Tag Archives: Politics

Last week, the government in Bern broadly supported a plan to force all property owners to contribute to the cost of earthquake repair. This week, a Swiss homeowners association rejected the idea, reported SRF. Earthquake © Olga Demina | Dreamstime.comThe government plan is a response to the attitude of many home owners towards insurance. Only 15% of buildings are insured against earthquakes in Switzerland, a nation at risk, according to a government estimate. If some homeowners won’t...

Share this article It’s been a fantastic year for physical precious metals owners and by many accounts, the best is yet to come. All the issues we’ve been warning against for years, including inflation, currency debasement and government suppression of individual financial liberty have started boiling over in a way that is so obvious, that even the most naive citizen can clearly comprehend.  Despite the efforts by politicians and institutional leaders to convince the taxpayers not to...

Share this article An attempt at an analysis from the perspective of a free Swiss individual What you’re about to read is the abridged and condensed English translation of a speech I gave in Munich in November 2023. You can find the full speech, in German with English subtitles, here. It tackles the very difficult, but also very crucial, subject of individual freedom, or what is left of it these days, and it seeks to offer a constructive analysis from a Swiss perspective.  It is...

Share this article Article II of II, by Claudio Grass Collectivism is extremely versatile and very easy for political animals to “sell” to the public and to weaponize. Politics, of course, by its nature is always the pursuit of the Left, if we are to follow strict definitions. It seeks to influence and coerce others and it abhors individual liberties and self-determination. What we know as far-right is national socialism and the rest is international socialism. Either way, it is all...

Share this article Article II of II, by Claudio Grass Collectivism is extremely versatile and very easy for political animals to “sell” to the public and to weaponize. Politics, of course, by its nature is always the pursuit of the Left, if we are to follow strict definitions. It seeks to influence and coerce others and it abhors individual liberties and self-determination. What we know as far-right is national socialism and the rest is international socialism....

On 22 September 2024, Swiss voters will decide whether or not to accept the latest round of government reforms to employee based pensions known as the second pillar pensions. Swiss trade unions are against the reform, which reduces the annuity rate from 6.8% to 6.0%. Instead they are calling for a higher rate to compensate for recent inflation. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.comSwitzerland’s pension system faces a similar demographic challenge to many developed nations. Its population...

Share this article Part I of II, by Claudio Grass Western civilization – with all its scientific and technological progress, artistic prowess, philosophical and sociopolitical evolution, moral values, ethical principles and rich culture – took millennia to reach its famed “Enlightenment” point. It has been a rollercoaster, violently swinging from highs to lows and from darkness to light, from autocracy, tyranny and despotism to humanism and individualism and...

Share this article Part I of II, by Claudio Grass Western civilization – with all its scientific and technological progress, artistic prowess, philosophical and sociopolitical evolution, moral values, ethical principles and rich culture – took millennia to reach its famed “Enlightenment” point. It has been a rollercoaster, violently swinging from highs to lows and from darkness to light, from autocracy, tyranny and despotism to humanism and individualism and back again. The “Old...

Share this article The post-covid years have brought about an unquestionable acceleration and intensification in the attacks against the Western value system, against basic Enlightenment ideas and principles and against the pillars of the very civilization that gave us all the liberties, the rule of law and the justice system that we enjoy today (or used to enjoy until fairly recently at least). All-important and self-evident ideas like the concept of meritocracy, individual liberty,...

This week, Switzerland’s Federal Council decided to cut CHF 35 off the compulsory annual fee households must pay for public television and radio. The fee will fall from CHF 335 to CHF 300 by 2029, reported RTS. The fee reduction will happen gradually, falling to CHF 312 in 2027 and then to CHF 300 in 2029. In addition, more companies will fall outside the criterion for paying the fee. The minimum annual turnover for qualifying will rise from CHF 500,000 to CHF 1.2 million. This will mean...