Switzerland

Bill Bonner: How to Invest Like the Swiss

"You can barely throw a Krugerrand in any direction without hitting a rich banker or his model wife. They stroll along the Limmatquai. They dine at the Kronenhalle. They shop on Bahnhofstrasse. And what do they think of today's markets? 'It's crazy what is happening,' said our friend. 'But crazy things happen. You just have to make sure you're not doing something crazy too.' Only a fool would pretend to know where gold will come to a bottom. Nobody knows. But a lot of people think they know. And when people think they know something that they can't really know, it is an opportunity for those who don't know and who know they don't know. Is that clear?" Continue reading →

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What’s the Better Role Model, France or Switzerland?

"The first slide, which is based on research from the Boston Consulting Group, looks at which jurisdictions have the most households with more than $1 million of wealth. Switzerland is the easy winner, and you probably won’t be surprised to see Hong Kong and Singapore also do very well. Gee, I wonder if the fact that Switzerland (#4), Hong Kong (#1), and Singapore (#2) score highly on the Economic Freedom of the World index has any connection with their comparative prosperity? The most impressive part of this data is the way Switzerland has maintained a much smaller burden of government spending [compared to the Eurozone]." Continue reading →

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Surveying the wreckage of torpedoed Swiss-US tax deal

"Following parliament’s rejection of a deal to solve the United States tax evasion dispute, there are grave doubts in both Switzerland and the US that serious damage to the Swiss financial system can be prevented. Switzerland’s lead negotiator, Michael Ambühl, already painted a bleak picture of life without a US agreement during an address back in February. 'Whether we like it or not, the US has the ability to destabilize the entire Swiss financial centre by taking measures against Swiss banks,' he said. It is believed that the DoJ already has some 14 other Swiss or Swiss-based banks in its legal cross hairs, including Credit Suisse, Pictet and several cantonal banks." Continue reading →

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French bank watchdog levies stiff fine against UBS over tax avoidance

"A French banking watchdog said on Wednesday that it fined the French branch of UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, ten million euros for helping hundreds of well-heeled clients stash money away in undeclared Swiss accounts. The bank immediately hit back in a statement, protesting that the fine, about $13 million, was disproportionate. The issue jumped back to the top of the government's agenda in the wake of a scandal surrounding the former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, who in April was himself placed under investigation for tax fraud. His role as budget minister included tackling tax evasion." Continue reading →

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By Global Standards, The US Education Bureaucracy Gets the Most Money With Mediocre Results

"America has a very costly and inefficient government school monopoly. The strongest piece of evidence is an amazing chart put together by a Cato colleague. It shows that education spending has skyrocketed while educational performance has stagnated. We’ve now surpassed Switzerland to become the biggest spenders on education. But we still get a crummy return on all that money that is spent. One reason the system is so expensive is that we squander so much money on bureaucratic overhead. But I guess we need all those paper pushers so we can stop little kids from engaging in terrorist behavior." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBy Global Standards, The US Education Bureaucracy Gets the Most Money With Mediocre Results

Don’t Leave Home Without This

"Since 1986, the U.S. State Department has been informing the IRS of all persons who renew their U.S. passports using a foreign address. Since passport renewals require an applicant’s Social Security number, this information is also used by the IRS to see if applicants have filed income tax returns. An IRS official speaking in Zurich said a special effort was being made by the agency to track all U.S. citizens who’ve renewed U.S. passports while living in Switzerland. So, now we have two out of control U.S. government agencies that have the ability to track your private financial activity and revoke your ability to travel freely through your U.S. passport." Continue reading →

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Holocaust survivor and US tax fugitive Marc Rich dies at 78 in Switzerland

"Billionaire Marc Rich, who invented oil trading and was pardoned of a life sentence by President Bill Clinton over the then-biggest tax evasion case in U.S. history and busting sanctions with Iran, died on Wednesday from a stroke in Switzerland at 78. Rich fled the Holocaust with his parents for America to become the most successful and controversial trader of his time and a fugitive from U.S. justice, enjoying decades of comfortable privacy at his sprawling Villa Rosa on Lake Lucerne. Belgian-born Rich, whose trading group eventually became the global commodities powerhouse Glencore Xstrata, died in hospital from a stroke, spokesman Christian Koenig said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHolocaust survivor and US tax fugitive Marc Rich dies at 78 in Switzerland

Credit Suisse faces $1.2-billion US penalty over taxes

"Credit Suisse faces a penalty of $1.2 billion (1.1 billion francs) from US authorities over cases of tax evasion involving American clients, a Swiss lawyer estimates. The cantonal banks of Zurich and Basel are also believed among those targeted. Last week, MPs in Bern rejected an agreement with the US, backed by the Swiss federal government, to temporarily lift banking secrecy laws to allow Swiss banks to settle with American authorities over past tax evasion cases. The agreement was never made public but was expected to include significant fines against 14 Swiss banks." Continue reading →

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Spying fears highlight worth of Swiss data centres

"‘Trust’ is the watchword of the expanding Swiss data storage industry as it quietly carves out a highly lucrative global niche. Recent revelations of U.S. intelligence agency spying, coupled with ongoing reports of espionage emanating from China, may have raised public consciousness of the dangers to data but the industry has known about it for years. Some data storage providers have taken security to extremes, housing their servers in ex-military alpine bunkers, such as the aptly-named ‘Fort Knox’ in canton Bern. One company using the bunker, Siag – which labels itself the 'Swiss private bank for digital assets' - refuses to deal with US clients on security grounds." Continue reading →

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Can Swiss Human Rights Withstand IRS Extraterritorial Tax Enforcement?

"Switzerland is being persecuted for being a productive, peaceful nation that has a strong human rights policy with regards to privacy. More specifically, politicians from high-tax nations resent the fact that investors flock to Switzerland to benefit from good policies, and they are pressuring the Swiss government to weaken that nation’s human rights laws so that governments with bad fiscal systems have an easier time of tracking and taxing flight capital. But I’m not opening champagne just yet. The Swiss have resisted American demands before, and on more than one occasion, only to eventually back down." Continue reading →

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