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>Assange is not a Swiss resident, so they closed his account, and are returning his money to him. The timing was coincidentally close to many other "spontaneou

>Assange is not a Swiss resident, so they closed his account, and are returning his money to him. The timing was coincidentally close to many other "spontaneous" corporate actions against Wikileaks.

derefr 16y ago
Sure, because somewhere inside PostFinance, a conversation roughly like this occurred: Boss: "Hey, everyone's talking about this Assange guy's financials—do we have anything to do with that?" Clerk: "I'll check. ...huh! We have him in our books as a client!" Boss: "But he's not even Swiss! Good thing we noticed, I guess."
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  His account was opened legally when he was in the country, but closed because he wasn't at that time a resident. This strikes me as a rather absurd policy on how to hold an account given that you'll have to be closing down temporary residents accounts and reopening them whenever they exit or enter the country.
  - bertil 16y ago
    A significant portion of Swiss residents spend only half of the year in Switzerland: they don't clear their postal accounts every month. ;) They close it when they realize you don't really live in Switzerland, even half-time.
- praptak 16y ago
  Prelude: Government representative: "Hey, nice company, wanna keep being friends with the govt?" Boss: "Sure."
  - bertil 16y ago
    The Post Office is actually a Government-owned company. I keep saying that Swiss is a socialist country (the main assets are government-controlled, health and welfare are compulsive, minimum wage is astronomic) but no one believes me… and I'm the only Swiss around. However, I don't think there was any US interference: Switzerland is a fiercely autonomous country (with a whiff of xeno…-scepticism). There most likely were sincere about discovering that he wasn't seriously considering to stay and discontinued service only for that: banking in Switzerland is like cooking in France — don't try to make sense of it, do as you are told, and admire in silence.
    - eru 16y ago
      Perhaps (neo-)corporatist might fill the bill better than socialist?
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Wtf? Switzerland is more free market than the US. The people still hold most of the power, there aren't many mega corps that own everything. There are lots of "mom and pop" businesses around. Switzerland is a wonderful coctail of free market capitalism and social responsibility toward it's citizens. Would you think it were more "capitalist" if there were a Walmart every thousand meters and all small businesses were dead?
      - bertil 16y ago
        You are confusing two distinct things: socialism is a type of capital accumulation (capitalism, therefore) that considers that essential assets of productions should be government owned, or controlled. Anti-trust is a classic, albeit minimal socialist law; it is also coherent with populism. Anti-trust is necessary as the last control in a free capitalist market, but is rather contradictory with private property being absolute. Other notable economic system around property include Saint-Marc doctrine (a man can steal to feed his family if its his last resort, that has been extended to land expropriation after peasant revolts), financial capitalism, or Rhine capitalism, where the means of production are family-owned, but social ties between owners offer a conventional control and can be used to enforce standards (like paternalism). The last one is the system described in Karl Marx's The Capital It's also slightly incoherent with free market, because properties can't be exchanged freely: the community of owners have a say, albeit implicit. The best current example of that is Silicon Valley, where Arrington can sell TechCrunch to AOL, but still has to pull up a couple of stunts to prove his editorial independence; or where the value of your start-up is dependent on PG's impression of you being a nice guy. It's usually a very efficient system, especially with innovation, but it is quite “unfair”: winners are not always the absolute best (well, they tend to) but generally make orders of magnitude more money. It's acceptable in SV because most people have enough money to eat, and those who own redistribute it, but it wasn't so acceptable when the children of Rothshild's workers starved. Free market, vs. planned economy are system that consider production. You can have a planed economy with private ownership (France in the 70s) or free market with very strong control over workers benefits, like Switzerland. Because large corporation have far more responsibility (thanks to heavy State controls on the job market) Switzerland indeed has a lot of SMEs. I have no idea why you asked you last question: it goes well beyond the usual straw-man.
tzs 16y ago
Probably someone tipped them off. What were they supposed to do then--make an exception for Assange because he's in the news?
- newt 16y ago
  make an exception for Assange because he's in the news? because Swiss banks are so rigorous about closing the accounts of third-world tinpot dictators?
  - bertil 16y ago
    Those are not the same type of accounts: usually, tinpot dictators have “anonymous” accounts, where the local regulation is that you are not supposed to notice who owns it (but yet, you still recognize him as the owner).

