Tag Archive: newsletter

Swiss civil servants incur CHF121 million in expenses

2018-11-19

by

2018-11-19

The expenses of Swiss civil servants added up to CHF 121.7 million ($122 million) last year, according to the SonntagsBlick newspaper. Counting the 34,800 full-time positions in the federal administration in 2016, that level of spending amounts to almost CHF3,500 per civil servant.

Read More »

China hard data for October reveals mixed picture

2018-11-18

by

2018-11-18

China Retail Sales in Nominal and Real terms
Disappointing consumption numbers point to growth deceleration in early 2019, but government measures beginning to be felt.Hard data out of China for October was mixed. On the positive side, growth in infrastructure picked up, suggesting the government’s fiscal policy easing is taking effect in the real economy. Industrial production numbers stopped declining, and the mining sector has a particularly strong performance.

Read More »

Minimum return on Swiss pensions unchanged

2018-11-18

by

2018-11-18

A government commission looking at the rate, called for a reduction to 0.75%, while unions demanded a rise to 1.25%. In the end the Federal Council decided to take the middle road and leave the rate at 1% for 2019. The rate is the minimum pension funds must apply to employment related 2nd pillar pension assets in 2019.

Read More »

After May’s divorce deal: the road ahead for Brexit

2018-11-17

by

2018-11-17

GBP/USD drops after Theresa May's cabinet approves the Eu divorce deal
But significant political challenges lie ahead before the 29 March deadline for Brexit. Sterling likely to be in the spotlight for several months.Theresa May’s cabinet has approved her divorce deal with the European Union (EU). A few cabinet secretaries have resigned, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab because the deal keeps the UK in a transitory ‘customs union’ with the EU, which in his view continues to give the EU too much influence on UK...

Read More »

Home-care services increase, nursing home stays stagnate

2018-11-17

by

2018-11-17

Better at home than in a home: almost 350,000 people made use of assistance and home-care services (Spitex) last year, 10,000 more than in 2016. In contrast, the number of residents of old-age and nursing homes remained constant at 149,000, 15% of them for a short stay. Spitex, a Swiss non-profit organisation that provides in-home nursing services like changing bandages and administering medicine, chalked up nearly 16 million hours of home care and...

Read More »

Does Any of This Make Sense?

2018-11-17

by

2018-11-17

Federal Government; Student loans 2005-2018
Does any of this make sense? No. But it's so darn profitable to the oligarchy, it's difficult to escape debt-serfdom and tax-donkey servitude. We rarely ask "does this make any sense?" of things that are widely accepted as beneficial-- or if not beneficial, "the way it is," i.e. it can't be changed by non-elite (i.e. the bottom 99.5%) efforts.

Read More »

FX Daily, November 16: Turning Brexit into a Dog’s Breakfast

2018-11-16

by

2018-11-16

Overview: It is the height of irony or tragedy that what was offered as a non-binding referendum on UK's membership in the European Union to bring the country, or at least the Tory Party, together is the most destabilizing event since the UK unceremoniously quit the European Exchange Rate Mechanism more than a quarter of a century ago. 

Read More »

Swiss wage index 2018: Real and minimum wages increased by 0.9 percent and 0.5 percent respectively in 2018

2018-11-16

by

2018-11-16

Wage adjustments in Switzerland, 1993-2018
The social partners signatory to Switzerland's main collective labour agreements (CLA) agreed a nominal rise in real wages of 0.9% and a nominal rise in minimum wages of 0.5% for 2018. Real wages increased by 0.3% at collective level and by 0.6% at individual level.

Read More »

Switzerland’s rising rate of farm suicide

2018-11-16

by

2018-11-16

The high and rising suicide rate among Switzerland’s male farmers stands in contrast to the declining rate among rural men working in other professions, according to a new study by the University of Bern published by the newspaper SonntagsZeitung. The rate among rural men working outside farming is 33 per 100,000, compared to 38 per 100,000 among farmers, a rate that has risen since 2003.

Read More »

Pound Falls 2.5 percent Against Gold as UK Government in Turmoil Over Brexit

2018-11-16

by

2018-11-16

Gold in GBP (24 Hours)
The pound plunged against the euro, the dollar, gold and all leading currencies today as Theresa May’s UK government appeared vulnerable to collapsing and political turmoil risked creating a hard Brexit. The pound has fallen 2.6% against gold in less than twenty four hours seeing gold rise from £923 to £947 per ounce in sterling terms.

