Tighter Grip Needed On Switzerland's Gold?

Tighter Grip Needed On Switzerland’s Gold? by Armando Mombelli, swissinfo.ch

“Save Switzerland’s gold”: it sounds like the plot of a thriller, but it is actually a proposal going before voters in a nationwide ballot on November 30.

So, who do the Swiss need to save their gold from? Not from organised crime or terrorism, according to proponents of the initiative, but from the leadership of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), which between 2000 and 2008 sold off half of the national gold reserves.

These sales were prompted by the decline of gold in the 1990s. The precious metal hadn’t shown any sign of recovery, even in the course of international crises, and seemed to have lost its...