Switzerland Seizing Cash and Valuables from Refugees to Cover Costs of Settlement (VIDEO)

Heh.

I'm sure leftists aren't too pleased with the Swiss government. It's acting less than "welcoming," you might say, lol.

At the Washington Post, "Switzerland criticized for also seizing cash and valuables from refugees":

LONDON — Only days ago, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) sharply criticized Denmark for an immigration bill that includes a series of changes that would allow police officers to seize valuables from refugees. The agency feared the bill "could fuel fear, xenophobia."

Now, the Geneva-based organization might have to focus its criticism on the country where it is based: Switzerland. The nation also allows state authorities to seize cash and valuables from refugees, several media organizations reported on Thursday and Friday. The little-known practice has been part of the country's asylum law for almost two decades, according to Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Denmark's current debate on a similar law had led to international criticism, but Switzerland's practice started to make headlines only after the country's public broadcaster reported on the case of a refugee who  entered the country with about $2,000. Consequently, $1,000 were seized by authorities. The TV station aired a copy of a receipt he received from authorities in return.

The Swiss law allows authorities to seize any cash or valuables above the threshold of $1,000.  However, unlike the proposed Danish law, Swiss authorities usually seize money or valuables previously declared by refugees, rather than searching them for such items or cash amounts as they arrive...

It's hard out there for a refujihadi!

Still more.

Clinton Foundation Raked $600 Thousand from Swiss Offshore Banking Firm UBS — After Hillary Intervened in Criminal Case as Secretary of State

Hey, pay to play, the Clinton way.

At the Wall Street Journal, "UBS Deal Shows Clinton’s Complicated Ties":

Donations to family foundation increased after secretary of state’s involvement in tax case.

A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts.

If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court.

Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS, an outcome that drew criticism from some lawmakers who wanted a more extensive crackdown.

From that point on, UBS’s engagement with the Clinton family’s charitable organization increased. Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank.

The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.

There is no evidence of any link between Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the case and the bank’s donations to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or its hiring of Mr. Clinton. But her involvement with UBS is a prime example of how the Clintons’ private and political activities overlap.

UBS is just one of a series of companies that engaged with both the Clinton family’s charitable organization and the State Department under Mrs. Clinton. And it is an unusual one: Unlike cases in which Mrs. Clinton went to bat for American companies seeking business abroad, such as General Electric Co. and Boeing Co., the UBS matter involved her helping solve a problem for a foreign bank—not a popular constituency among Democrats—and stepping into an area where government prosecutors had been taking the lead.

The flood of donations and speech income that followed exemplifies why the charity and its fundraising have been a running problem for the presidential campaign of Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic front-runner. Republicans as well as some Democrats have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.

“They’ve engaged in behavior to make people wonder: What was this about?” says Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who is a Democrat. “Was there something other than deciding the merits of these cases?”

Critics also have hit the charity for accepting donations from foreign governments, which they say could pose problems for her if she is elected, potentially opening her to criticism that she is obligated to foreign donors.

The Clintons have said accepting donations posed no conflicts of interest and broke no rule or law. To address the criticism, the Clinton Foundation decided to release donation information more frequently, and the foundation said earlier this year that the first disclosure is expected by the end of July.

UBS officials deny any connection between the legal case and the foundation donations. “Any insinuation that any of our philanthropic or business initiatives stems from support received from any current or former government official is ludicrous and without merit,” a bank spokeswoman said. UBS said the speeches by Mr. Clinton and the donations were part of a program to respond to the 2008 economic downturn.

A Clinton campaign spokesman said Mrs. Clinton is proud of the foundation’s work and her record as secretary of state. “Any suggestion that she was driven by anything but what’s in America’s best interest would be false. Period,” he said. He referred questions about the UBS matter to the State Department.

A State Department spokesman said that “UBS was a topic of serious discussion, among other issues, in our bilateral relations at that time” with the Swiss government. A spokeswoman in the Swiss embassy in Washington said the government had no comment.

In a CNN interview last month, Bill Clinton was asked if any foundation donors ever sought anything from the State Department. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I know of no example. But I—you never know what people’s motives are.”

