Switzerland: Referendum on prohibition of gold sales by SNB, storage only in CH, min. 20pct reserves

[swissaustrian]

This is not breaking news (it hit Swiss papers on 9-20-2011), but I´m sure it´s news for you guys.
Preface: Switzerland has a system of direct democracy. The people can demand a referendum on all new federal laws. Changes of the federal constitution are always subject of a referendum. The Swiss constitution offers the institution of a "constitutional initiative". If a certain number of people sign a petition to change the constitution, then a nationwide referendum will be held.
Recently, the Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), mainly a neocon collectivist party, has launched a constitutional initiative to ban gold sales by the Swiss central bank (SNB), to require the SNB to hold at least 20% of it´s assets in gold, and to store all Swiss gold in Switzerland. This is obviously a great idea. I´m actively trying to get signatures right now, although I´m not a member of this party and I think most of their positions are terrible. I´m confident that we´ll get enough signatures (100000 reuired by march 2013) to have a referendum. Most political parties will not support our cause, but the Swiss people have prooven that they´re voting against their politicains if they think a certain cause is just.
The icing on the cake is that - if passed - the initiative could cost us our IMF membership, because it effectively means instituting a partial gold standard (20% of the SNB assests in gold, all the time) which is prohibited for IMF members.

Official text of the initiative, translated by microsoft:

Federal popular initiative 'Save our Swiss Gold (gold initiative)'
I

The Federal Constitution1 is amended as follows:

Article 99 (new) Gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank

1 The gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank are not for sale.

2 The gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank must be stored in Switzerland.

3 The Swiss National Bank has to keep their assets to a large extent in gold. The gold content shall be not less than twenty percent.

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/b...2fvis415t.html

[PMBug]

I remember reading about this last year.

... I´m confident that we´ll get enough signatures (100000 reuired by march 2013) to have a referendum. ...

That would be a sight to behold. Please keep us updated.

[ancona]

I like it! Leave it to the swiss to reinstitute a gold standard. They have been the bastion of freedom for a very very long time, all the way back to the dark ages and before. I believe if they pull it off, the Swiss Citizens will have broadcast a loud signal to the rest of the world that the Brotherhood of Darkness can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, and that includes those motherfuckers at the IMF as well.

[white&yellow999]

Thanks for this post SA! Great to hear that the Swiss are considering this. Can you imagine what would happen if this comes to pass? Could the Swiss franc become the world reserve currency as people want to trade or store a currency that essentially has a gold standard? Other nations would surely have to consider doing the same thing to keep people holding there currency. What would the minimum price of gold have to be if it backed every currency in world, even at 20%?

[swissaustrian]

For the reserve currency status, the Swiss economy is just too small.
Assuming the whole world wanted a 20 % backing of their money supplies the price of gold would have to be arround $9000 I guess. James Rickards did the math in his book currency wars and he concluded that a 100% backing would require $44000 right now.

[PMBug]

... Could the Swiss franc become the world reserve currency as people want to trade or store a currency that essentially has a gold standard? ...

When the Euro crisis was heating up last year, the Swiss Franc was gaining too much strength as a flight to safety along with gold. The Swiss bankers implemented a Euro peg to stop the FX train on or about September 6:

Switzerland sparked fears of a new currency war on Tuesday after it pegged the Swiss franc against the euro in an attempt to protect its economy from the European debt crisis.

The Swiss National Bank in effect devalued the franc, pledging to buy "unlimited quantities" of foreign currencies to force down its value. The SNB warned that it would no longer allow one Swiss franc to be worth more than €0.83 – equivalent to SFr1.20 to the euro – having watched the two currencies move closer to parity as Switzerland became a "safe haven" from the ravages of the eurozone crisis.

The move stunned currency traders, and sent the Swiss franc tumbling against other currencies. Jeremy Cook, chief economist at currency brokers World First, said it was "intervention on a grand scale", and the start of a "new battle in the currency wars".
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...iss-franc-euro

Pretty sure this is what prompted the referendum action in the first place.

[swissaustrian]

The background story is:
It wasn´t prompted by the fx interventions as far as I know, it was motivated by the gold sales of the SNB during the last decade. They sold half of our gold for prices 50 + % below current spot.
One of the initiators,Ulrich Schlüer (who is a collectist, but anyway), was close friends with Ferdinand Lips, the author of the book Gold Wars. Mr Lips died in 2005. Mr Schlüer didn´t have enough support in his party until recently when a group of younger people came into positions of power, including Lukas Reimann who admires Ron Paul although he doesn´t vote like a libertarian in parliament.
This guy appeared on the Alex Jones show during last year`s Bilderberg meeting and made a bit of a fool of himself. AJ also misrepresented Swiss politics, but anyway here is the video.

