Does speculation distort food prices and create hunger? Food shortages are caused by many things, among them, bad weather, wars and supply problems. There is also evidence that speculation amplifies natural price movements, sometimes to a point that limits access to food in poor countries. In a working paper, Stephen Spratt, from the Institute of Development […]
More people have climbed Everest than done this
If you are young, able bodied and looking for a physical challenge you might consider running a marathon or a triathlon. If someone suggested rowing across the Atlantic you’d probably think they were going mad. When I heard about the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a race where rowers can spend months rowing the close to […]
Would George Clooney approve of this? Lunch at Le Pont de Brent
Brought to you by Nespresso Gourmet Weeks. This is the question I asked myself when I sat down at the double-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Pont de Brent above Montreux, Lake Geneva, for a Nespresso coffee inspired lunch. Every year a small number of Switzerland’s most decorated restaurants open their doors for two weeks from 25 October until 15 […]
What is art for? Lausanne’s Mudac might have the answer
Last week I went to Mudac, Lausanne’s Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts’ and was fortunate to share a lunch table with both the Museum’s director Chantal Prod’Hom and Yves Mirande, the organiser of one of their latest exhibitions, to discuss what art means. The first thing that struck me when I arrived was […]
Swiss are world’s train travel champions
According to LITRA, the Swiss covered more distance by train than anyone else in the world in 2014. An average Swiss resident covered 2,288 km by train, more than twice the distance of an average Brit (1,056 km). Even the French with their world-class high-speed TGV train network were well behind the Swiss with only […]
Do you work for a good business or a bad one? Here’s what to look for.
What is good business? What is an ethical company? Some people struggle to answer this question. Others have well defined views and examples of what good business looks like. They can also describe bad businesses they think exploit human weakness or damage the environment. The School of Life, founded by Zurich-born Alain de Botton, a […]
The Swiss village that travels back to the middle ages every four years
Every four years the small hilltop village of Saillon in Valais, Switzerland travels back in time to its medieval roots. The next show runs for five days from 9 September 2015 until Sunday 13 September 2015. The entire town transforms into its medieval past. There are town’s folk dressed up as monks, maidens, knights, bishops […]
Why Switzerland’s economy is solid despite a strong franc
The most recent Economist Big Mac index places Switzerland at the top with the world’s most expensive burgers. This tongue in cheek analysis compares the relative strength of national currencies by comparing the price of a Big Mac around the world and it suggests that the Swiss franc is 42.4% overvalued. The only other currency […]
Switzerland’s problems with debt, taxes and billionaires
Switzerland was singled out in this week’s Economist cover story on the dangers of tax-free debt. The article however, skips over essential detail and overlooks the elephant in the room. Debt is more dangerous than equity. When crises strike the fixed obligations associated with it send shock waves through the financial system as lenders panic […]
Swiss German response to Geneva: “We like you but there’s no need to come.”
This year, 200-years after Geneva joined the Swiss confederation, the Fondation pour Genève decided that Geneva should try to seduce the rest of Switzerland. To do this it created a mission called “Geneva meets Switzerland”. Then it created a bus. A large articulated bus, colourfully decorated by Zep1, the creator of Titeuf, a cheeky cartoon […]