The Swiss Miss Bankers

Hot or Not / Editor / 10 December 2008 / Leave a comment

Years ago, when Swiss Banks were Swiss banks, they used to charge non-Swiss people for the privilege of keeping their money in Swiss banks; a sort of negative interest.

The mighty have fallen, and the Swiss banks are engaged in the long and expensive task of increasing their capital ratios to the sort of levels which will once more persuade really rich people that Swiss banks are a good place to put their money, but there's still that question of what can you do with money until the Swiss banks bcome Swiss banks again.

Yesterday the US Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929.

Given the state of hysteria in the markets, yields look to stay that way until someone, somewhere adds a vast supply of Ecstasy to the drinking water, or the sun goes supernova, whichever comes sooner.

If you can't get your hands on T-Bills then there is an excellent reduction on tins of shortbread biscuits at M&S going for half-price; you know the drill. Buy the tin, eat the biscuits, stick your dosh in the tin, the tin under your mattress, and use the money you saved on the biscuits to buy yourself some Ecstasy...