Finally, after years of having some of my Swiss friends bugging me, I've managed to put up a page with some photographs of
Lucerne, the city close to where I grew up. They always complained that I would only put pictures of far away places - but, I suppose, for me, Lucerne has become one of those far away places itself, most of the time...
Lucerne is one of the prime targets of tourists visiting Switzerland. It has also an old history and is nowadays quite a lively place, with local, national and international happenings. This page is a project in progress - meaning I will add pictures when I take better ones, or exchange some, should I find others in my archives... Enjoy!
Gold, Money and Solidarity
Money is one of my fields interest. It is not just about getting as much as possible of it, as it seems to be with most people. But I'd really like to understand how it functions, where it comes from and who creates it. After all, money, or the current economic system which it has created, is responsible for the environmental destruction, crime and most of the wars we are fighting on this planet. Why this is so, I will surely explain in this pages sometime in the future.
Last week I was asked about the popular vote which will be held here in Switzerland before the end of the month. It issue is known as "the Goldinitiative". Since I only returned recently I had to read up on it first.
It happened that the Swiss got an unexpected present: 1300 MT of gold, which the Swiss National Bank had in its vaults to back up the Swiss currency. Since, now, by law, money is not backed by gold anymore, but is a pure fiat currency, the gold was simply not needed anymore. A fiat currency is money that is not backed by anything, but the trust we put into it and those who are behind it, namely the National Bank and the government.
Of course, as soon as it was know that there was a pot of gold to be had, everybody wanted a share of it. As it happened, this was also a time when Switzerland was forced to do some reconciliation with its own history, namely it was forced at looking at the behaviour of the Swiss banks during the World War II. During this time, and also afterwards, the banks weren't behaving very correctly towards the victims (Jews and others) of the Nazi-Reich.
You may remember that a couple of years ago billions were paid out to holocaust victimes and their decendants. It was obvious, as at that time the 1300 MT gold became available, to think of creating some sort of solidarity fund for victimes of hardship.
As it goes in situations of reconciliation with history, there are always those who are reluctant to question the mythos and to look at the real facts. Also in Switzerland, mythos informs our self-image and identity. The Swiss mythos was that Switzerland had been heroically opposed to Hitlers Nazi-Germany, and only the mighty swiss army and the mountain fortresses would have intimidated the German Wehrmacht from invading and occupying tiny Switzerland. Of course it isn't easy to accept that this was by no means so, and that on the contrary, the Swiss supported the Nazi in many instances.
Now, interestingly enough, the same (rather rightwing) circles, who oppose attempts to write objective history, oppose also the creation of this solidarity fund, which would support not just people and projects within Switzerland, but also similar programs abroad.
In a cunning move, they declared the gold "the wealth of the people", and said that basically it should be distributed evenly among all Swiss citizens. But, since this would be too cumbersome to do, they suggested that the gold be transfered to the fund that finances the governmental old age insurance scheme. This was smart, because who would argue against supporting the old age insurance scheme. That at the same time the creation of the solidarity fund would be prevented, is mentioned only in passing.
The financial troubles of the old age pension plan isn't solved at all by transfering the gold. The initiative is clearly an attempt to kill the project of an solidarity fund - without coming out and saying so. If it had been about the old age insurance scheme, then much profunder measures would have to be taken. It follows: If you are against the solidarity fund, vote YES. If you like to keep the possibility open to be able to create the solidarity fund, vote NO!
The Swiss government has developed a counter-proposal, which is also put up for a vote.