Alex Jones - Lukas Reimann: Swiss People Oppose, IMF, World Bank and The Bilderberg Group! - YouTube

Alex Jones - Lukas Reimann: Swiss People Oppose, IMF, World Bank and The Bilderberg Group! - YouTube

[dontdeBasemebro]

When the Euro crisis was heating up last year, the Swiss Franc was gaining too much strength as a flight to safety along with gold. The Swiss bankers implemented a Euro peg to stop the FX train on or about September 6:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...iss-franc-euro

Pretty sure this is what prompted the referendum action in the first place.

This seems so crazy to me...

So the Swiss powerelite wanted to protect Switzerland from the Euro debt crisis, so they bought a bunch of worthless currency in order to debalue their own? That seems like trying to lose weight by hanging out at the bakery.

Was this the tired, old tripe about needing to keep currency value down so that exports don't suffer? If so, this is exaclty what China does, and anyone with a few grains of grey matter know that if our currency implodes (more than it already has) that China will be in just as bad a spot since they depend on selling things to us and they own so much of our debt.


Anyways, I hope the Swiss manage to defeat this legislation. There are many times where I would like to adopt some functions of the Swiss system. And K31s, I'd like to adopt a few of those, too!

[hamsackbag]

the Swiss people's attempt to keep the gold in house sure reeks of Al CIAda

[PMBug]

...
When asked about the initiative in Switzerland to back the currency with 20% gold, von Greyerz responded, “We have what is called a gold initiative. So there is a Swiss politician who has started the initiative to have to have the currency backed with 20% gold.

I just talked to the politician who started this move and he said it’s going very well and he firmly believes they will get the 100,000 signatures that will lead to the referendum. It’s a very interesting initiative and it’s too early to say how successful it will be, but it’s certainly on its way.”

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldne...k_to_Gold.html

[ancona]

I think Swiss
Austrian wrote something about this in another thread. If the initiative passes, Switzerland would become the ultimate safe haven for your dinero, because the very most you could possibly lose would be eighty percent. I further suspect that if 20% becomes wildly popular, the Swiss could go to an even higher ratio. Their only problem would be acquisition of new metal to support the creation of more money based upon what I would think should be insatiable demand for Swiss Francs at that point.

[swissaustrian]

I think Swiss
Austrian wrote something about this in another thread. If the initiative passes, Switzerland would become the ultimate safe haven for your dinero, because the very most you could possibly lose would be eighty percent. I further suspect that if 20% becomes wildly popular, the Swiss could go to an even higher ratio. Their only problem would be acquisition of new metal to support the creation of more money based upon what I would think should be insatiable demand for Swiss Francs at that point.

It's in the op of this thread

[ancona]

Ummmmmm........

[swissaustrian]

Man, ZH is getting slow:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/switze...k-new-york-fed

[ancona]

I think it's awesome. That any country still allows their gold to be held by the thieving banks in the USA is absolutely mind boggling. If the Swiss vote on the audit and repatriation in the affirmative, NY will have to disgorge gold that is most likely encumbered m any times over. That alone will cause the price of gold to explode. Multiple calls from Germany, France et. al., will implode the entire foundation of central banking by exposing the paper gold fraud. In fact, simply having to repatriate Swiss gold may be enough to do the job.

GO SWITZERLAND!!!

[PMBug]

... In fact, simply having to repatriate Swiss gold may be enough to do the job. ...

I'm not sure this will be the critical domino, but it shouldn't be forgotten, that the Swiss are potentially following on the heels of Venezuela repatriating their gold in 2011 and China/Hong Kong in 2009 (see entry for 9/3/2009).

[mike]

Good luck getting the gold back. I think it "vaporized".

[swissaustrian]

In case somebody of you understands German (with a heavy Swiss accent), you can watch one of the originators of the initiative talk about it in detail.
His name is Ulrich Schlüer, a guy former member of the the Swiss parliament ("Nationalrat") for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). He is an ardent big government social conservative (Santorum style), but his economic positions are overall great, probably because he was close friends with Ferdinand Lips (the author of "Gold Wars": http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f2/my-top-3-gold-books-253/).

Here's the official website of the initiave:
http://www.goldinitiative.ch/index.html

Start watching at 3:20

Info-Anlass zur Initiative "Rettet unser Schweizer Gold" mit Dr. Ulrich Schlüer (Teil 1) - YouTube

Info-Anlass zur Initiative "Rettet unser Schweizer Gold" mit Dr. Ulrich Schlüer (Teil 1) - YouTube

Part 2

Info-Anlass zur Initiative "Rettet unser Schweizer Gold" mit Dr. Ulrich Schlüer (Teil 1) - YouTube

Info-Anlass zur Initiative "Rettet unser Schweizer Gold" mit Dr. Ulrich Schlüer (Teil 1) - YouTube

[Jetstream]

Watch the USA start talking about attacking Switzerland to bring the poor Swiss folk 'democracy'.

[bushi]

Watch the USA start talking about attacking Switzerland to bring the poor Swiss folk 'democracy'.

US won't attack them. They do have McDonald's over there (remember, "no two countries w/ McDonald's franchise operating in them ever went to a war with each other")