Give away 7,200 euros to each citizen? This is the sketch of the money helicopter that is raised in Switzerland

Can you imagine that for Kings they receive 7,200 euros as a gift? In Switzerland this is a real possibility. There is a proposal underway for the country’s central bank (SNB) to give each citizen 7,500 francs. The problem right now is that it is at a point of stagnation, the promoters are not getting enough signatures to take it to a referendum in the country. But they still have until April to achieve it.

The specific proposal of the organizers/promoters is that the Swiss central bank deliver 53,000 million francs (52,000 million euros) to all citizens seems to have stopped in recent weeks.

This ‘story’ measure, printing money and distributing it among the citizens, is gaining followers in recent times. However, there is a risk of generating more inflation at a time when prices are already rising at a high rate.

7,500 francs per citizen

The measure called for giving 7,500 tax-free francs to all citizens from the coffers of the SNB (Swiss central bank), but it seems unlikely that the initiative would get enough signatures to push it through a national referendum.

The Swiss newspaper Blick reported that only about half of the required 100,000 signatures had been collected and the deadline of late April was slowly approaching.

“It is very difficult to collect signatures during a pandemic,” Luca Volar, a local politician in the canton of St. Gallen and one of the main promoters of the plan, told the newspaper. “We would have expected a little more support from the population.”

The initiative was launched in late 2020 as the SNB and many other central banks around the world were struggling with weak inflation. The notion of having central banks create cash out of thin air and distribute it directly to the people, known as helicopter money, as a way to boost the supply of money to the economy and keep prices growing healthy.

Although the concept dates back to Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, top monetary policymakers have generally been cautious about implementing it. SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan has ruled it out in the past.