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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (17944)	9/7/1998 11:11:00 AM
From: PaulM	Respond to of 116768

Bobby, re: Swiss policy, I think the proof is in the pudding. Watch the dollar continue to fall against that and other European currencies. The strong Swiss Franc has been that way relative to other currencies for many, many decades and the Swiss never worried about a "recession " or the strength of their export industry. To the contrary, they have always enjoyed the benefits of an extremely disproportionate share of the world's banking and settlements business and this has far outweighed any loss of export. To understand what's going on, look below the surface. Swiss papers have repeated ad nasuem, for example, that the whole Nazi gold thing is an attack on their currency sponsored by the U.S. (which they say doesn't like the competition for its dollar). This is in fact a very common opinion in Switzerland. However we feel about the fairness the Swiss showed in handling the claims of holocaust victims, or the Swiss claims of a campaign against their monetary system, it does appear that there is a very strained competition between the U.S. and Switzerland. Switzerland is a safe, secret haven for all sorts of tax avoidance and drug money the U.S. would like to regulate or at least know about (as part of the war on drugs, tax evation crackdowns, etc.) The Swiss have effectively strengthened their currency at the expense of U.S. international policy. Swiss gold sale announcements at very opportune times for the dollar--which we've all witnessed--are probably more overtures to the U.S. than Swiss policy. I haven't heard any such announcements at critical times as of late, so I suspect those overtures have ended. If the Swiss thought their curency were too strong, that could be remedied easily and instantly. It's maintaining a strong currency that's hard, and I think the behavior of the franc tells the story. Re: swiss "liabilities", I don't know. But I seriously doubt you can make a categorical statement about the true extent of any bank's exposure anywhere. This is always kept a secret, here in the U.S., in Switzerland and everywhere else.