Friday, November 07, 2014

It seems nuts, but the Swiss may go back to a gold standard...

The British pound hasn’t been linked to gold since 1931. The US snipped the cord in 1971. But the Swiss only fully severed ties to gold in 1999, when voters approved a revamped constitution.

Now, a good chunk of them seems to want to go back.

On Nov. 30, Swiss voters will cast ballots on a number of issues including the “Save our Swiss Gold” initiative launched by the right-leaning Swiss People’s Party. The ballot measure would instantly ban the Swiss National Bank from selling gold. It also would require that the national bank keep 20% of its assets in gold within five years. (It currently has about 8% in gold.) Oh, and it would demand that all the gold be stored in Switzerland itself. (About 30% is parked abroad right now.)

“It’s really an attempt to return to some kind of gold standard, for those who don’t trust paper money and who want gold backing it up,” UBS strategist Beat Siegenthaler told Reuters. Full story...

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  2. No one can call gold a safe haven ever again...
  3. Next time you want to buy some gold, you might want to look at this first...
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  6. The dollar is a barbarous relic: the rise of bitcoin...

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