RT Question more, December 25, 2015
A radical initiative to strip private banks of their power to “create money” and make it exclusively a central bank privilege has gathered enough support for the Swiss government to announce a referendum on the issue. A vote in favor may result in a return to 100 percent reserve banking.
“Banks won’t be able to create money for themselves anymore, they’ll only be able to lend money that they have from savers or other banks, or even, if necessary, money that the Swiss National Bank has provided them,” the campaign said in a statement on their petition website.
As soon the petition concerning changes to the Swiss banking system had received more than 100,000 valid signatures, the Swiss government confirmed it would hold the referendum, according to the Telegraph. The date when the country will vote to decide whether private banks should be keep their power of creating money has not yet been set.
The move comes as part of the Swiss Sovereign Money Initiative (known as the Vollgeld-Initiative in German) that seeks to put an end to financial speculations. The group is concerned with the current state of affairs in traditional fractional reserve banking, where real coins, banknotes and central bank liabilities account for only a minor part of money in circulation, while most of it exists as electronic cash created by private banks.
“Most people believe that the money they have in their bank accounts is real money…. This is wrong! Money in a bank account is…a promise the bank makes to provide money, but it is not itself legal tender,” they group explains in their statement.
The initiative claims that it strives to change the system so that it complies with the Swiss Constitution, guaranteeing safety and avoiding such phenomena as finance bubbles and empty money.
If the change is introduced, Swiss banks would have to look for a workaround to continue providing their clients with the usual set of services.
This won’t be a first referendum on monetary policy in the recent history of Switzerland. The Swiss voted against a law that would increase country’s gold reserves from 7 percent to 20 percent back in 2014, despite early polls showing increasing support for the initiative.
Our Comment
It is happening! Across Canada, and around the world, the need for sovereign money is being recognized and acted upon. COMER has received, from a number of countries email messages that attest to the “growing international movement for monetary reform.”
As Ellen Brown points out in the following article, “Hang Onto Your Wallets: Negative Interest, The War on Cash and the $10 Trillion Bail-In,” the commercial banks, it would seem, are pursuing the same goal – the exclusive power to create new money.
Of interest to us and – I should think – to Positive Money UK, is the provision that the decision concerning how new money is introduced debt free into the economy would reside with the government. (Not to some committee.)
Our task is easier than that of the Swiss’ activists in that we already have the means in place and the historically proven model with which to substantiate our case.
Like them, however, we have to convince our fellow citizens of the importance of – in our case – restoring our central bank to its original purpose.
At our next general meeting, addressing this challenge will be an important part of the agenda.
Three cheers for the Swiss!
Élan
