ShareThe number is zero.  According to a recent Harvard study, two of every three bankruptcies in the US are medical-related. That’s why at least catastrophic coverage for everyone is the real purpose of healthcare reform. Why some Americans don’t understand this is beyond me.

ShareIt is refreshing to read the foreign press because they have decidedly different takes on issues.Whether you agree or not, it is important to hear those views.
The Swiss are very negative on the U.S. and their tax fight against UBS. This has them dredging up pass legal skirmishes. Here’s an article from the Swiss [...]

ShareThe U.S. has been using the weakness of the UBS banking franchise to shake down the organization for the names of American clients suspected of using the bank to dodge taxes in the United States. As far as the Swiss government is concerned, this would set a bad precedent in the Swiss banking community where [...]

ShareDollar bears are getting their way in the currency markets right now.  While most eyes are peeled on Sterling (up 3 big figures since Friday) and the Euro, all currencies are rising against the Dollar (including the Commodity Dollar Complex – Auusie, Kiwi, and Loonie).  For me, the most interesting currency is the Swiss Franc [...]

ShareThis past Sunday Felix Salmon wrote a post called “10 reasons for the lack of German econobloggers.” I found it inaccurate and offensive. Let me tell you why.
I was in Germany at the time I read the post and had been there for the better part of the week. In reading and [...]

ShareThis comes from French-language Swiss daily Le Temps:
Over 50% of respondents in Geneva surveyed by the HEG School of Management believe that the bankruptcy of a large institution is likely.
The Swiss political world is clearly convinced that it will never let one of the major banks in the country go bankrupt. Despite the rescue of [...]

ShareI am sure you have seen the catastrophic financial results of Swiss bank UBS released this week. I have been saying for quite some time that UBS is too big to fail, but also too big to bail for tiny Switzerland. In my view, the recent financial results demonstrate that, although this situation has [...]

ShareFirst Spain, now Switzerland:
Consumer prices in March were down 0.4% from a year ago, the Federal Statistics Office said, a 50-year low.
The country has been close to deflation all year, with inflation having fallen from a peak of 3.1% in July 2008. The rate was 0.2% in February.
The Swiss National Bank predicts that inflation will [...]

ShareThis comes from Swiss daily Le Temps (my translation):
Credit Suisse will request the creation of additional conditional capital of 3.98 million at the General Meeting of April 24. The operation is to guarantee to the bank the “strategic flexibility” needed.
Conditional capital has already been used almost exclusively for the issuance of mandatory convertible bonds (mandatory [...]

Apparently, the Swiss franc is too high — or so says the Swiss central bank. As a result, they are selling francs in the foreign exchange market to get the franc to come down. There has been a lot of speculation about the Swiss and their plans to devalue the Swiss franc, including on this site. It now seems clear that devaluation is where things are headed. On Feb 19th, I said as much: