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... and thereby killing the Swiss economy, thankyouverymuch. We're struggling enough with the strong Swiss Franc against the Euro as it is. A further devaluatio

... and thereby killing the Swiss economy, thankyouverymuch. We're struggling enough with the strong Swiss Franc against the Euro as it is. A further devaluation of the Euro would be pretty devastating for Switzerland, even if a strong Deutsche Mark would mitigate the effects a bit.

polshaw 14y ago
No offence but the competitiveness of the Swiss economy really isn't something anyone is concerned with outside of Switzerland (vs the whole EU).
- LaGrange 14y ago
  Actually we do very much enjoy Swiss staying a strong economy, thank you very much.
- piquadrat 14y ago
  None taken, we're quite clear on how importantly the big players take Switzerland's economic health.
cynicalkane 14y ago
The Swiss central bank has demonstrated complete control over their currency. It's been fixed at around 1.2 to the Euro ever since they announced the peg. And it'll be immune to speculative attacks when printing presses are infinite.
- Nrsolis 14y ago
  There was once a time when CHF (Swiss franc) was at least partly backed by gold. Since 2000, no such luck. You might be well advised to study a currency phenomenon called the "unholy trinity" in regards to your opinion of speculative attacks on CHF. Pick any two out of three: free movement of capital, control of domestic economy, stable exchange rates. If the Swiss wanted to defend the peg, they'd have to give up one of the other two options. You can't EVER get all three. Britain tried this with Pound Sterling, but Soros saw that their attempts to defend the currency were unsustainable. The result was predictable. It's not beyond possible that the CHF could find itself "adjusting" the peg if the ECB decided to embark on a path of massive quantitative easing. In fact, I'd wager that lots of bets are already being made on this very hypothesis.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  And its had to print far less after it announced that there was a target than before. But if the Euro loses too much value the Swiss central bank probably won't want to follow it down, so being able to maintain a peg won't actually help them in that case.

polshaw 14y ago

No offence but the competitiveness of the Swiss economy really isn't something anyone is concerned with outside of Switzerland (vs the whole EU).

LaGrange 14y ago
Actually we do very much enjoy Swiss staying a strong economy, thank you very much.
piquadrat 14y ago
None taken, we're quite clear on how importantly the big players take Switzerland's economic health.

cynicalkane 14y ago

The Swiss central bank has demonstrated complete control over their currency. It's been fixed at around 1.2 to the Euro ever since they announced the peg. And it'll be immune to speculative attacks when printing presses are infinite.

Nrsolis 14y ago
There was once a time when CHF (Swiss franc) was at least partly backed by gold. Since 2000, no such luck. You might be well advised to study a currency phenomenon called the "unholy trinity" in regards to your opinion of speculative attacks on CHF. Pick any two out of three: free movement of capital, control of domestic economy, stable exchange rates. If the Swiss wanted to defend the peg, they'd have to give up one of the other two options. You can't EVER get all three. Britain tried this with Pound Sterling, but Soros saw that their attempts to defend the currency were unsustainable. The result was predictable. It's not beyond possible that the CHF could find itself "adjusting" the peg if the ECB decided to embark on a path of massive quantitative easing. In fact, I'd wager that lots of bets are already being made on this very hypothesis.
Symmetry 14y ago
And its had to print far less after it announced that there was a target than before. But if the Euro loses too much value the Swiss central bank probably won't want to follow it down, so being able to maintain a peg won't actually help them in that case.