Classic Clinton Cash.

Keep reading.

Homeowners in Poland Borrowed in Swiss Francs, and Now Pay Dearly

Poles borrowed in loans denominated in Swiss francs, but they have to pay back the loans on the local currency, the zloty. With the franc appreciating against the Euro, payments on Polish mortgages are skyrocketing.

And they thought the low rates on the Swiss loans, with a "stable" currency, was such a good deal.

At the New York Times, "Swiss Franc Rises, and Poland’s Mortgages Go With It."

Swiss Franc Moves Set Markets Aquiver

This is interesting.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Swiss Move Roils Global Markets: SNB’s Surprise Scrapping of Euro Cap Triggers Turmoil Among Bonds and Currencies":

ZURICH—Switzerland’s central bank triggered turmoil in the markets Thursday when it unexpectedly scrapped its cap on the Swiss franc’s exchange rate against the euro, a move that unleashed new volatility in credit and currency markets around the world and further underscored growing concerns about global economic prospects.

Against the cloudy backdrop of collapsing oil prices, a sharply rising dollar, fresh doubts about the stability of the euro and mounting global concerns over deflationary pressures, the move by the Swiss authorities was the starkest sign yet of the pressure policy makers face in dealing with unusual financial conditions that threaten the world’s already fragile economic conditions.

Some of the fallout was felt early Friday in Asia as FXCM Inc., the biggest retail foreign exchange broker in Asia and the U.S., said it suffered “significant losses” that wiped out its equity.

The abandonment of the cap, which had essentially pinned the currency at 1.20 francs per euro for the past 3½ years, prompted a collapse of as much as 30% in the euro versus the franc—the biggest single-day move in a developed market traders could recall. Swiss stocks fell 8.7% as traders worried the stronger franc would hurt Switzerland’s exports, especially to Europe.

The currency move was accompanied by further cuts in interest rates by Swiss authorities, pushing some European government bond yields deeper into negative territory.

The Swiss National Bank became the first monetary authority to act ahead of the European Central Bank’s expected launch of a new bond-buying program to boost the currency area’s sagging economic prospects. The reaction shows the ECB’s bond-buying program is having a big impact on markets before it has even launched. ECB President Mario Draghi’s signals in recent months that it was coming have already pushed the euro down substantially. That would also likely be the main goal of bond purchases, since interest rates are already very low in most of Europe.

Jeremy Stein, a former governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve and now a professor at Harvard University, welcomed the likely ECB policy makers’ action next week, saying that while was unclear how it will benefit the eurozone, “they are doing absolutely the right thing.” But the SNB’s move also increases the market glare on the ECB’s action next Thursday, and potentially sets investors up for disappointment if the central bank doesn’t deliver a convincing package to fight off deflation.

Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, said given the market expectations for the ECB, not acting could spark a market firestorm. “I think markets would be incredibly disappointed if it doesn’t happen,” Mr. Adams, a former U.S. Treasury undersecretary of international affairs, said in a recent interview.

A big package or an open-ended commitment to buy more if needed could have the desired effects: an even weaker euro, a surge in risky asset prices like stocks, lower rates on European corporate bonds. But a small package or an approach that makes the public doubt the ECB’s commitment to follow through could leave investors underwhelmed and might even reverse some of the effects the trumpeting of QE has already created.

While the lower euro does make life harder for the eurozone’s neighbors, most policy makers would prefer a stronger eurozone economy to a weak one...

Basically, the Swiss had established a fixed exchange rate with the Euro in 2009, where it took 1.2 francs to buy a euro. By removing the fixed rate, markets caused the franc to appreciate against the euro by 30 percent, 0.9 francs to the euro. It thus takes more euros to buy francs, and it's more expensive for consumers to buy Swiss goods and for travelers to visit Switzerland (a terrible blow to the Swiss economy). All of this roiled financial markets, as exchange brokerage houses saw their equity balances wiped out.

More at the link.

And see the New YorkTimes, "Franc Soars After Swiss Drop a Cap on Its Value."