A) "overpriced Swiss merchants" ? Why are they overpriced ?
> Coop and Migros etc have too luxurious facilities
> many distributors and GSAs have not handed on the lower exch.rates
> many suppliers insist on their old CHF prices --- which means that you as a CH retailer can get many German products more cheaply by purchasing them from British wholesalers and have the stuff, together with British goods, trucked over from London !!!!
> German wholesale stuff, which incredibly often is very expensive if ordered directly into Switzerland, is far cheaper if ordered even via USA wholesalers, taken to the Miami-consolidation-point and then airfreight over to Zurich !!!
> many "overpriced merchants" still conduct business as in the 1960ies

I mean, did you hear that rant not too long ago of the Migros chief against Aldi and Lidl ? He used absolutely the same arguments used by the others against Migros in the 1950ies ! Do you remember how simple the Migros stores with the then new and revolutionaly concept of self-service in the 1960ies were ?

At the other hand, quite many retailers HAVE adapted already. I for instance right this evening bought a 7dl bottle of excellent Hungarian wine for CHF 3.95 at Wollishofer-Markt. I frequently buy beer for CHF -.50 per can at Coop or 1L bottles of red wine at Coop for between CHF 1.95 and CHF 2.60 . You can see similar things with fruit and vegetables, both at Coop/Migros and at small Mediterranean "corner-shops".

THIS aspect has not so much to do with the "financial beast" but a lot with modern business methods. At the other hand, you have to look at what I would call "eco-history". In the 1950ies, Switzerland was almost the only country where the industry had not been bombed either by airforce(s) or by artillery, where the business leaders were neither executed nor behind bars nor driven out. And this in the 50ies and 60ies for Switzerland was a tremendous advantage. The DISadvantage was hidden. It was that outdated rusty procedures and notions and structures happily survived. The change in the industry came in the 1980ies and 90ies, 30years later than in most other countries. The industry has now mostly overcome this existential crisis but retailing trade not yet.

And, when living in Zurich, going shopping to Jestetten or Waldshut may indeed save money, but is time consuming, and petrol or rail-tickets are not free of charge. So that the "dangerous" competition for lazy outdated retailers is NOT overthere but right round the corner.

Average CPI: 13.4% Spain 1958, 13.3% Spain 1965, 15.4% France 1958, 7.4% Netherlands 1969...

The worst hyperinflation in Germany happened in the 1920ies. There was no hyper-inflation in occupied Germany between 1945 and 1949. Neither was inflation rampant in either the Scandinavian countries or Spain or Portugal. No "hyper-inflation" in France, not even in Italy, even if both these countries had a relatively high inflation.

Continental Europe in those times included much of Africa and Asia and that was NOT a "tiny land mass". Add to this that the USA and Canada in those years had no Hyper-inflation. No, there is a world outside this little Greece, you know

And you might mention the two other hyper-inflations of post WWII !

GAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I wish you'd see the world outside Europe, Wolli.

Anyway, congratulations in advance on your 7,500th post. I'm hoping it will be in rebuttal of one of mine.

ETA: Yayyyyy!!! It was in rebuttal of one of my posts!!! You posted as I was congratulating you:

Simple but wrong. In many cases, the margins remain with the wholesalers and the GSAs. Very often, as recently shown on Swiss TV, the producers and wholesalers even are inside "Euroland" and refuse to reduce their prices (in CHF) for Swiss retailers. Unfortunately, even Migros, which up into the 80ies, heavily relied on stuff produced in M-owned producer-companies in recent decades started to purchase "brand-label" products again. In some specific cases, margins in reality collapsed.

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The two gents were honest and lost out in the political game, while their successors, in case of Mr Kohl sucessfully for ages, DID fool all of the people all of the time.

Kohl was chancellor for 16 years; depends what you define as "all of the time".

In the 1950ies and 60ies, people all over Europe regarded inflation rates of between 5% and 15% as normal, people really did ! I remember what people talked about in those times. In France, the fact that the inflation rose above 15% contributed to the change into the 5th Republic. The problem of the 4th Republic with its powerless State Presidents and its theoretically powerful Prime Ministers who changed faster than football coaches only could be solved by a total reform of the political structures. In Switzerland, the Federal government kept inflation to below 10% and this was regarded as splendid. Hyper-inflation means an inflation of 100% and more. In the Germany of the 1920ies, inflation rose to more than 1000 % . Banknotes printed as "1 Milliarde Reichsmark" were overprinted in RED with the text "1 Billion Reichsmark" . While I got the stamps of Grandmum, my brother got the banknotes and the coins of Grandmum including TWO of those ! I do not know where they are now.

And I thought that Texas and Algeria and Egypt were outside of Europe

and, thanks for the congratulations for my 7500th post

He DID fool all the people all of the time for 160 ,, sorry I mean 16 years Mr Kohl often was compared with a VW "Käfer" with the saying "Er läuft und läuft und läuft und läuft"

& then there were all the rumours & allegations about Mitterand funding Kohl.........

That's a painfully poor excuse, and it seems only the Swiss want to believe it.

Markets all over Europe are free, the competition is fierce. If one distributor doesn't want to cooperate, then find another one who wants. There surely are plenty of those. Everyone wants money.

I really do believe it is an issue on the Swiss side, who simply pay any price quoted without blinking an eye.

Ones like Lidl and Aldi somehow manage to lower their prices, even for goods which were made in Switzerland. They know how to compete, because they came from competing markets. They just act, instead of complaining about distributors, suppliers etc.

I mentioned this briefly on a different thread, but here's an example of silliness.

Swiss have just started a new route to Beijing. "Swiss Made" it says. Special opening offer of 1099 CHF. So for a laugh I put in dates to fly from Basel. I manage to get the price of 1100 CHF involving a train to Zurich then a direct flight.

I then went to the Lufthansa Switzerland website and got a flight, also from Basel, (flight to Frankfurt then to Beijing) for their special offer price of ... 500 CHF.

It actually came to 498 CHF when I got the ticket.

500CHF return to china?

498CHF! Of course, it'll cost a bit more in total as I will need to get a visa.

I've spent more on flights back to Scotland I'm sure

It pays to regularly watch Lufthansa's offers (website or sign up for a newsletter). At the moment they have Beijing and Singapore on sale, but there's always something interesting (last week they had Rio de Janeiro for 600EUR return). The offers are also valid for flights originating from Switzerland, which is a very rare case among airlines.

They own Swiss , which is the reason.

For my rather random "Basel to Beijing" flight, *all* on the Lufthansa website:

1. Select "Switzerland" as your location and ... 529 CHF (in reality, 500)
2. Select "Germany" and ... 499 EUR
3. Select "UK" and ... approx. 600 UKP (no special offer)

It is not. The promo-fares out of Switzerland are only valid on Lufthansa flights. You're very unlikely to be on a connecting flight with Swiss when booking a special offer with Lufthansa.

Many filghts are code shares it's the same plane.