YES to the popular initiative "Cash is freedom" on March 8, 2026
Two very important points for the cash initiative
My name is Richard Koller, I'm already retired and I've had a lot of political experience
and today I'm committed to preserving cash.
For me, it is very, very important that we continue to safeguard cash in our society in the future,
because there are two main things that made me stand up for cash.
One thing is that we need cash in the crisis.
It is very, very important for crisis resilience.
Without cash, we won't survive in Switzerland for six or eight weeks without the Internet or even without electricity.
The economy will collapse, small and medium-sized businesses in particular will go under
and we will suffer food problems and hunger.
That would be one view and the other view is also anonymity.
It is very, very important that we can buy products in the future without being monitored by the state, without being
punished for products that we may have bought in the past and which are then questionable in the future.
Things like this must not happen in our society and for me these are the two main reasons why I launched this cash initiative.
So, we have a vote on March 8, a federal vote on the issue of cash.
Is cash protected by politics? Or is cash being neglected by politicians and will it remain unprotected
and possibly be displaced and disappear at some point in the future, as in Norway or Sweden?
The federal government must ensure that cash can be used everywhere!
The aim of the popular initiative is for politicians - i.e. the Confederation - to ensure that there are
always enough notes and coins available in Switzerland,
so that they do not disappear in Switzerland - as they have in Sweden and Norway - but
that the population can always pay with them,
can use public transportation with notes and coins, thus preventing the displacement of cash in Switzerland.
This was the aim of the formulation of the popular initiative: the Confederation ensures that
there are always enough banknotes in circulation.
No anonymity and no resilience in crises without cash!
So cash is something very essential. It gives people the opportunity to be free, to pay anonymously, to be untraceable.
But it is also very important because of the crises - in the name of crisis resilience, as the Swiss National Bank calls it.
The crisis is a moment when the technology may not be available.
We have no electricity, we have no internet and in such situations the population and the economy must be able
to continue to exist and that can only happen with cash.
Devastating consequences if cash disappears!
If Switzerland were to become like Sweden or Norway, where we no longer have cash, then we can actually see from
these countries what kind of situations that would cause.
In Sweden and Norway, an aggressor could paralyze the electricity infrastructure or the Internet infrastructure today
and the country would be in chaos within four to six weeks.
The two countries have now realized this and are therefore trying to rebuild cash.
It's not that easy, because there are no more funds on the one hand and no more money on the other in the population
and these measures must of course be taken again now so that people can continue to live in safety
and also have cash available in a crisis situation.
No possession without cash!
So, one difference that few people realize is that cash is property, and it is also my property.
If I have cash in my hand, then that is my property.
If I can only access cash via my cell phone or money via my cell phone, then that is only
access to my property. It is not possession.
It can be interrupted at any time due to a lack of electricity or internet.
I am no longer free and can no longer shop, I can no longer move around, I no longer have access to my money.
That is why it is important that we always have some cash in our pockets or at home in case something like this
happens, so that we can continue to buy our food and products.
That is not guaranteed here. So if there is no more cash, we simply have this problem.
The disappearance of cash is being maliciously controlled!
Well, it's a bit of an illusion that people have that you think cash is actually going to
disappear from how the situation or life develops.
Cash is not disappearing because of the development.
It is politically desirable to abolish cash.
At least since the "Better Than Cash Alliance" was founded in 2014, an organization close to the UN
has been established here to displace cash worldwide
and the digital payment method everywhere.
Cash will not disappear simply because it is banned by policy.
Cash is disappearing because we are getting used to it, because we are being given - or rather, it should be said that we
are being deprived of - the opportunity to use cash everywhere.
This is the way and it doesn't just disappear.
There are global goals behind the suppression of cash!
Many people who want to protect cash naturally also see a global goal behind the suppression of cash.
Controlling people is only possible without cash.
As long as we have cash, we are anonymous, we are also a bit autonomous.
We can move however we want. If there was no more cash, then of course societies would be easy to control.
There is a second point to the cash displacement.
Of course, cash also helps the big banks and investment companies that we have, such as BlackRock, to compensate for
negative interest rates or bad situations, and also to demand levies that cannot simply be demanded at the moment.
Because if the cash is no longer there, then negative interest rates can simply be lowered
and this would be a practical expropriation,
because if we can no longer get the money from the bank, then these negative interest rates
can simply be extended further into the red.
That would mean that in ten or fifteen years, we could have ten percent negative interest rates and if we
then have money, ten percent would be missing every year.
There is another point to the whole mechanism.
If we no longer have cash, then of course it is also possible to manage society in such a way that we say if you haven't used up
the money in three months, then it will simply lose its value.
You could use it to steer companies to spend money and then work again afterwards.
And that would of course be a possibility that the large corporations, complex international groups, would like
to see if their sales could be controlled in this way.
The counter-proposal is useless and should therefore be rejected!
The counter-proposal talks about the National Bank providing enough money.
But the National Bank has no way of ensuring that the money can be used in the market.
The National Bank only provides the amount of money that the banks demand.
The National Bank does not have the option of demanding ATMs so that cash can still be withdrawn at all.
ATMs would lead to people paying with cash again on public transport, at the Christmas market and everywhere else.
The National Bank cannot determine this.
So the counter-proposal has nothing to do with the popular initiative. The counter-proposal has no effect.
That is why we did not accept the counter-proposal and continue to insist that the popular initiative should be
accepted, because the popular initiative obliges politicians and politicians are capable of acting.
It can determine that you can continue to pay with cash on public transport.
