Their president(s) are mere figureheads, they resoundingly rejected the minimum wage yet workers are among the highest-paid in the world, they still value protection of personal banking information despite the US onslaught, and they hold strong to the principle of armed neutrality and non-intervention in world affairs. Why do the Swiss, despite their problems, seem to "get it" where we in the US do not? Today's guest, Global Gold's Claudio Grass, helps us understand.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Their president(s) are mere figureheads, they resoundingly rejected the minimum wage yet workers are among the highest-paid in the world, they still value protection of personal banking information despite the US onslaught, and they hold strong to the principle of armed neutrality and non-intervention in world affairs. Why do the Swiss, despite their problems, seem to "get it" where we in the US do not? Today's guest, Global Gold's Claudio Grass, helps us understand.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Their president(s) are mere figureheads, they resoundingly rejected the minimum wage yet workers are among the highest-paid in the world, they still value protection of personal banking information despite the US onslaught, and they hold strong to the principle of armed neutrality and non-intervention in world affairs. Why do the Swiss, despite their problems, seem to "get it" where we in the US do not? Today's guest, Global Gold's Claudio Grass, helps us understand.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Claudia Graus, and he is also the president of Global Gold.
Claudia, glad to have you here with us today.
Thank you very much for having me.
Well, very good.
It's interesting to have you here because I've always been fascinated with Switzerland.
So much I've always wanted to go to Switzerland but never got there because it just has such a great history.
I love the political system.
I love the decentralization.
And of course, Switzerland comes and goes too on their defense of liberty.
And sometimes they're the champion of the gold standard and that's all.
They're into central banking and all these things.
But one question I want to ask you about libertarianism, since you're a libertarian, you're from Switzerland, it sounds like there must be a few more.
But if I were a Swiss citizen and I was running for office and all I wanted to do was aim the goal of getting the maximum amount of vote, would it be more popular for me to say, I'm a socialist and this is what I want?
Or would it be better to say, I am a libertarian and this is what I don't want to do?
Which one would get the most votes?
Which program?
Well, definitely not the socialist.
Oh, is that right?
No, I think, you know, Switzerland, you know, when you look back into the history of Switzerland, you know, we had four different languages.
We consist of 26 states.
As you said, we always had decentralization.
So, and also we are the last remaining direct democracy on this planet.
So, meaning that the sovereign are the Swiss people.
And of course, because the Swiss people are the sovereign and whatever the politicians bring up, we are used to debate what's going on.
And so when the people are used to debate, they also have a kind of a higher status in terms of enlightenment.
And so they don't fall into the trap of just taking over opinions which have been sold on the mass media.
So they really think.
And I think that's the problem in these days, that people are not allowed to think independently any longer.
But this is part of the historical genes of Switzerland.
See, I've always been fascinated by your executive branch of government, because it was meant at our founding that the executive branch wouldn't be the most powerful branch.
It was to be the Congress and more democratic and the people would be in charge.
But today, of course, our executive branch is the biggest.
Now, I think the Swiss executive branch is the kind of executive branch.
If I were to design a country, I would want a very weak executive branch.
And evidently, you've had that for a long time.
But we've lost it.
Our Constitution was well intended, but the people in charge of it over these hundreds of years have just sort of neglected it, especially I served in the U.S. Congress for a good many years, but it was always rejection of the responsibility to restrain the executive branch.
And when it comes to war issues and monetary issues, the executive branch hasn't done well.
So I think it's fascinating that your president is not a person of great authoritarianism.
I've always been amazed that most people aren't even familiar with the name of your current president.
So, well, that's a good idea.
I mean, you know, we don't have a president.
We basically have seven of them.
And everyone has a department which he's responsible for, and that's the executive branch.
So, you know, when it comes to what we can call the Congress, you know, they are the legislative responsible to make up the laws and so on.
And then, of course, at the end of the day, the sovereign are the Swiss people.
We can say yes or no.
If we don't like what the politicians decide, we can gather still, we can hand in an initiative, meaning 100,000 signatories we have to collect.
Or if the government comes up with a certain, wants to change the constitution and so on, then we can gather 30,000 signatories and then it needs to be brought in front of the people and the people then can decide if they want to accept it or not.
