Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money

Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by Pyxl101 on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @12:54AM (#10805456)

To be fair, the proposal (if I've read it correctly) is not for all banks to have a 100% reserve requirements - but it's for commercial banks to have that requirement. The central bank can still create money on a fractional reserve basis.

I agree that this seems like an unusually technical topic to subject to referendum.

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Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by dogma1138 on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @01:49AM (#10805601)

The Swiss hold referendums on most big issues, every year they have quite a few of them and this has been going on for about 150 years, direct democracy is quite big there as it seems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2013

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_federal_referend...

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Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by mattlutze on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @04:16AM (#10805890)

It looks like a lot/most/all(?) of these, if categorized, would be "public moral position" questions. 2015 and 2014, at least. I wonder if bank reserve regulations really falls into that as well?

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Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by dogma1138 on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @04:39AM (#10805941)

Federal law on radio and television

Against mass immigration

Financing and development of railway infrastructure

JAS 39 Gripen (Swedish fighter jet) procurement

Non-renewable energy tax

Fixed book price agreement

Foreign treaties

Hospitality industry VAT initiative

Gold reserves

And my 2 favorites... Increase petrol station shop opening hours

Music lessons

Seems much more than just "public moral position" questions to me.

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Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by colordrops on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @02:29AM (#10805673)

Funny that you call the details of a control mechanism used by moneyed elites, which is not particularly complicated, an "unusually technical topic". It's unfortunate if you are right.

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Re:Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money by lxgr on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @05:21AM (#10806046)

> The central bank can still create money on a fractional reserve basis.

The central bank does not even need to hold fractional reserves: As the entity creating base money, it can literally create that out of thin air.

Of course, history has taught that unlimited money creation is usually a bad idea, so usually base money is now backed by public or private debt, but this idea is distinct from fractional reserve banking.

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