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Switzerland Launches Referendum To Stop SNB Lunacy, Save Swiss Gold
From Alex Gloy of Lighthouse Investment Management
Save The Swiss Gold
According to an article in Swiss newspaper NZZ (Neue Zuercher Zeitung) the SVP party (Swiss People’s Party) launched a referendum to “protect” the 1,000 tonnes of gold owned by the Swiss National Bank (SNB). Their aim is to:
- make it unconstitutional to sell gold
- force the SNB to hold 20% of its assets in gold (currently 16%)
The SVP said the sale of 1,500 of the SNB’s 2,500 tonnes of gold was regrettable, especially given the Swiss population had no say in this.
For the referendum to be launched the action committee needs to collect 100,000 signatures from supporters of the measure. They have until March 20, 2013 to do so.
In Switzerland, a referendum is serious business. Direct democracy. Memorable votes include the 1992 decision to stay out of the EU, or the (defeated) referendum to abolish the Swiss Army (1989, 2001).
The initiative could complicate the SNB’s dream to manipulate the EUR/CHF exchange rate. As FX interventions blow up its balance sheet the SNB could be forced to purchase large quantities of gold to adhere to the above mentioned 20% gold ratio.
The 100,000 signatures should be achievable. Having lived in Switzerland for 8 years I could imagine for this referendum to pass.
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snb buying gold and limiting cash withdrawls by germans plus peg. this will be fun
they will have signatures before oktoberfest and this will pass but maybe the rest of the gold will be sold by then?
“the sale of 1,500 of the SNB’s 2,500 tonnes of gold was regrettable”
Looks like they had a fool of a Chancellor or Treasurer just like our Mr Brown.
yeah, unfortunately i think that gordon brown was cloned at birth by some diabolical mad scientist and parceled out to as many western nations as neccesary.
This was done in 2000 inorder to join the IMF!
Inorder to be a member of the IMF your currency cannot be backed by gold.
Book on this = Ferdinand Lipps "Gold Wars: Sound Money from a Swiss Perspective"
Mr Brown and much of the European establishment have been indoctrinated into the "inflation is good" lunacy.
Chief proponent of that today is Paul "Aliens" Krugman.
We don’t need more inflation. We need to pay down our debts in a timely and honest fashion, and if we can’t do that we need to default.
Krugman thinks weak demand is eating the global economy. It’s not. The real problem is American imperial overstretch.
http://azizonomics.com/2011/09/20/hemingway-on-krugman/
We long ago passed the point of no return. Those debts will not be paid in full. That's why the central banks are buying gold. We need a system reset.
'especially given the Swiss population had no say in this.'
Give the full quotation, for full effect for our non-gold holding friends;)
Didnt Switzerland have to sell gold in accordance with IMF conditions when they joined that institution?
I believe so, but that doesn't account for 1,500t or whatever the amount was.
dead line for collecting the 100'000 votes is March 31, 2013.
By then we already have new money.
Yeah and even if we get the 100k signatures by march 2013, we then need to Vote by 2015-2016 or later if they want to drag the thing, They then have a few more years to apply the law.
In fact, no change before 2020 and the SNB can take mesures accordingly.
Still, when you consider the swiss francs' performance (relative to gold) recently, it is a prudent, albeit late, thought.
http://worldwideponzicollapse.blogspot.com/2011/09/your-pay-was-cut-in-l...
EDIT: I read this 2012, not 2013. I agree, that is far too long.
Original comment: I wouldn't be so sure of that. TPTB have been surprisingly good at kicking the can, and will no doubt keep changing the rules in what is a man made reality. Yes, it must come to an end, but I have no idea when. Catalysts:
Gold prices go vertical
JPM loses control of silver
Global chaos/war breaks out
The central bankers reach their acquisition targets
The Comex blows up
Everyone in the GLD realizes they are on cracking ice and run for the door
China successfully crushes the can so it can no longer be kicked. Their gold exchange could do that, and there can be no doubt they would love to stick their finger in the eyes of the Fed and ECB
I own my gold in GLD, I know of no other simple way to own gold in a liquid form without paying huge 5%+ markups
give me some suggestions please.
I also own a little GDX.
Eric Sprott's PHYS is backed by physical gold in Canada. You still have the risk Canada or the USG will confiscate or tax it to death, but at least this paper gold is backed by a hard asset. He also has a very good reputation.
lol..how exactly do you own gold in GLD?
