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Want a Raise? Vote on it! The Swiss do.
Want a Raise? Vote on it! The Swiss do.
Switzerland is vote crazy. It has a referendum on most issues. There is a vote coming up that I’m sure will pass. This time around, the Swiss are going to vote themselves a big salary increase. As a result, Switzerland will have the highest minimum wage on the globe. That’s nice for the Swiss.
The annual minimum wages of Switzerland’s neighbors: (Link)
Being on the top of the list of minimum guaranteed income is a positive reflection on the Swiss economy. But it will also bring envy. It is an embarrassment of riches. I don’t think it will go unnoticed. The country is surrounded by economic problems, yet it's flourishing.
Switzerland has insured that its domestic companies are insulated from the economic chaos of its neighbors. It has achieved this with a currency peg. This appears to be a simple solution. So far, the peg is working. But there are consequences to this policy. In order to maintain an artificially low value for the Franc, the Swiss Central Bank (SNB) has had to absorb a huge chunk of official reserves, the bulk of which has been in Euros.
An argument has been put forward by the SNB, economists and bloggers, that there is no reason why the Swiss can’t continue to absorb foreign reserves. They argue that it doesn’t matter if it is E260b today, it would not matter if it were E500b in six months. I disagree. The SNB has investment restrictions. It only invests its Euro reserves in the debt obligations of France and Germany.
At some point we will see headlines like these:
Month #1
Finance Ministers of France, Germany, Netherlands
Call on Switzerland to Invest excess reserves in
Bonds of ECB.
Month # 2
Swiss Finance Minister Rejects Calls for Reserve Diversification
“The investment policies of the SNB are not for discussion”
Month #3
Merkel travels to Bern to discuss direct
investment in EU Central Bank
Month #4
Swiss Parliament Rejects Pressure from Neighbors
Swiss President: “The Swiss people have no ability to influence the SNB”
Month #5
EU leaders threaten economic sanctions against Switzerland
French President, “We can have Beggar my Neighbor policies too!”
Month #6
EU Considers Tariffs on Swiss Agricultural Products
Farmers Protest
Month #7
Swiss Tourist Industry in Slump
Hotelier: “We have a bad image, so people don’t come”
Month #8
Belgium’s rail road Cancels Purchase of Swiss Locomotives
Pressure from government responsible
Month #9
Swiss Politicians Raise Possibility of Referendum
on Independence of the SNB
SPP Leader, “Let the people decide”
Two Days Later
SNB Reverses Stance On Investments. Will Invest 10%
of Euro Reserves in ECB Debt.
Major concession. Threat of vote forced
change in policy.
Month #10
Swiss Reserves Rise to New Record
Up E100B in Six Months
One Week Later
Italian Finance Minister Calls on Swiss
for Direct Investment in
Italian Bonds – Swiss say, “No”.
One Week Later
Italian Parliament Considers New Laws
on Swiss Bank Accounts.
Severe restrictions, penalties to equal 50% of account balances
Two Days Later
SNB to Hold 10% of reserves in direct obligations of
Italian government bonds
Italian Press: We put a gun to their head; they said
“Si.”
Two Days Later
Spanish Finance Minister Travels to Bern to Discuss Bond Sales
The question for the SNB: “Is Portugal next to visit?”
This is a bit whimsical, but I hope you get the point. I doubt the Swiss can hold unlimited amounts of reserves without pressure on them to diversify those huge holdings to some of the governments (and the Supra-nationals). I’m surprised that this has not happened already. Possibly Switzerland’s neighbors will look at the results of the upcoming vote on the minimum wage, and start asking those questions.
This very rich country may end up being the banker for some of its neighbors. What comes around, often goes around.
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interesting thinng: your american bigmac is full of chemicals and hormones while our swiss bigmac is free of this shit?
is now a bit more clear why our bigmac is so costly?
Interestingly...sales at Mcdonalds' in Europe are surging.
Big Macs are not the same product the world over in terms of quality, the ingriedients i think are sourced locally when possible and some countries have long lists of things banned in foodstuffs and there are diffrent regulations regarding raising cattle for example. A Big Mac bought in Australia is obviously a greater quality product than one bought in Thailand for example.
Also a high minimum wage is very good news for certain companies. If you are the boss of lets say Levis Jeans or Nintendo you have to pay a bit more to your employees, but on the other hand almost every person in the country can now afford to buy your product.
Then you should double their pay so they can buy twice as much of your product. The old Henry Ford myth. You don't see the circularity in that argument?
Bruce, I'm not sure anymore - are you deliberately not telling us what the Swiss minimum wage is as of today? To make it look even crazier??
From what I heard, it was already 330 Francs a month some years ago...
