Tag Archive: Switzerland

London Gold and Silver Fix lawsuits

2016-10-05

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2016-10-05

Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse
Five months have lapsed without decision, since London gold and silver benchmark-rigging class action lawsuits received a cool response in a Manhattan court. Transcripts from April hearings show, in the absence of direct evidence, the claims dissected by a “very skeptical” judge, and criticized by defendants for lack of facts suggesting collusion, among other things.

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Will The ECB Buy Stocks?

2016-10-05

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2016-10-05

Debate about the ECB’s stimulus options have continued to rage, with an equity purchase plan mentioned as a possibility. We think the ECB could legally buy ETFs that fit its requirements… but it would be controversial and we question the benefits. An ETF programme could total EUR 200bn, which would not be large compared to the overall QE programme.

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Is The US Dollar Set To Soar?

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

Hating the U.S. dollar offers the same rewards as hating a dominant sports team: it feels righteous to root for the underdogs, but it's generally unwise to let that enthusiasm become the basis of one's bets. Personally, I favor the emergence of non-state reserve currencies, for example, blockchain crypto-currencies or precious-metal-backed private currencies--currencies which can't be devalued by self-serving central banks or the private elites...

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Secret Swiss Military Bunkers Filled With Gold: Alternatives To Bank Deposits

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

For decades, Switzerland had a reputation for bank secrecy that made it the most sought after tax haven for billionaires from around the globe. But, after more than 80 years of secrecy, a series of bilateral agreements with countries around the world, including America’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), have forced the private-banking industry in Switzerland to embrace an entirely new era of transparency that requires a full exchange of...

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U.S. Imports Record Amount Of Gold From Switzerland In July

2016-09-24

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2016-09-24

Switzerland's gold exports to the U.S. are already 60.7 mt in 2016, up more than 18 times the volume in 2015. For the first year since 2011, U.S. gold imports are higher than exports.

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Un-Becoming American – One Man’s Painful Journey To Renouncing Citizenship

In April 2012, I returned to Switzerland – my country of birth – to commence a new phase of my adult life. Naturally, one of the first steps to undertake when establishing oneself in a new country is to open a bank account. I went down to the local Raiffeisen bank branch in the village of Aesch, Luzern, where my relatives and ancestors had lived and worked as farmers for over 10 generations.

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Confiscation: Sorry, You Can’t Have Your Gold

We warn regularly of the risk involved in storing wealth in banks. They’ve made the removal of your deposits increasingly difficult in addition to colluding with governments to allow them to legally freeze or confiscate your money. To add insult to injury, they’re creating reporting requirements with regard to the contents of safe deposit boxes and restricting what can be stored in them – again, at risk of confiscation.

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Best Countries To Store Gold: How Did America, A Serial Defaulter, Make The Cut?

An era of slowing growth, falling corporate profits, record debt levels, and currency debauchment has many investors buying gold as a bet against global central banks. Holding that gold outside the banking system, and for some, outside one’s own country, are increasingly popular options. Canada, Switzerland, and four other countries have particularly attractive characteristics.

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Rogoff Warns “Cash Is Not Forever, It’s A Curse”

2016-09-14

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2016-09-14

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, postulates to get rid of cash. In his opinion, killing big bills would hamper organized crime and make negative interest more effective. Kenneth Rogoff makes a provocative proposal. One of the most influential economists on the planet, he wants to phase out cash.

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Strong Swiss growth lessens chance SNB will act

2016-09-13

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2016-09-13

Swiss real GDP growth data surprised on the upside in Q2, expanding by 0.6% q-o-q (and 2.5% q-o-q annualised). In addition, growth in the three previous quarters was revised significantly higher. As a result, our GDP growth forecast for growth in Switzerland rises mechanically from 0.9% to 1.5% for 2016.

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Attack The Fed’s War On Savers, Workers And The Unborn (Taxpayers)

2016-09-13

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2016-09-13

The central banks have gone so far off the deep-end with financial price manipulation that it is only a matter of time before some astute politician comes after them with all barrels blasting. As a matter of fact, that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump unloaded on bubble vision this morning:

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Case For -2 percent Rates, Banning Cash? Jim Grant Blasts Lunatic Proposals

2016-09-11

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2016-09-11

Looking for group think, extrapolation of extreme silliness, linear thinking, and belief in absurd models? Then look no further than Fed presidents, their advisors, and academia loaded charlatan professors. Today’s spotlight is on Marvin Goodfriend, a former economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve’s Bank of Richmond, and Ken Rogoff, a chaired Harvard economics professor, a one-time chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

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Negative and the War On Cash, Part 2: “Closing The Escape Routes”

2016-09-08

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2016-09-08

History teaches us that central authorities dislike escape routes, at least for the majority, and are therefore prone to closing them, so that control of a limited money supply can remain in the hands of the very few. In the 1930s, gold was the escape route, so gold was confiscated. As Alan Greenspan wrote in 1966:

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Negative Rates and The War On Cash, Part 1: “There Is Nowhere To Go But Down”

2016-09-04

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2016-09-04

As momentum builds in the developing deflationary spiral, we are seeing increasingly desperate measures to keep the global credit ponzi scheme from its inevitable conclusion. Credit bubbles are dynamic — they must grow continually or implode — hence they require ever more money to be lent into existence.

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Europe Debates The Burkini: “We Will Colonize You With Your Democratic Laws”

2016-09-04

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2016-09-04

"We will colonize you with your democratic laws." — Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Egyptian Islamic cleric and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. "Beaches, like any public space, must be protected from religious claims. The burkini is an anti-social political project aimed in particular at subjugating women.

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Gold Withdrawals From The NY Fed Accelerate, Hit 388 Tons Since 2014

2016-08-31

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2016-08-31

First it was Germany who redeemed 120 tons of physical gold from the NY Fed in 2014; then it was the Netherlands who "secretly" redomiciled 122 tons of gold; then last May, we learned that Austria would be the third "core" European nation to repatriate most of its offshore gold, held primarily in the Bank of England, redepositing it in Vienna and Switzerland.

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Finland Unleashes Helicopter Money In “Greatest Societal Transformation Of Our Time”

2016-08-31

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2016-08-31

Finland is about to launch an experiment in which a randomly selected group of 2,000–3,000 citizens already on unemployment benefits will begin to receive a monthly basic income of 560 euros (approx. $600). That basic income will replace their existing benefits. The amount is the same as the current guaranteed minimum level of Finnish social security support.

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‘Last Economist Standing’ John Taylor Urges “Less Weird Policy” At Jackson Hole

2016-08-25

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2016-08-25

I attended the first monetary-policy conference there in 1982, and I may be the only person to attend both the 1st and the 35th. I know the Tetons will still be there, but virtually everything else will be different. As the Wall Street Journal front page headline screamed out on Monday, central bank Stimulus Efforts Get Weirder. I’m looking forward to it.

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Two More Banks Start Charging Select Clients For Holding Cash

2016-08-19

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2016-08-19

Bank of Ireland, which is 14% owned by the State, has informed its large corporate and institutional customers that it plans to charge them a negative rate of -0.1% for deposits of €10 million or more starting in October.

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The World’s Dominant Gold Refineries

2016-08-19

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2016-08-19

There are many precious metals refineries throughout the world, some local to their domestic markets, and some international, even global in scale. Many but by no means all of these refineries are on the Good Delivery Lists of gold and/or silver.

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