Maybe you meant to say "I track the paper price of gold via shares of GLD"?
Re: "simple way to own gold"
change to: "simple way to own paper gold"
There, fixed that for ya.
power to the people
Switzerland as opposed to any country in the world has a direct democracy however, the process is so slow that by the time you get to vote as a citizen the iPhone 9 is obsolet.
Not if TPTB can help it.
Green arrow for your blog Turd.
Maybe the Swiss population should buy some physical gold instead of signing paper. Outside this I would adivse the government and central bank to sell the lot and make it very public. Don't allow China or India buy the lot in bulk instead dribble it out.
Or they could give the Swiss public first refusal on any SNB gold for sale.
“force the SNB to hold 20% of its assets in gold (currently 16%)”
I hope that the Swiss people have not been dumbed down so much that they do not view gold as proper money.
I would not even bet fiat money on your hope
The banking cartel will not like this. Maybe the Swiss will be taught a lesson like Lybia.
NATO is preparing to strike! keynesian war on swiss!
Suddenly it will be discovered that all of Swiss gold is in fact 'holocaust gold' and needs to be repatriated to Israel with the full backing on the US Army
but the germans just accidently "found" it during the war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f7LwuVF8Oo
Ir's about time somebody reacts!
Let the pair dive to 0.5000 and see whos complaining then, for the moment all the SNB has done is some jawboning, there hasnt been a franc used in anger.
“They have until March 20, 2013 to do so.”
They had better quickly collect the required number of signatures and than quickly take this referendum as I doubt the fiat paper currencies will live past March 20, 2013.
Shouldn't take much buying to send it's price up to a level where it meets or exceeds 20%.
Just a statement of intent to purchase should do it
if their situation is anything like the US it's already been sold. Bill Still on Keiser today covers the Fort knox vanished gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrSWpmtm0kY&feature=player_embedded
SVP vs. SNB? This referendum seems to be passed.
From the quoted article:
"The remaining gold reserves should be stored in Switzerland. ... Because a part of the reserves is stored abroad, a situation seen as irresponsible by the initiative committee because of the exagerated indebtment of many countries"
In other words, is Switzerland about to pull a Chavez on the NY Fed and the LBMA, and force them to deliver "real gold" to Switzerland en lieu of the paper gold those guys have almost certainly kept on their accounts for Switzerland?
A very good observation by GT made me consider that we don't really know how all this gold is tied together. It is the nature of central bankers to tie everything together in multiple interwoven obligations. It very well may be that any repatriation of gold by any country will lead to obligations being felt in NY. If you pull on a spider's web, it is always felt at the center.
The Swiss population is approx. 8million. I doubt it would take more than a few months to get 100,000 signatures.
yoou might want to reconsider "few months", more like few weeks!
1,500 tonnes of gold is about $90 billion worth or naerly $13000 per Swiss citizen.
The SNB governors who oversaw that sale should be publically raped and then put to death by form of slow slicing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing
Forget a constitutional clause to prohibit the sale of the gold, a clause should be passed which returns it to the people who had their income stolen to fund this accumulation, i.e. the Swiss taxpayers.
except it was sold in 2004
There were a lot of FX traders who saw their accounts stolen by the SNB recently. I bet that hurt a lot more than learning the country's gold was sold in 2004.
If you think "people who had their income stolen" in Swiss,
While Swissy Trades well above parity with the USD, then what
to say about Americans? That's who's been robbed for sure.
0% interest rate everywhere plus Dollar devaluation.
BTW even at 1.20 per EUR Swiss frank
still 20%+ overvalued and about 50% overvalued to the $USD
at least.
NEW resistance for GOLD now $1795, Lower highs, looks like it might go all the way to 1550/oz, cause someone pushing SELL at every pop. Yesterday it TANK at 9:30AM looks like it's going to be same picture today
I fucking hope so. I have some stacking to do
Gold prices have some pretty volatile corrections, because of the price fixing mechanism. But I would expect the price to test the 13-week EMA at the very least. Prices should be very stubborn here at this point simply because of the discount rate popping into the negative or having the potential to do so.
Yes, I would say anything is possible at this point, but they can't break gold or they would have already done so. My guess is that it is very costly to drive prices lower, and every time they do so, China rushes in and buys.
They cannot allow gold to climb back within striking distance of $2000 while the EU is in flames. If they can put the EU banking issue on the back burner for a while, the assault on gold prices is likely to abate. However, if it is going to get worse, they will keep building a bigger buffer by suppressing gold as far below $2k as possible ahead of any impending bad news.
