Ok, I´ll try again, sober this time.
My gfnd got angry with swiss banking after reading da vinci code (I know its only a book) but I quite liked what she had to say (for once) and I thought I´d share it.
How come Swiss banks are aloud to keep the money of dictators and criminals? Terrorists can hide money in Swiss banks and get away with it and also states and thiefs can do what they want and everyone keeps quiet.
In a world where crime doesn´t pay Swiss banking seems to live by its own rules and we don´t seem to care, someone should do something about it. Switzerland and swiss banking seems to be exempt from financial international law .

here i go again.... who is actually going to go after them when all abuse this?

"Switzerland and swiss banking seems to be exempt from financial international law" . i CAN SAY THE SOME THING FOR THE fEDERAL rEZERVE, SINCE THIS IS A private institution, and you know that the money goes with the evil...
so its not just swizz or american or chilli or any other, is the sistum that is corupt...
but you gotta hold this fact and live in happyness.....cose life is short...
thanks

I can't believe everytime someone brings up a subject that needs attention for being very wrong, theres a smart ass that brings up how bad the U.S. is. Like if that would justify the wrong doings of the swiss banking system.

just shows that amerika isnt all it seems. the PEOPLE here are fine and dandy, but the government is pretty much the mob.

Swiss banks have existed long before American banks I believe ... They also hold all the money ****s stole .

im sure they have... being a LOT older of a country and all.

the bush's made blood money off the ****'s too, should they give it back? [with interest]

Their banking laws are such that they allow for much greater privacy/secrecy. This is why they are used and why people have more leeway.

Considering the number of entities (governmental and non-governmental) who have access to your banking information, I'd be happy to have a bank account that actually offers a bit of privacy concerning my personal finances. In some cirumstances, I think that even the the Swiss are far to open avbout giving information to international law enforcement agencies.

But I probably will never have one - my local grocer won't take checks written on a Swiss bank...

Ok, so that means that if osama bin laden has a few bob in a Swiss account then that Swiss bank is innocent of helping indirectly to murdure people ?
Is it such a taboo that anyone can simply hide their drug/weapon smuggling/bomb making money in a Swiss bank ??? It seems like double standard to me from a place where the Geneva convension comes from...

As soon as we figure out whatever the hell we're doing now ain't working let's try it.

The big thing a few years ago was the reclaiming of the so-called 'Nachrichtenlose Vermögen', which in literal translation means 'an account without messages' i.e a bank account that is 'guideless'.
During the **** regime , a lot of Jewish people were putting their wealth/savings into Swiss bank accounts to save it from the ****s who were shutting down all the Jewish businesses fron the early 1930ies on. Naturally a lot of 'Jewish' money was put in Swiss banks before that time also, like anybody doing bigger business did and still does.
As so many people were ruthlessy murdered eventually, there naturally developed a situation where A LOT of money was waiting patiently in Swiss bank accounts, with the account owners gone and their offspring spread all over the world.

A few years ago, there was a big effort coming from mainly the US in reclaiming this monies to the right people. As is always the case, this was done with the help of some heavy-handed US 'star' lawyers like Dan Fagan (or whatever his name is). Former senator D'Amato was also a big force in this endeavour.
Naturally this is not just the business of the banks here but also of the goverment.
This also means that 'we' as Swiss citizens will have a big say, it's called Democracy. (All fault's aside, this system of 'direct democracy' works rather well, and I'm pretty happy living here, ESPECIALLY these days)

Anyway, a settlement was reached eventually that seems to be acceptable to all sides. It's not as easy as some US tabloids will make you believe it is. The US 'culture' of sueing for the highest possible sum with the intention of getting 'enough' in the ensuing bargaining is not common here.
Had the Swiss banks/goverment just o.k-ed all the claims, then Bob Geldof probably would have staged Live8 for the benefit of the Swiss.
There's greed on all sides, and changes are that the money went not always to those who were entitled to it but to those who had the best lawyers.
Naturally the money MUST go to those who own it but knowing who is 'entitled' and who not is a rather difficult thing that I wouldn't want to be part of, decision-wise.
Unfortunately we also got some super-stupid politicans/people here that consider it as pure greed coming from Jews. I'm happy to say that most of the Swiss don't think in this way though and that most politicans involved made a big effort to clear things up.

Naturally their was **** money too, no doubt about this. The big issue was the '**** Gold'. The national gold reserve of the **** regime was put in 'neutral' bank accounts like those in Switzerland, transfered to the local currency and used to finance the **** war machine. In an especially sick variation of **** brutalness, gold from jewelery taken from concentration camp victims was melted and added to those gold reserves. I shudder.

I just found a rather good article about this, written during the time of the whole 'revisiting' of these acts.

http://www.state.gov/www/policy_rema...tat_ngold.html

The whole history of Swiss politics during the second world war is a rather complex one. Terrrible mistakes were made and there was 'sympathy' for the **** murderers even among some politicans on duty at that time.

Switzerland performed a 'balance act' that called itself 'neutrality'. In some cases, it could be seen as outright aid to the **** regime. As Switzerland is the main axis for crossing Europe north-south, German trains were allowed to travel to Italy 'uninspected'. Weapons, prisoners, munition,etc were transported in this way with the Swiss goverment 'looking elsewhere'.

On the other hand, there were plenty of courageous people here too who helped refugees crossing the border,etc.
A lot of families were split too, I live right on the border to Germany and France here and both my grandmothers were German.

It's easy for somebody in the US to say: 'These cowards, why didn't they just give the finger to the ****s and joined the Allies'.
But it's another thing to hide in the basement and see bombs go down just across town like for example my parents did and have family on the other side.

This whole thing was a bit of a 'taboo' here for a long time. About 15 years ago, there was suddendly a big effort made in 'reconsidering' the past and its effect was quite big. A lot of 'sacred cows' have been slaughtered since and Switzerland today is way different than the 'choclate and cows' postcards night make you believe.

Im not defending Swiss banks in any way, I'm not in favour of all the money of dubious origin that clearly shouldn't be here to begin with.
But the whole thing is way more involved than some sensationalistic press and TV coverage might want to make you believe it is.
I always get a kick out of this, the press making bucks by running articles condemning others making big bucks.


Andi

www.doorknocker.ch

I enjoyed reading this .

I like choclate and cows postcards though

andi's posts are always interesting to read