Switzerland Today

Greetings from Zurich!

If you spent the summer wondering how the other half lives, then you’re in luck! Credit Suisse has produced its annual Global Wealth Report – and it makes great reading for the 1%.

A global economic recovery from the pandemic minted more than 5,000 new millionaires (113 of them in Switzerland). Where was I when all this was going on?

Keystone / Alexandra Wey

In the news: Blue Balls festival in jeopardy, an hallucinogenic investigation and restaurants add energy surcharge.

• Another multi-millionaire in the news is Bernie Ecclestone. The British ex-Formula 1 boss part owns the Swiss mountain top Botta de Glacier 3000 restaurant that burned down on Monday. Speaking to the Blick newspaper, Ecclestone said: “We don’t know if it was arson.”
• The iconic Blue Balls festival in Lucerne, which has entertained music lovers on the shores of lake Lucerne for the last 30 years, is in danger of disappearing for good. Last held in 2019 before the pandemic took hold, Blue Balls was cancelled this year because its organiser, Urs Leierer, fell ill and can no longer continue in his role. Without Leierer, it appears the festival can no longer function. Discussions with the Lucerne council to re-format the event have drawn a blank, reports 20 MinutenExternal link.
• The SRF Investigativ programmeExternal link says it has uncovered illegal hallucinogenic Amazonian drugs being sold in Switzerland to paying guests of a sect known as Inner Mastery International. The group offers retreats in Switzerland where participants drink the Ayahuasca hallucinogenic brew. But undercover SRF reporters were also offered other stimulants on the menu, some of which are illegal in Switzerland. The report also speaks to people who joined the group’s Beyond Inner Club and complained of being squeezed out of their money while being obliged to perform menial tasks or recruit new members.
• Diners at Swiss restaurants may end up paying not just for the food, but also for the increased cost of electricity bills. The practice of passing on extraordinary costs is not new. Many companies charge more for products when the cost of raw materials rises. But an energy surcharge on rösti and cervelat may prove difficult to stomach.

© Keystone / Urs Flueeler

People’s initiative grounded amid democracy concerns.

The ‘Stop F-35A’ people’s initiative, designed to challenge Switzerland’s choice of fighter jet, has been withdrawn after the government signed the final deal with the US on Monday.

Supporters of the failed initiative complain of a “democratic farce” that damages Switzerland’s tradition of direct democracy. The government had signaled it would wait for this second nationwide vote on fighter jets to take place before signing off the deal. But the Ukraine war has increased urgency to upgrade Switzerland’s defences.

With the contract signed and sealed, there was no point in staging the Stop F-35A nationwide vote despite the initiative gaining enough support to go ahead to this stage.

“We are withdrawing the initiative with a heavy heart. We do not want to offer a pseudo vote where voters can’t have a real say in the actual purchase decision,” said Social Democrat politician Priska Seiler Graf.

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Money, money, money.

And back to that Global Wealth Report, released by Credit Suisse bank today.

Total global wealth increased by 9.8% to $463.6 trillion last year as the world’s millionaires and billionaires grabbed an increasing slice of available assets. By the end of 2021, 45.5% of global wealth was in the hands of just 1% of the population, compared to 43.9% in 2020.

Switzerland minted 113 fresh millionaires as stock markets, real estate and other asset prices recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The average (mean) wealth per head of Swiss population stands at $696,600 and the median is $168,080 – in other words, half of the population has less than $168,080 and the other half more than this figure.

But Credit Suisse says wealth is distributed more evenly in Switzerland than many other countries. Switzerland’s Gini co-efficient rating, which compares the wealth of the top 1% against the bottom 10%, is moving in the right direction (0 = perfect equality while 100 puts all the wealth in the hands of one person). Switzerland’s current score is 77 compared to 81 at the start of the Millennium.