Your resistance got bitch slapped. I was hoping for a better exchange rate next paycheck.
the headline is misleading
regarding the content, my bet is when lighthouse asset management is liquidated the referendum will still be in the pipes
So, the Swiss central bank stole the people's gold and sold it? Same as the Dutch a couple days ago? All this along with what we know about Canada and England selling theirs. How long before the USA fesses up? Central bankers around the world stole the people's wealth. Why am I not surprised?
Bernank says GOLD is the tradition, so US probably holds
Gold painted lead bars instead of GOLD in Fort Knox.
"How long before the USA fesses up?"
It could be soon, if Ron Paul (or other GOP contenders) make a campaign issue of it. They should.
My guess would be that soverign gold was used to suppress gold prices, not enrich TPTB. They have all the money and power they could ever want, they just needed the gold to suppress gold prices and maintain control of the system. Now that the system is coming to an end, that gold is no doubt being replaced on the sly, while central banks are also engaged in overt gold purchases. They have had 3 years to stonewall, knowing that the old system is nearing an end. TPTB intend to remain TPTB, they would be stupid not to replace the gold before having to account for it.
Stealing our paltry gold horde is chump change next to using it to control the system so that they could slowly suck the life's blood out of a $13 trillion economy. It was never about stealing the gold. The gold was just the keys to the kingdom. It was never about the value of the keys themselves.
I am pretty sure they had to sell to pay Jewish dormant accounts from WW2 or as reparations for laundering NAZI gold.
I have often wondered: if they had not sold the 1500 tonnes, and the Swissie was still backed by gold, what would this mean taking into account gold’s rise.
Seems pretty coincidental the sales occurred just before Browns Bottom.
SNB is getting wise to the status and quantity of gold it has and should have. Dutch are asking questions about their gold. Venezuala....; have they received their gold yet. some form of QE is imminent. countries keep printing fiat............
yet someone(s) are keeping the price of gold and silver down? amazing. when the music stops on this one, there may be negative chairs left. its unleased physical or it could be phantom.....
protect wisely
Yes, the price action of gold and silver completely discredits 99% of the trading books out there and all the phonies that wrote them. Trading is about knowing who the mark is and what scam is being used to fleece him. Plain and simple, that's the birds and the bees of trading. After this full retard market abomination example, anyone who thinks otherwise can STFU.
Tradition!
The way I understand it is that at the time the Swiss gold was sold a few years back, under the then existing Swiss law, Switzerland was to hold 33% of it's foreign exchange in gold. As the price of gold had risen a portion of gold was sold and the proceeds were in part used to bolster the Swiss pension and health insurance plan.
I don't know what happened to bring gold holdings down to 16%, but my guess is that the swiss national bankers were seduced ( like I would imagine all other central bankers around the globe ) by the ability to 'print wealth'.
I doubt the Swiss people will stand for having their gold hoard decimated further. But then again almost anything is possible to achieve by those in power if they are able to squeeze the population hard enough. We can only hope that people around the world stop bankers and their political lapdogs from grabbing all power from the host they prey on.
China & India buying gold as the old, worn out western nations selling....mmmm.
Something to examine closer, eh.
You can't have a sustainable system of trade unless their standard of living rises and ours falls. You can't make an omlet without breaking a few eggs. Hot dogs and beans anyone?
Referendums elsewhere in Europe on monetary / euro issues may be the wave of the future. They'd get politicians off the hook for unpopular decisions.
Absolutely. This is a rape, and rape victims don't get a say in the matter. They will print, and create debt, and kick the can until they are good and ready to push the reset button.
They're pushing for a pardon and the vultures are already at the gallows pecking at the carcass.
The SNB is the most private of private CBs - it gives tribute to the various cantons - but it owns the stuff - however it operates in Switzerland with the consent of the various valleys in Switzerland.
49% of all shares are traded publicly. Average intraday trading volume is 10.
I own some.
Now if Canadians would just follow suit
http://www.petitiononlinecanada.com/petition/what-happened-to-all-our-gold/341
Now if Canadians would just follow suit
***************
I tried to post a comment on that site using openid-
Nada--
SOG!
Save Our Gold!
In 1990 a (Swiss made) Katadyn pocket filter cost me $225 at the Seattle R.E.I. - today they are about $250 to $300 depending. In 1990 gold averaged about $400, if the Swiss had not loosened their monetary policy (as the argument goes, not saying I agree) then that same water filter would cost close to $1200, say.
