that women are more concerned in particular. It’s healthcare that is on everyone’s lips and it’s been like...

Submitted by Tim Price via SovereignMan.com, On 23 June 2016, this British citizen will be voting to leave the European Union. To me it’s clear: the EU has not only become too big for its own good, it’s too big to do hardly anything good. Back in 1975 when the UK first confirmed membership in the EU (when it was called the European Economic Community), it made sense. Britain has always thrived on international trade, and the EU promised more trade. But that’s not what happened. The EU...

In the NZZ, Heidi Gmür discusses some of the many forms of government support for agricultural producers in Switzerland. She lists: Direct payments: CHF 2.8 billion for 53’000 farms in 2016 (roughly CHF 50 thousand per farm). Tariffs and other protectionist measures: According to the OECD, the value for farmers of these measures amounts to CHF 2 billion annually, while the value for the country is negative (CHF -0.5 billion). Multiple tax breaks: Lower capital gains tax on land sales; no...

They have been increased. The illustration is taken from Finanz und Wirtschaft. Report by Hansueli Schöchli in the NZZ.

By all accounts Bernhard Gubser was living the American Dream. Born in Switzerland he moved to the Land of the Free in the early 1980s to work at an international shipping company based in Laredo, Texas. Eventually Mr. Gubser worked his way up to be President of the company and began traveling around the world to expand the business. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the 1990s, something that would eventually cost him $1.35 million. As a Swiss native, Gubser had a...

The current financial market volatility increasingly reflects loss of faith in policy makers. Celebrity central bankers are learning that they must constantly produce new miracles for their followers. First, the measures implemented since 2009 created an artificial stability and an asset price boom in many markets. But the absolute rate of GDP expansion and level of price changes is inadequate to solve global debt problems. Second, new initiatives seem the risky response of clever...