About
5.3 million Swiss citizens, including registered members of the Swiss
Abroad community, are eligible to take part in the June 10, 2018
ballot. Votes on a broad range of issues, as well as elections, also
take place in many cantons and municipalities across the country.
The
Swiss sovereign-money referendum of June 2018, also known as the
Sovereign-Money Initiative, aims to give the central bank of
Switzerland the sole authority of "creating money."
This is
actually what the proponents of the Swiss "Vollgeld Initiative"
want. They say only the government, through the publicly-owned Swiss
central bank (SNB), should be able to create money and put it into
circulation.
The
Sovereign Money Initiative aims to give the Swiss Confederation a
monopoly on money creation, including demand deposit (full-reserve
banking, by including the creation of scriptural money in the legal
mandate of the Swiss National Bank. The name of the initiative was
inspired by the book 100% Money of Nobel Prize laureate Irving
Fisher. The Swiss National Bank is opposed to the referendum.
The
initiative calls for all credit issued by commercial banks to be
backed with real money created by the Swiss National Bank (SNB). The
central bank would issue loans to commercial banks to underpin the
credit they extend to individuals and businesses.
At
present, only a portion of commercial bank lending is backed by
actual money. The rest of the loan exists on paper, creating a large
pool of non-central bank issued ‘money’ – around 90% of the
total supply in Switzerland, according to the sovereign money camp.
Proponents
of the initiative fear another financial crisis if too many debtors
default, as happened in 2008. Forcing commercial banks to cover every
franc of credit they generate would make them think twice about
issuing too much. This in turn would protect the economy against boom
and bust cycles, bank collapses and customer deposits being burned,
the argument runs.
The
initiative is a first serious attempt on behalf of the ordinary
citizens to achieve a decisive victory against the global financial
mafia inside the heart of the banking 'beast'. Yet, for the moment,
it doesn't seem to be widely supported. Moreover, there are also some
other issues that need to be clarified. For example, the creation of
money solely by the central bank - not out of thin air - would be
effective only in case that the central bank is fully controlled by
the state. Does the Swiss central bank fully controlled by the Swiss
state?
Comments
Post a Comment