We’ll be introducing among our news and features one piece per month in order to give you a few ideas on new gadgets that look irresistible. We’ll try to keep these pieces light and ironic, as a small soothing patch – different from the rest of our website.
The Swiss franc’s high value continues to have a negative effect on the confederation’s economy, especially compared to the euro quoted an expert as reporting on Monday.
Andrea Maechler, one of the three members of the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) governing board, told Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve that in addition to the currency valuation, other factors including interest rates, changes in prices and the global situation must also be taken into account when assessing the confederation’s economic outlook.
“It’s clear that the strong Swiss franc remains a big challenge for many businesses in Switzerland,” Maechler told in the interview.
How and where can a small business get a loan that is not from the bank?
President Trump argues that too many US workers have lost their jobs to foreign peers as companies have offshored manufacturing. US companies need to bring those jobs back and, in doing so, restore America’s industrial greatness. His diagnosis isn’t altogether wrong: fewer companies manufacture cars, for instance, in the US than was previously the case. But this thesis is too simplistic.
Barack Obama will enter the pantheon of great orators when he leaves office this month. It’s easy to forget how much optimism and genuine hope he inspired on the campaign trail. Even now, after a rancorous eight years in office, he has a profound skill to inspire with his words. What is less well remembered is was just how much of a rotten state the economy was in when he inherited the Presidency.
In many ways, The financial crisis and its aftermath have been the spectre haunting his Presidency. The financial crisis was not one of Obama’s making, but he had to deal with much of the wreckage. He oversaw the recovery of the US banking sector following its post-crisis bailout; a recovery that must be the envy of his European peers, who never have really sorted out their banks.
Another defining challenge was the political backdrop: the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives two years into Obama’s first administration (i.e. following the November 2010 elections) and control of the Senate in the November 2014 elections.
Many of the policy changes that populist politicians are calling for could feasibly support economic growth.
The Swiss government expects a renewed pick-up in growth as the global economy is set to continue generating momentum. In its economic forecasts that are updated every quarter, SECO said it expected Swiss economic growth of 1.5%, unchanged from its forecast in its September assessment. Economic growth for 2017 is expected at 1.8%, also unchanged from September, driven by domestic demand and foreign trade
"The economic outlook thus remains positive, even if the ‘Swiss franc shock’ will likely continue to have some impact on the economy," the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said in a statement, referring to the sudden and sharp appreciation of the Swiss franc in January 2015.
