If you’re traveling between Grand Central and Times Square today, you might notice a little change on your normally drab S shuttle train. No, you aren’t Roger Sterling on acid. Think: Sound of Music. Or chocolate. Or watches. Read More
On Sunday, the Bank for International Settlements announced an agreement that, in order to prevent another 2008-style crisis in which giant global banks reach the brink of failure and hold the global economy hostage, financial institutions now have to have a little extra capital socked away.
The new requirements, christened “Basel III” after its Read More
In the art world, summer is the time to make the pilgrimage: Events in Europe, public and private, afford much to marvel at, to think about-and, possibly, to buy.
FROM BASEL: THE Swiss have a few things to teach us about art collecting, given their appetite for it and the superb way they exhibit their Read More
"Put an end to the Americanization of the Swiss economy!"
So screamed a UBS shareholder at a February meeting of the Swiss banking giant’s top executives and shareholders, according to an excellent report in the Sunday New York Times by Nelson D. Schwartz. The report catalogued the far-reaching effects of the American subprime mortgage Read More
The Obama campaign's "outsider" message seems to be gaining traction. In Geneva.
Among the many masterpieces regularly on the walls at the Frick Collection, there’s an inconspicuous gem by the Swiss painter Jean-Étienne Liotard. Trompe l’Oeil (1771) doesn’t offer a transformative glimpse into the human psyche or herald a profound alternative to the way we look at the world. It’s a wonder anyone notices it at all. Read More
The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth , by Stefan Maechler. Schocken Books, 496 pages, $16.95.
No nation is immune to the snares of mass hysteria. Here in America, consider the 80′s wave of accusations of “Satanic ritual abuse” against day-care providers. Outside caregivers were the ones implicated, only rarely biological parents–and once the Read More