Its already more than 3000CHF/month. I don't remember the exact minimum wage but it's already above 3k.
This increase has nothing crazy when you spend minimum (and its a VERY STRICT MINIMUM in my view)
600CHF for 25m2 flat
600CHF income tax
300CHF corporate restaurant or buying sandwiches for dinner
300CHF usual home expenses, food&furnitures
200CHF electricity, phone & internet or TV
250CHF for transports (public or private, its a minimum)
2250CHF/month and it's a rough budget here for a single person; you can easily spend 1000CHF in restaurants even in cheap ones...
In my personal experience, since 2007 I never ran a single month spending less than 2800CHF in ordinary expenses so I'm for this referendum.
Well in Germany you should be able to make it on less than 1000 Euro per month(even in a big city)
I may be crazy but I was recently calculating different price ratios between oil and other natural resources and came to a scary conclusion. It appears that the price of EVERY single natural resource on the planet but one is probably being suppressed. I challenge others to do the math. Annual World Diamond production - about $13 Billion, Annual Gold production - about $180 Billion, Annual Silver production - about $25 billion, Annual platinum production - about $10 Billion, etc.........I suspect if you take the sum total of the annual production of ALL the NATURAL RESOURCES on the PLANET, it WILL NOT equal the $2912 Billion that it costs to buy the annual production of OIL! Something is seriously fucked up and it needs to stop!
I suspect if you take the sum total of the annual production of ALL the NATURAL RESOURCES on the PLANET, it WILL NOT equal the $2912 Billion that it costs to buy the annual production of OIL! Something is seriously fucked up and it needs to stop!
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I would guess that Oil is the most in demand-not to mention the political factors such as war/nationalization that gives it a premium-
Although it's not a natural resource-money expansion beat Oil-
The Swiss had a vote on whether to join the EU and by the looks of it-the people were right-
It isn't all democracy though-they snuck this one through without the peoples consent-
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Then, in 1996, the Swiss central bank started to think about its new statutes. They said gold is no longer money. It is a commodity and so on. I had on the board of my bank a man who later became a member of government, Mr. Schmid. He was the head of the gold commission. He asked me what I thought about it. I wrote him a paper and told him that, from now on, our central bank is speculating. They should not do it.
He listened to me for a while. At the time, he was a National Counselor. He wanted to become Federal Counselor, and so he was more interested in his career. He did not understand gold. Nobody in parliament understands it. So the government and the finance department and the national bank had their way. I have never met anybody in Switzerland who wanted to sell gold. By the way, in Switzerland there is a vote on every important issue, but people were never asked about the sale of our gold. I think it is a crime, because the future of our country was undermined
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/goldwars.html
It depends on the definition of money that is used . Gold is a commodity that can easily be used as money.
One definition of money is something that is generally accepted as payment for goods or services in an area. Gold doesn't fit this definition, while fiat currency does.
Another definition of money is a store of value. Gold fits this definition while fiat currency does not.
More like "who defines that definition." in a gold standard gold defines the value of money. In a fiatsco standard the massive amount of government spending does. There are of course far more bureaucrats than gold bugs...and why should they vote on anything that prevents their peculiar form of upward mobility? And of course they don't. Welcome to the dollar hegemony! Now eat your Big Mac, fries and Coke!
here is the U.S., vote with your feet
.. or at least that's how it used to be
voting with your feet and wallet make more headway than voting at the ballot box.
part of problem, IMO
Yep.
Switzerland is a democracy. This can be shocking for people living in fascism to see what democracy looks like. But this is it: let people decide and whatever. IMHO, if this can help people get out of poverty, this won't be a bad thing. Assuming it works, of course, which is not certain...
They're also more intelligent, homogenous, and responsible. In most of the world, the 51% would vote to enslave the other 49% and we all know that's true. A real democracy would work in countries like Japan, Iceland, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and that's about it. For this to work in the US, you would need to break the country up into regions to avoid another civil war
It's already broken up. They are called states.
Well then, make the minimum $500,000 and EVERYONE will live like a king in Switzerland!
Can't they just send me a check and save me the trouble making their bed for them?
Better yet, confiscate their assets and divide it up among everyone.
But then the "dividers" would have to make their own beds I guess...quite the quandry ;-)
Late Gaddafi once publicly called for the dissolution of Switzerland...
...its territory to be divided among France, Italy and Germany. :-D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya%E2%80%93Switzerland_relations
and perhaps you expect to do that in a peaceful way?
or perhaps you expect to confront our 100 k man army? with other 100k reservist and a fully armed population?
switzerland is safe haven for jewish profits. it simply cannot and will not be dissolved.