Read More »

Retail Sales Marked By Revisions

2018-11-16

by

2018-11-16

U.S. Retail Sales, NSA 2011-2018
Retail sales rebounded 0.8% in October 2018 from September 2018, but it’s the downward revisions to the prior months that are cause for attention. The estimates for particularly September were moved sharply lower. Total retail sales two months ago had been figured last month at $485.8 billion (unadjusted) originally, but are now believed to have been just $483.0 billion.

Read More »

FX Daily, November 15: UK Political Drama Roils Sterling

2018-11-15

by

2018-11-15

Overview: The resignation of the UK's Brexit negotiator after Prime Minister May had secured support from a majority of the cabinet sent sterling sharply lower.  Raab's resignation underscores the difficulty the Brexit agreement faces in the UK Parliament.  Sterling was hammered nearly 2.5 cents on the news and trade below $1.28.

Read More »

Swiss Labour Force Survey in 3nd quarter 2018: 1.2percent increase in number of employed persons; unemployment rate based on ILO definition falls to 4.4percent

2018-11-15

by

2018-11-15

Unemployed According to ILO, Q1 2013-Q3 2018
The number of employed persons in Switzerland rose by 1.2% between the 3rd quarter 2017 and the 3rd quarter 2018. During the same period, the unemployment rate as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) declined by 0.6 percentage points to 4.4%. The EU's unemployment rate decreased from 7.3% to 6.5%.

Read More »

Financial institutions raided over mobile pay deals

2018-11-15

by

2018-11-15

The Swiss Competition Commission has searched the premises of Credit Suisse and UBS, PostFinance and the credit card companies Swisscard and Aduno for allegedly boycotting mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. The Competition Commission said on Thursday it had opened an investigation on Tuesday.

Read More »

The Implicit Desperation of China’s “Social Credit” System

2018-11-15

by

2018-11-15

S curve centralization
Other governments are keenly interested in following China's lead. I've been pondering the excellent 1964 history of the Southern Song Dynasty's capital of Hangzhou, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 by Jacques Gernet, in light of the Chinese government's unprecedented "Social Credit Score" system, which I addressed in Kafka's Nightmare Emerges: China's "Social Credit Score".

Read More »

Italian government sticks to its 2019 deficit plan

2018-11-14

by

2018-11-14

Italian: Credit Standards to Non-Financial Corporations
The minor concessions continued in the revised plan presented to the European Commission are unlikely to dissuade Brussels from launching sanctions.In a letter to the European Commission on 13 November, the Italian government confirmed that it would aim for a budget deficit at 2.4% of GDP in 2019 and reasserted its real growth forecast of 1.5% for next year.

Read More »

FX Daily, November 14: Dollar Comes Back After Yesterday’s Profit-Taking

2018-11-14

by

2018-11-14

Overview:  Investors are on pins and needles today.  Oil prices are trying to stabilize after WTI's outsized 7% fall yesterday, its largest in three years.  Global equities are heavier, dragged down by energy, but also larger than expected Q3 contractions in Japan and Germany, and a mixed bag of Chinese data that showed possible stabilization of the industrial sector though weaker consumption. 

Read More »

Visana insurance president commits suicide

2018-11-14

by

2018-11-14

The president of the Swiss insurance firm Visana, Urs Roth, committed suicide on Monday, the firm has announced. In recent years, several top Swiss executives have taken their lives. “It is with great sadness that we inform you about the death of our Chairman of the Executive Board, Mr. Urs Roth, who took his own life yesterday," Visana said in a brief statement.

Read More »

Cool Video: Euro Pressured Lower

2018-11-14

by

2018-11-14

As a long-term dollar bull, I was happy to accept Bloomberg TV's invite to come to the set on the day that the Dollar Index made new highs for the year and the euro punched through the $1.1300 support that has held since mid-August.  

Read More »

China’s Pooh Lesson

2018-11-14

by

2018-11-14

Chinese Money 2001-2018
It’s one of those “nothing to see here” moments for Economists trying not to appreciate what’s really going on in China therefore the global economy. The slump in China’s automotive sector dragged on through October, with year-over-year sales down for the fourth straight month.

Read More »