Since many of us are predicting the collapse of central banking around the world just because they're inept and it's going to fail, I am always hoping that maybe there'll be a day once again that the Swiss will lead us back again and to reintroduce the notion of a real gold standard and maybe the world will follow and hopefully we'll have enough organization in this country to do the same thing.
Just recently, I had a program on talking about the Swiss referendum a couple years ago and they were because we're having a lot of talk now about minimum wages and some of the cities are pushing the minimum wage up to $15 an hour.
But the principle of legislating minimum wage of course is anathema to libertarians and markets.
I mean the market should dictate wages.
But this had to do with a referendum a couple years ago.
The Swiss voted on a minimum wage of $25 an hour and I think this will fit your argument that the Swiss aren't exactly attracted towards socialism because they rejected this wholeheartedly, this whole idea.
Even the people who might have benefited by a higher minimum wage, they said they didn't want any part of it.
Absolutely.
I mean, you know, that's a good example, for example.
And we also had a few years coming up that, you know, a few people wanted to give six weeks of vacation, you know, paid leave.
And even there, you know, the Swiss resisted.
They were saying, no, I mean, it doesn't make sense.
And we don't want to have that the government is interfering when it comes, you know, to the economy and, you know, to the working contracts and so on.
We don't have strong unions.
So we still have, you know, a labor market which is not regulated at all, extremely.
Let's call it that way.
Only small.
So we have, you can hire people, you can fire people, and that's why we also have a low unemployment rate.
And yeah, this is, you know, the Swiss, they understand that, first of all, you know, we have to save, and then we can invest, but it's not possible that you can, you know, spend and consume.
So that's also part.
It's part of that gene.
You know, it's really the cultural inheritance of the Swiss people.
One of the arguments made for voting down this increase in the minimum wage was the Swiss had pretty good wages.
Matter of fact, a lot of them were making that much anyway.
And they say, well, the minimum wage did that, but you don't even have a minimum wage.
So then they were still doing very well.
Now, when I did that program, I did get some criticism.
They said, ah, you missed it, Ron.
That wasn't it.
Because it's their unions.
Their unions got those wages up.
And they gave all the credit to the union.
And therefore, I was misleading people there.
But would you say that the unions had a lot to do with everybody making a good wage?
Or were there market factors the reason why people make good wages in Switzerland?
The unions definitely have nothing to do with the minimum wages.
It's really the market that is in competition with each other.
And that's why we have this salary structure.
So it's definitely, we also have very weak unions.
The unions are focusing maybe on the real estate market.
There you have the people working on the, how do you say, where they built up houses on the ground.
So they have a union in a way.
Basically, because in the last few years we had a lot of people coming from abroad and they wanted to work in Switzerland.
So that's why there you had some unions coming up trying to protect the labor market and to protect the people working there because they don't understand what it means, competition, and that if we can compete with each other, that we are all better off at the end of the day.
Why I have you here, which is a real opportunity to talk to somebody from Europe, from Switzerland, because in the news in Europe and the European Union and in this country, one of the major issues in this country now is migration, immigration, borders.
How strong should the borders be?
How much freedom should we have to move about?
And Switzerland, of course, is not in the European Union.
But I can't imagine you in Switzerland escaping the whole issue of migration because it's a serious problem.
You know, some of our foreign policy of intervention in the Middle East and bad economic policies in Africa and different things, it's a big deal.
I mean, millions of people migrating.
And then it looks like the European Union has invited problems for themselves.
So I'm sure that Switzerland can't ignore this, but is it being discussed?
Are there people worried about what's happening?
And how's it being handled?
Have there already been immigrants coming into Switzerland?
And what's the status of the migration dilemma that Europe is facing?
You know, when we look back into the last, especially 24 months and also last year when we had a lot of refugee streams coming into Europe, I mean, the German councillor, Angela Merkel, she sent out an invitation basically saying, hey, please, everyone is welcome.
We even pay a hat fee, you get 2,000 euros.
And so they were really enforcing the migration streams into Europe.
And fortunately, those migration streams went through the Balcony area.
And everyone wanted to go to Europe, to Germany in particular.
So we didn't have a lot of refugee streams coming into Switzerland.
But now, of course, the Balcony route has been closed, shut down.
So we expect this summer that more people will come through Italy and then might go through Germany, through Switzerland.