>Assange is not a Swiss resident, so they closed his account, and are returning his money to him. The timing was coincidentally close to many other "spontaneous" corporate actions against Wikileaks.

derefr 16y ago

Sure, because somewhere inside PostFinance, a conversation roughly like this occurred: Boss: "Hey, everyone's talking about this Assange guy's financials—do we have anything to do with that?" Clerk: "I'll check. ...huh! We have him in our books as a client!" Boss: "But he's not even Swiss! Good thing we noticed, I guess."

electromagnetic 16y ago
His account was opened legally when he was in the country, but closed because he wasn't at that time a resident. This strikes me as a rather absurd policy on how to hold an account given that you'll have to be closing down temporary residents accounts and reopening them whenever they exit or enter the country.
- bertil 16y ago
  A significant portion of Swiss residents spend only half of the year in Switzerland: they don't clear their postal accounts every month. ;) They close it when they realize you don't really live in Switzerland, even half-time.
praptak 16y ago
Prelude: Government representative: "Hey, nice company, wanna keep being friends with the govt?" Boss: "Sure."
- bertil 16y ago
  The Post Office is actually a Government-owned company. I keep saying that Swiss is a socialist country (the main assets are government-controlled, health and welfare are compulsive, minimum wage is astronomic) but no one believes me… and I'm the only Swiss around. However, I don't think there was any US interference: Switzerland is a fiercely autonomous country (with a whiff of xeno…-scepticism). There most likely were sincere about discovering that he wasn't seriously considering to stay and discontinued service only for that: banking in Switzerland is like cooking in France — don't try to make sense of it, do as you are told, and admire in silence.
  - eru 16y ago
    Perhaps (neo-)corporatist might fill the bill better than socialist?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Wtf? Switzerland is more free market than the US. The people still hold most of the power, there aren't many mega corps that own everything. There are lots of "mom and pop" businesses around. Switzerland is a wonderful coctail of free market capitalism and social responsibility toward it's citizens. Would you think it were more "capitalist" if there were a Walmart every thousand meters and all small businesses were dead?
    - bertil 16y ago
      You are confusing two distinct things: socialism is a type of capital accumulation (capitalism, therefore) that considers that essential assets of productions should be government owned, or controlled. Anti-trust is a classic, albeit minimal socialist law; it is also coherent with populism. Anti-trust is necessary as the last control in a free capitalist market, but is rather contradictory with private property being absolute. Other notable economic system around property include Saint-Marc doctrine (a man can steal to feed his family if its his last resort, that has been extended to land expropriation after peasant revolts), financial capitalism, or Rhine capitalism, where the means of production are family-owned, but social ties between owners offer a conventional control and can be used to enforce standards (like paternalism). The last one is the system described in Karl Marx's The Capital It's also slightly incoherent with free market, because properties can't be exchanged freely: the community of owners have a say, albeit implicit. The best current example of that is Silicon Valley, where Arrington can sell TechCrunch to AOL, but still has to pull up a couple of stunts to prove his editorial independence; or where the value of your start-up is dependent on PG's impression of you being a nice guy. It's usually a very efficient system, especially with innovation, but it is quite “unfair”: winners are not always the absolute best (well, they tend to) but generally make orders of magnitude more money. It's acceptable in SV because most people have enough money to eat, and those who own redistribute it, but it wasn't so acceptable when the children of Rothshild's workers starved. Free market, vs. planned economy are system that consider production. You can have a planed economy with private ownership (France in the 70s) or free market with very strong control over workers benefits, like Switzerland. Because large corporation have far more responsibility (thanks to heavy State controls on the job market) Switzerland indeed has a lot of SMEs. I have no idea why you asked you last question: it goes well beyond the usual straw-man.

tzs 16y ago

Probably someone tipped them off. What were they supposed to do then--make an exception for Assange because he's in the news?

newt 16y ago
make an exception for Assange because he's in the news? because Swiss banks are so rigorous about closing the accounts of third-world tinpot dictators?
- bertil 16y ago
  Those are not the same type of accounts: usually, tinpot dictators have “anonymous” accounts, where the local regulation is that you are not supposed to notice who owns it (but yet, you still recognize him as the owner).