Not sure... wages are good here, that is for sure, but they need to be to offset the costs of the service industry wages and basic living costs.
Besides the wages here are more a result of low unemployment and strict guidelines on immigratation etc... that and most companies having headquarters here and paying their taxes here... thus low income and healthy treasuries.
My big problem here is that the importers and the retail outlets have long made out like bandits. While the costs of procuring goods dropped 10% last year, prices actually rose. I have a number of friends in retail here that quite bluntly told me that the last few years were a bonanza for them - Swiss are brainwashed to "buy local" and have bought despite some goods being 80% here then across the border. The shopkeepers and manual laborers have gotten greedy. A guy came to fix my phone the other day and his rate was 125 CHF per hour! Work that out in USD. Lets just say that's a better day rate then most senior office workers.
The low rate to the EUR was causing a shift. The biggest grocery shop here finally told a number of major brands to get lost after they continued to demand ridiculous rates for purchasing in CH... I was starting to see and hear retailers finally adjusting their prices and getting competitive with Europe... now they can go back to their artificially induced profits, no more pressure as the central bank came to the rescue.
The ultimate question is: How can you call the Swiss Franc 'overvalued' when on a free open market the world sees it as more valuable then the EUR for good reasons? I think 1.20 to the EUR is massively undervaluing the currency...