So we had that discussion also in Switzerland, what do we do?
And so the government now decided that we're going to place 2,000 soldiers at the southern borders of Switzerland to protect the borders and to avoid that we have masses of refugees coming in to Switzerland.
And at the same time, the Swiss people, when they see how the politicians in the Eurozone are handling this migration crisis, they really are feared.
And they see that this is, at the end of the day, it's a cultural suicide.
What Europe is doing right now.
Of course, we are not overrun by millions of refugees.
Sometimes when you see the media, you could get that kind of impression.
So that's not the case.
But of course, when you have 1 million, 2 million people coming in every year, it has an impact in the mid and long term.
and especially because of the wars in the Middle East.
We have been conditioned, especially since the end of, when the Soviet Union crashed, we have been conditioned that the new enemy is the Arab world.
Through Hollywood, the media, and 9-11 was definitely the top of that development.
So people are afraid.
They realize, hey, we bombed these people.
And now the politicians are saying, please come.
And refugees welcome.
So this is going to create a lot of troubles.
And a lot of people are standing up.
That's why we also see these movements like AFD in Germany, which is a new party, which is extremely successful.
They are saying we have to protect our cultural inheritance, and we don't want to have millions of refugees coming in.
So it's a new party, and they basically received 14 to 40%, depending on the area.
Now, if somebody comes into Switzerland and they're coming in, they're passing through, or they've gotten on Swiss land, and they're not technically legal.
What we refer to is an illegal immigrant.
Do they qualify for any of the welfare benefits that the country provides or would they be excluded from being able to get any benefits?
I mean, at the moment, you know, we got, of course, we had last year also a few refugees coming in.
I mean, in total, I think roughly 70,000 in total.
Most of them came from Eritrea in Africa, because most of people, they want to go to Germany.
They don't want to come to Switzerland, fortunately.
So they are now sitting in a refugee camp, and they have a shelter and they get some food.
But of course, there is no future for them.
So our social welfare system at the moment is still shut down for those kind of people.
But of course, if it stays, and if you cannot send these people back, then of course it will have an impact.
But they don't come with the idea that they're going to get a lot of freebies.
I mean, I lived two years in the Middle East.
And don't get me wrong.
I lived in Israel and they also lived in Damascus.
And I very much adore the culture down there.
And I really had a great time and I met the great people.
But the problem is that these people, they always had in mind, as long as we can migrate into Europe, we will also get a house and we get a car.
They saw that on TV.
So for them, Europe was really the promised land because they were captured in their own country when they're allowed to travel.
And now basically with an invitation, I mean, that's their dream, you know.
So they believe that when they come to Europe, everything will be fine.
And so I think these kind of dreams are going to be crashed.
I have one more question.
It's going to be short because we have to finish up.
But I want to get you to make a couple comments about cultural Marxism because that is something that exists, I guess, worldwide.
And you're aware of this being a problem or at least a discussion in Switzerland?
It's starting.
It's starting.
I also had no clue about cultural Marxism until, let's say, six, eight months ago.
So I was now studying, especially the Frankfurt School, which has been founded back in 1930.
And their dogma, I mean, old Marxist, their dogma was to destroy Western civilization.
Their battle cry has also been the march through the institutions.
So when we look at the 68 generation, when we had the student uprisals and so on, that's basically the product of this Frankfurt School.
And so even when you look at Angela Merkel or von der Leyen or Josh Kofischo, who used to be the defense minister, and these are the 68ers.
And now they are sitting in those political positions and are enforcing.
I mean, why should it make sense in an economy, an economical environment which is slowing down tremendously, and at the same time, you let millions of people into a social welfare system which is going, you know, different cultures and which is going to lead to clashes.
Why It Doesn't Make Sense00:00:43
I mean, it doesn't make sense at all.
But if you once understand what cultural Marxism is all about and that it's really up to destroy all the values of the Western world, especially also the family, which has been considered the core element of fascism, and they do it by the means of using political correctness.
You have to control the language that you can shape the mindset of the people.
So I think that's what it's all about.
And if the people understand that and do their own research, they will also better understand what's going on at the moment.
Well, Claudio, I want to thank you very much for being with us today.
Very fascinating conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Dr. Paul.
And I want to thank the audience today for tuning in to the Liberty Report.