Post Mortem on the Swiss Gold Initiative

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by Frank Hollenbeck

The Swiss gold initiative has come and gone. It can be summarized as much ado about nothing. Even if it had passed, the initiative would have had no real impact on the central bank’s ability to print money or conduct monetary policy.

The central bank is currently defending a 1.2 Swiss-francs-to-the-euro floor. By pegging its currency, the Swiss central bank has basically opted to follow its neighbor’s excessively easy monetary policy. To keep the peg, the Swiss central bank has been purchasing euros by printing Swiss francs.

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