Thursday, March 21, 2013

Swiss People's Party (SVP) Forces Gold Referendum

The conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has garnered enough signatures concerning a ban on the selling of gold reserves in the country to force a referendum on the issue.

Called "Save our Swiss Gold," the proposal would disallow the central bank of Switzerland from selling any of the gold it holds in reserve, as well as keeping a minimum of 20 percent of its assets in gold.

"Gold reserves aren't speculative objects for the SNB or politicians. They belong to the people," said SVP politician Luzi Stamm.

During 2007 through 2008 the Swiss National Bank (SNB) sold about 250 tons of gold, resulting in an outcry from citizens. While promising it won't sell any more of its gold holdings (laughter in the background), it still is threatened by the idea of rules being put into place which would hinder it from taking steps in shaping the monetary policy of the nation.

SNB spokesman Walter Meier said this: "The SNB has considerable concerns, in particular of a monetary policy nature, about the initiative's demands."

Of course if the SNB had no intention of reneging on its promise, it makes one wonder why it is it's concerned about the demands of the SVP.

Near the close of 2012 the SNB had a total of 1,040 tons of gold in reserve. That equaled about 50.8 billion ($54 billion) Swiss francs at the time.

Another provision of the initiative is that the Swiss National Bank must store all of its gold reserves within the borders of the country.

At this time it is alleged most Swiss gold is stored in the country, although some is stored in other parts of the world in light of crisis scenarios envisioned by the bank.

I wonder if Swiss citizens look at Germany's demand for the repatriation of its gold from America, which it'll have to wait years to get.

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