It can determine that such and such a number of ATMs must be available in Switzerland.
It can determine that we can continue to pay with cash everywhere at the Christmas market.
That is the big difference to the popular initiative.
We oblige the politicians, the counter-proposal obliges the Swiss National Bank to do what it already does today
and simply raises the legal basis to constitutional level.
But it doesn't change.
And that is why the popular initiative must be voted YES.
We have a second point that distinguishes the popular initiative from the counter-proposal.
The second point is that in the popular initiative we talk about the Swiss currency being the Swiss franc.
The counter-proposal talks about the Swiss currency being the franc. And that is wrong.
ISO standard 4217 states that the Swiss currency is the Swiss franc.
And the Federal Council may of course have a goal in changing from the Swiss franc to the franc in the constitution
- anyone who thinks evil is a rogue
- but that would enable him to introduce the e-franc into law as the Swiss currency.
And that would mean that the people and the cantons would no longer be allowed to decide on it, because
with an optional referendum only the people can decide whether to accept or reject it.
"Notes and coins" instead of a digital cash function!
In the popular initiative we talk about notes and coins.
Why not cash?
Cash is not a definitive term that can be defined so clearly, because cash is also
something that could happen purely digitally.
And for the following reason.
You see, lawyers in the EU and in these cash suppression bodies have found out that if I have an amount on my cell phone -
even if it's in access, I see an amount here - and transfer it to another cell phone with TWINT, then that's a cash payment.
And this cash payment would lead to lawyers saying that it is actually like cash.
It has passed from one owner to another and is therefore not a loan.
So in the future, you could also say that digital money on your cell phone is cash.
- You can't say that. It's quite simple: here it's clear, here I have notes and here I also have coins
- and that is clearly defined in the constitution and the constitution needs clear
information, clear terms that are in the constitution.
And that is also a point of the counter-proposal. It is unclean, it is unclear.
Our popular initiative is very clearly formulated and refers to notes and coins because we want to protect notes
and coins and not possibly a digital cash function in the future, which has been legally defined as such.
Sponsor voting newspaper with withheld facts for every household!
An important point of the popular initiative, the vote on March 8, is that we can vote for a popular initiative with notes and
coins on the one hand and for a counter-proposal on the other.
The initiative with notes and coins is very clear and the counter-proposal is a bit tricky or blurry or not so clear.
And so that people understand this, we have written a newspaper in which the differences are clearly described.
So that this newspaper can be sponsored in every household, we have placed this newspaper on www.flyer-ueberall.ch.
It can be placed in the letterboxes of the individual municipalities.
Please support us so that everyone has a clear view of what they will be voting on on March 8.
Thank you very much.
People on the breadline suffer first when cash disappears!
So, if cash disappears in Switzerland, who will actually suffer first?
Of course, the poorest suffer first.
We also see this in the complaints I have lodged against public transport.
Who suffers when public transportation no longer accepts cash?
These are the people who have to go through life every day on three, five or perhaps just under eight francs.
You get on a bus, can't pay, there are no more cash ticket machines.
And these are the people we exclude from our lives.
That's simply not fair, it's not fair.
These people also have a right to public transportation.
These people have a right to pay with cash in WCs - because they can't get a credit card, because they don't have the money or
have fallen through the cracks and don't have an account, because they can't afford a cell phone that has smartphone functions.
It is very, very important that we see this.
We have a million people who have to live on the breadline.
And we have a lot of old people who only live on the AHV.
And these people cannot buy a prepaid card and block 20 or 50 francs on it.
They live on every franc per day that they can use.
And it is important that these people are not pushed out of society, that they can continue to participate in our society.
Holding on to cash means paying with cash!
It is therefore very, very important that we continue to hold on to our cash.
But that also needs a bit of commitment from the population, because we should pay more with cash again - if the amounts are
small or whatever - so that the cash registers don't disappear in shopping centers, at gas stations and everywhere else.
Because if nobody pays with cash anymore, it is simply the logic of the times that the cash registers
will be abolished and thus cash will also be displaced.
If we no longer have cash, then we run the risk that we will suffer from this displacement at some point.
Having no notes and no coins means not being able to buy anything in a crisis.
And that's why I'm asking everyone to perhaps have 700 francs per head at home, because if we run
out of electricity, we'll be left with nothing,
If there is no more internet - we see it in Iran, where the internet was simply switched off - if we no longer
have it, then we need people who still have money at home so that the economy can continue to function.
You can also give something to your neighbor so that he, who has no more notes and coins at home, can
still buy something and the economy continues to exist.
That is very, very important. Let's look at Germany, at Berlin:
An attack on an electricity distribution board left a district without power for five days.
It was chaos, it was partly a war atmosphere.
As sensible people and clever Swiss, we should prevent this and therefore pay more in cash from time to time than we are used to.
Secure cash to survive in crises!
If you vote YES on March 8, you have lost nothing, you have only gained.
They have won one thing: That politicians must safeguard cash.
And if we need cash in a crisis, you win again because you can survive.
And you have lost nothing, because we are not fighting digital money.
We simply want you to continue to have the freedom to decide whether you want to pay digitally or in cash.
And to achieve this, we must vote YES to the popular initiative "Cash is freedom" on March 8.
And if there is a YES for both, then don't forget to put a cross at the bottom - when it says: "If there are
two YESs, which popular initiative would you prefer?"
Then vote for the original, vote for "Cash is freedom", make a cross there.
Thank you very much. We're not losing, we're just winning.