Switzerland was the last country to abandon the gold standard in 1999.
Recently, there was a dispute between the IRS and UBS. Some of UBS' customers had Swiss banking accounts, allegedly to avoid taxes. The IRS sued UBS to get the names of these customers. According to Swiss law, UBS could not disclose the names. With much fanfare, an "agreement" was reached and UBS bent over for the IRS.
When the Swiss franc was gold-backed, a Swiss bank account was *VERY* lucrative. It was essentially a receipt for gold.
Now, inflation allows the value of Swiss bank accounts to be stolen via inflation, just like all other fiat money banks.
If the Swiss franc isn't gold-backed anymore, and the transactions must be reported to the IRS, then what's the value of a Swiss bank account? For a long time, Swiss banking laws were very attractive, both to people who desired economic privacy and criminals. Now, there's no point.
If you really want economic privacy, you have to resort to the old-fashioned technique. Take physical delivery of gold and silver, and store it in a safe location.
"Develop an agorist banking system" seems very desirable and potentially profitable.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Useless Swiss Banks
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1 comment:
So much for Switzerland being a sovereign nation. A bank registered there should only be answerable to its host country.
Still the people rich enough to have Swiss bank accounts are probably depositing money "stolen" in some way. By "stolen" I mean money gained off the backs of someone else's actual real productive work.
A CEO of a major corporation isn't really worth several million dollars. He isn't really worth 100 men. He makes money of the back of the real work of multiple other people.
Plus as FSK describes in his articles, banks make money due to defects in monetary system, government favors, inflation etc.
If the highly paid crooks are getting chased by the IRS they don't really have my sympathy.
In a way it is good the IRS is going after the rich clowns, and not just chasing after the little man.
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