Swiss Economic Forum 2010

After a short disruption, the Economic Forum started last in June with around 1300 guests among them Tony Blair, the star of this even. He called for closer cooperation between state and economy. Using terms like freedom, democracy, tolerance and free trade he saw way out of the crisis which in his mind was financial and state at the same time. Paul Krugman, president Obama's consultant on economy noted that economic recovery is disappointing, he wanted to note that fears of inflation are missing.
Controversial discussions concentrated about the role of banks in the Swiss and in the international economies as banks in many parts of the world are being partly or mostly nationalized.
For Swiss companies it is important that banks remain partners to small and medium companies.

Leading them of the event is continous discussion on the role Switzerland should play in the new realities of Europe and the world. Since collapse of the soviet union, reunification of large tracts of central and eastern Europe, neutral Switzerland is becoming less and less relevant. Each trades with others, with little need for a place to store funds in the private bank and to send children for education. Competition from educational institutions world wide was made schools here irrelevant, and secrecy was taken away from banks by not only USA but by French, German or Italian tax authorities. Raids on banks in Lichtenstein by the Germans, in Italy on UBS branch offices, and stealing banks information on French owners of accounts here by the French tax authorities. The French had a "chutzpach" to return disks with bank data claiming they did not copied them. Yeah!

Well this year when you visit this little country, stay in hotels, dine in restaurants, you notice fewer crowds, roomier lakeshore caffe's, more parking places. Interesting being is that with strongest swiss frank in years against € the prices have not been brought down, making already high prices still higher. In affect the Swiss have priced themselves out of the business. There is noe silver lining though, the Chinese flock here like mad, their numbers trippled from a year earlier. Jewelery shops in tourist cities like Lucerne, Zurich and Geneva have deals with travel agencies and bus loads are parked in front delivering crowds buying swiss watches. Sales clerks speak any language you can imagine. Typical discount is 10% or equivalent of the roughly 8% VAT. Still, I am buying my watches at the Stevensons store in Brooklyn, NY. Unfortunately they recently stopped to carry the Omega watches.