Help requested from Switzerland

Letter from our sister organisation campaigning for monetary reform in Switzerland, MoMo:

Dear Supporters of Positive Money,

We urgently need your help! You can influence the most important Swiss People’s Referendum ever: A referendum that will have repercussions throughout Europe, and the whole world.

How?

The system of having a People’s Referendum (or “Initiative”) is unique to Switzerland. The Swiss people have the opportunity to directly influence the political agenda by introducing a People’s Referendum. When this happens, politicians are forced to deal with unpopular topics and changes can be made to the constitution.

To bring about such a People’s Referendum, 100,000 signatures must be collected by Swiss citizens within an 18-month period.

Collecting signatures is hard work. Especially for small and inexperienced organizations like ours – the nonpartisan NGO Monetary Modernization (MoMo) – which is trying to bring a People’s Referendum dealing with the complex issue of money creation. Moreover, the country has been overrun in recent years by a flood of initiatives, partly because the People’s Referenda are increasingly being misused by political parties to mobilize media attention before elections.

The monetary and financial system is constantly being discussed. However the helplessness people feel about it is increasing day by day, and the suggested solutions are becoming more and more absurd. It’s now being suggested that payments using cash should be phased out altogether! That means prohibiting by law the only state-backed legal tender as a method of payment, in favour of credit-money generated by private commercial banks motivated only by profit!

Through a huge effort, our activists have collected over 78,750 signatures (as of the end of June, 2015).

Our success should be possible, but isn’t certain. Time is pressing. If we fail to collect the signatures in time, a Sovereign Money reform will be even further in coming to our Alpine republic in the heart of Europe – and, we believe, to the world. We must mobilise people to collect signatures.

The time it takes to collect signatures is enormous (8 signatures an hour is typical), and most people can only afford to give this time if they are partially compensated by being paid a small amount. Since we haven’t been able to attract any major donors to our cause, we’re financing our budget to fight Goliath with small donations. That’s why we need your help!

Donate money for our common cause!

We expect our outgoings in 2015 to be approximately £250,000. More than a third of this has already been raised. Please help us to raise the remainder: every contribution counts! Be it £5, £10 or £20. You can contribute through PayPal or by making a bank transfer.

Switzerland could become the country which proves that a Sovereign Money banking system can work. This would give an enormous boost to all the organisations round the world like Positive Money: governments and the media everywhere will see that it’s possible for a country to create the money supply for its citizens, and all the advantages that this would bring.

There’s already been one referendum in Switzerland on monetary reform. On October 18, 1891 the people voted to ban private commercial banks from printing their own bank notes. Since 1907 Swiss Franc bank notes and coins have been created by a democratically elected institution: the Swiss National Bank. Let’s extend this to digital transaction money!

Please don’t abandon us! We’re counting on you!

Please consider to make a donation here.