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I could tell you just the same.. that britain deserves its trillion in new debt because of its imperialistic policies around the world.. or even America's wars and funding of Al Qaeda against russia... to blame switzerland for its role in WW2 is just ridiculous.. I would rather be thankful for its attitude of respect for citizen's privacy (banking secrecy) rather than beeing proud of other governments' hostile and doubtful policies towards its own citizen. And if you just don't agree to swiss policy of restrict information why don't you ask Senator Levin why there still are tax havens in the US (Nevada and Delaware) and in the UK (too many to be listed)...
I am the one who translated the article. And, yes, Artur Schmidt is an 'economic journalist' rather than an economist. He writes at Money Cab, which I have referenced in the sources.
I am not taking a position in this post, but rather relaying information I believe is relevant. I tend to think Schmidt is overplaying the severity of the crisis regarding bankruptcy. But, his conclusions should not be dismissed i.e. Swiss franc weakness and ratings downgrade.
The figures used by Schmidt are real as are the problems at UBS and Credit Suisse involving additional potential writedowns. These are problems that are widely known.
Also, you should note that I quoted from NZZ in an article about UBS. The link is below.
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/02/ubs-is-...
Also you should note my quote from the referenced earlier article:
Writing something like: "At the end of September, one had to pay 46 francs for 100 Polish zlotys. Today it is 30 francs." is irrelevant as this loans were issued long before September 2008.
It's true that the Polish Zloty lost 20%-30% of it's value in the last year but at the same time the CHF Libor crashed and the monthly payment is now lower for some mortgages.
Of course the current hardship could make it more difficult for some people to repay a loan and this could further destabilize Swiss banks and Switzerland . But one must not forget that this hardship results from the wrongdoings in the U.S.
I wonder why The Telegraph, Moody's and even RBS try to destabilize the Euro and the CHF.
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2008/12/top-ten...
What irks me about the situation is that many policy makers had their heads buried in the sand about what was sure to transpire. We are in a deleveraging process with many potential pitfalls. A much more aggressive response is warranted than the one we have seen in Europe, the UK or the U.S. Had these problems been addressed earlier and an IMF bailout or similar remedy been proposed, we wouldn't be in this situation right now.
"globalization won’t stop … nature is globalized" to the contrary, nature creates isolated and diversified worlds. Globalization is the highly unnatural and unstable result of a human mind's sickness.
If you know nothing about history than the junk you read in the "news"papers, you rather shut up. The Swiss have thouroughly reflected on their role in WWII several times over. In the 90s, when the silly campaign of Senator d'Amato against Switzerland was what formed your pitty brain, the Swiss taxpayers have financed a complete review of *all* Swiss banks to the tune of 1 billion Swiss francs only to find 76 million CHF on accounts from WWII, two thirds of which where non-jewish in origin. It's the British, the French and many others who are in denial about their dark sides, certainly not the Swiss, pitty you!
2008.07 - 1CHF = 2.0PLN - you can go to ANY bank and take a loan for 120% value of you new flat/apartament. i live in Warsaw, lot of my friends took that loan. unemployment rate - 10% but in warsaw was close to 0% especially if you have a master degree and skills to work in office such as advertising agency or as finanial advisor or similar type of job.
Now - you cannot take a loan or rent a money from bank. one square meter is down close to 25% from 2008.07. franc is up - 1CHF = 3.3PLN within my friends unemployment rate is close to 20%. banks are full of CHF loans, even if you sell the apartament you have close to half of the money you borrowed. did i mentioned that the loans weve given in rates even for 50 years?
I'm certainly not going to go into Swiss history here.
Suffice to say that your reply made no mention of my other accusation that the poor of the world have suffered because of the smug, self-enriching Swiss attitude to secret bank accounts and their rwo-fingered response to legitimate foreign tax-authorities. Hopefully the recent UBS $ 3/4 billion fine and having to open their books to the US authorities will be just the start of a global revolt against Swiss banks. Not before time.
A few serious Swiss economists are afraid that the CHF will even strengthen as a result of this...
@Stevie: your knowledge about Switzerland must be coming from FOX News, is it?
60 B in comparison do 400 B of other European countries, like Austria, Spain, England, Italy, Germany.
To Steve: The Swiss did not burn children like the USA
in Vietnam and the Israeli now in Gaza. The Swiss have saved twohundred thousand including 30'000 Jews, who never said thanks. On the contrary the Jews have recveived Billions from Swiss Banks, about 20 times the amount in the forgotten accounts. I am a banker who treated jewish customers after the war. These accounts were of no importance to the banks.They just added interest to accounts, every year and wated for someone to claim the money.l
Today we live through the same aggressiveness from the Americans. Take your money back, we really do not need it, provided you can depostit it in a safe account in your country. Switzerland is now a world leader not only in luxury watches, also in Drug, Food, machinery, surveillance etc.. We really do not need bad money.
a) I don't think it is an evidence of competence to be a well-known economic author. The opposite is true, main stream economic authors did not at all forecast the crisis and its dimensions. Therefore it is much more an evidence of either stupidity or what is much worse, betrayal, as many of the well-known economic authors are agents of the Anglo-American-Jewish conglomerate.
How can it be a good thing to be a main stream well known economic author, when the vast majority of the media is owned by the same and the same people. This shows only devotion to these people, what I would not consider to be a good thing.
b) Again, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, did not at all forecast what we whitness today. Rather, it is completely controlled by freemasonry. Tagesanzeiger is in this comparison considerably better, as it allows also critical voices. Again, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and all of this 'sophisticated' media, all have the same position like Gordon Brown regarding Gold who sold 400 tons of gold at 270$ telling the public this is a good thing. Now we have 1000$ gold, and media is continuing to tell us we should continue to trust the dollar, swiss franc, euro.
So I would recommend to start to read non-well-known economic writers. Try Bill Murphy from LeMetropoleCafe.
who do you think bought these bonds ? do you think a lot of, say, Germans converted Euros to CHFs just to buy bonds yielding 1% ?
i guess gross of these bonds were bought by Swiss banks and pension funds