Since that time a number of competitors have arisen, for many decades they were essentially the only available manufacturer of portable water filters. Guess I bring this up as an example of why countries want to weaken their national currencies in order to be able to export and remain competitive albeit only temporarily.
Thanks. I was just looking those things over last weekend as part of my survival kit
If it DON'T pass,the people have been drugged.
This is the first ever constitutional initiative by the SVP that makes sense.
Looks like somebody read Ferdinand Lips, gold wars.
This is why I also hold ‘physical’ Silver and Platinum in addition to Gold. When the governmental panic hits a country near you it will likely be 'illegal' to sell Gold there as well and for the same reasons.
Silver and Platinum, like Copper, on the other hand stand a good chance of still being considered 'industrial' metals, the sale/free flow of which is critical for production and yet should still be sympathetic to any inflationary based rise in the price of Gold. Plus if they shutdown the free flow of Gold at market prices, any metal still useable as money (high value per oz) legally should get a boost above is mining cost as well.
Besides I have to ask what good is big pile of Gold unless you can use it to buy stuff? It seems to me that rule works just as well for countries as it does individuals? I mean can it still be considered money if it never circulates among individuals and nations?
So not to take anything away for Gold, but it’s important to have a diverse precious metals portfolio because when you need to sell it the most it may be illegal to do so. Then again for all I know the freegold guys could be right in which the Gold price per oz rockets up and forms the basis of reconciling global trade imbalances. Then again maybe not or at least you won’t be allowed to legally enjoy that benefit like what FDR did with Gold (ie confiscate low, hold high).
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/
Reminds me of the a line below in the Blues Brothers movie;
Elwood: What kind of music do you usually have here? Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country ‘and’ western.
What kind of money do you usually take here? Oh we take both kinds. We take Gold ‘and’ Silver.
No confiscation in our future
"Well, if the US ever put gold back on the table through another confiscation of its citizens' gold, the BIS would call in all of its outstanding claims in gold at the rate of $42 per ounce. And the BIS would not be alone. Other entities would have legal claims for gold at $20.67 per ounce, and others at $35 per ounce. How much gold was either confiscated or defaulted on without due process of law? Claims of perpetual entities never go away. If the US government ever exposed its own gold (or its citizens' gold through confiscation) to the light of day, it would expose itself to all kinds of claims and an international legal mess. Under international law, the US is still an OUTLAW when it comes to gold!"
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2009/08/confiscation-anatomy-different-view.html
"the BIS would call in all of its outstanding claims in gold at the rate of $42 per ounce.”
And the BIS would be told to go pound sand by the UST, your point?
This is just another variant of ‘counter-party’ risk. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, is it not? I might add that all Gold held on behalf of other nations has the same counter party risk which nicely explains the recent actions of Venezuela.
Again the Swiss could be the canary in the mine at what ‘could’ happen with Gold should things get out of hand. Which in my book is the whole reason for owning precious metals and other even more important SHTF assets like bullets and beans in the first place. ‘IF’ the free exchange of Gold ends between nations it will necessarily end between individuals within nations as well. At which point my central point stands, whatever you may call money needs to freely circulate in order for it to be money.
Again not saying that Gold won’t go to 50K/oz and equally important that an ordinary Joe will be allowed by the powers that be to capitalize on that appreciation, just saying that Gold may be a bit too “traditional” for the establishment to server as money for the common man, that is all.
I could also see a scenario in which everyone sits on their Gold and makes the transaction illegal, including the common man, until the price is sufficient to permit its free flow again. In this case you just hold on to until the concepts behind freegold final take root and everyone sees the value that free exchange of gold at market prices can do for world trade.
Anyway, the very reason I hold precious metals at all is for insurance against the actions of my own government and the complete collapse of international agreements in general. Which also means I don’t want all my eggs in one basket, including just one type of PM. Stating the BIS agreements will have any power during and after the collapse is to ignore the whole reason one places ‘tradition’ ahead of promises in the first place.
Hey Swiss,
If you are gonna run a peg, you are gonna lose your gold. Directly or otherwise. Unless you have a massive trade surplus. Which you don't. Criminal deposits don't count, as they can be sent to the Caymans. Sad....but true.
The great gold hoarding...
Control of money supply is done both ways: by injecting or withdrawing...
Why not just pick up 2500 tons of spam in lieu of the gold, Roubini thinks it a good choice.