Burckhardt pays a 1.8% dividend. I do not know about the tax affairs outside Switzerland but if there is a withholding tax here I assume that can be offset elsewhere under doubler tax agreements. James

Israel maybe that but Switzerland is the Land of Milk and Money. I live in Switzerland but, unfortunately, don’t have oodles of money.....yet. My choices in the article hopefully will change that

Let’s enjoy it together. I enjoy the researching for my writing and meeting readers that enjoy reading what I write. James

Hello Dick, thank you for reading my article. Unfortunately I do not know the answer to your question. Trafigura has a section for investors on its website but I have never looked at that because the kind of investor is likely to have many more pennies than I. I am invested in Burckhardt and hope to become one in UniSieve. James

Hello Alexa, thank you looking at my article and commenting. Switzerland is incredibly beautiful and the environment is carefully nurtured. There are also many very old towns and the centres are well preserved. Some of the buildings have the years when they were built on them, many in the 1300s. If you ever come this way I will show you around my home town, Zürich. Home to bankers - the Gnomes of Zürich - and the canton (state) that it is the capital of is home to those companies in my article and many others. James

Good article. I had one published on this subject in 2015 together with an idea to fix it seekingalpha.com/.../3678416-student-loan-property-bonds-will-restore-growth-prosperity The economy got better since but that problem got worse. Whether my idea was workable or not I do not know but something needed to be done and nothing has been.

Interesting article. Trump won’t believe he caused it and the itchy fingered, trigger happy Fed will raise interest rates to "cure” it.

Alexis, Italy is in a currency union - it cannot change the value of the euro. They could and did often when they had their own currency, the lire. James

That is the view of the elitists that have made sacrifices of humans on the sacred alter of their ill-considered euro. They call it an internal devaluation and a necessary adjustment. I have no sympathy for the use of devaluing a currency to make products competitive. I managed German companies when we had the ever appreciating DM and had to compete against that Italian nuisance. However that kept whole communities alive and tens of thousands employed. The Italian industry confederation estimated that some 32,000 companies went out of business as a result of the euro. There are humanity and ethical matters being completely overridden by this EU blindness. The euro was the direct cause of this foul consequence.

Making an economy competitive takes years, it cannot be done overnight and it cannot be done by undemocratic bureaucrats in Brussels. It has to be done by the people - if they want it to be done. Likewise decisions on which currency they wish to have.

My other point is that Italy will likely break-up anyway exacerbated by these strains.

Maybe but those tensions within that I mentioned are very real. Many companies in Sud Tyrol have moved their operations over the border into Austria to get away from the corrupt, stifling Italian bureaucracy. Their employees simply commute to and fro to work daily. The League that is part of the coalition has long wanted to separate from Italy. Many parts of the north, that is their base, still have very successful companies and that and the culture is different from the south.