Behind the Curtain – Blunt Quotes About the War On Drugs

Behind the Curtain - Blunt Quotes About the War On Drugs | Third Monk image 2

Psychedelic culture is full of wisdom and creative figures that show us just how boring the world would be if the recreational use of mind-altering substances did not exist.

As aggressive as the War on Drugs has been throughout the years, it has been no match for geniuses who have smoked and tripped their way over to the other side.

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Why is marijuana against the law?

It grows naturally upon our planet.

Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?

Bill Hicks

When they talk about drugs, they don’t talk about all of them.

They never mention coffee.

The low end of the speed spectrum, I grant you, but there are coffee freaks.

And they’re walking around, nobody worrying about it.

George Carlin

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LSD opened my eyes.

It would mean a whole new world if the politicians would take LSD.

There wouldn’t be any more war or poverty or famine.

Paul McCartney

If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant…….

And if this world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution

Then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise.

Aldous Huxley

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use.

– Jimmy Carter

They lie about marijuana.

Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated.

Lie!

When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do just as well — you just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort.

There is a difference.

Bill Hicks

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36 Famous and Funny Quotes About Drugs | High Times

Circle of Abstract Ritual – Psychedelic Stop Motion Time Lapse About Creation and Destruction (Video)

Circle of Abstract Ritual - Psychedelic Stop Motion Time Lapse About Creation and Destruction (Video) | Third Monk image 2

This short film combines 300,000 photos of riots, wildfires, and paintings in abandoned houses. The entire stop motion time lapse was created without any digital special effects.

Circle of Abstract Ritual began as an exploration of the idea that creation and destruction might be the same thing.

The destruction end of that thought began in earnest when riots broke out in my neighborhood in Anaheim, California, 2012. I immediately climbed onto my landlord’s roof without asking and began recording the unfolding events. The news agencies I contacted had no idea what to do with time lapse footage of riots, which was okay with me because I had been thinking about recontextualizing news as art for some time. After that I got the bug.

I chased down wildfires, walked down storm drains on the L.A. River and found abandoned houses where I could set up elaborate optical illusion paintings. The illusion part of the paintings are not an end in themselves in my work. They’re an intimation of things we can’t physically detect; a way to get an ever so slight edge on the unknowable.

Jeff Frost

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Trust Yourself – Terence McKenna (Video)

Trust Yourself - Terence McKenna (Video) | Third Monk image 2

Experience is real. This moment is real. How much of your own experience on this planet is tainted and perverted by different ideologies, looping thoughts, and enshrined beliefs?

Terence McKenna urges you to trust yourself. Question everything, and embrace the chaos of the world.

Claim your identity, your vision, your being, your intuition, and then act from that without regret.

Take responsibility for what you think and what you do.

Trust Yourself Waterfall

Empower Experience…

What do YOU think when YOU face the waterfall?

What do YOU think when YOU have sex?

What do YOU think when YOU take psilocybin?

It’s a wonderful thing to learn to be able to stand up and yell “Bull Shit!”. I did it when I was about 18 years old and it was the meme of the hour and it did blow their minds. It was uncivil. It was rude and crude and correct. – Terence Mckenna

Trust Yourself mckenna_terence

> Terence McKenna | Eco Hustler

Drug War Shows No Remorse For Innocent Baby Injured During Botched Raid

Drug War Shows No Remorse For Innocent Baby Injured During Botched Raid | Third Monk image 2

Earlier this year in May 2014, a baby was placed in critical condition after police tossed a flash grenade into his playpen during a fumbled drug raid.

Five months later, Habersham County officials say they do not plan to pay for the medical expenses of the toddler seriously injured during a police raid.

Bounkham Phonesavah, affectionately known as “Baby Boo Boo,” spent weeks in a burn unit after a SWAT team’s flash grenade exploded near his face.

The toddler was just 19-months-old and asleep in the early morning hours of May 28. SWAT officers threw the device into his home while executing a search warrant for a drug suspect.

Habersham County officials are defending their decision not to pay, but the child’s family isn’t giving up.

The Letter of the Law Is Broken

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After weeks of recovery at two different hospitals, Channel 2 Action News was there in July as the little boy walked out of a hospital with his family.

He is doing better, but late Friday afternoon, his family’s attorney told said the family’s medical bills are mounting.

“But at this point, the county is refusing to pay,” said attorney Muwali Davis.

Habersham County’s attorney provided the following statement, saying:

The question before the board was whether it is legally permitted to pay these expenses. After consideration of this question following advice of counsel, the board of commissioners has concluded that it would be in violation of the law for it to do so.

Latest reports indicate that the raid was influenced by faulty information. The obvious needs to be stated here.

If there’s a law that prevents a local government from reimbursing a family to heal a child nearly killed by the negligence and ineptitude of local law enforcement officers, then that law needs to be changed.

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The drug war means never having to say you’re sorry | Washington Post

Psychonauts Library – 4 Essential Books About Psychedelics (KJ Book Rec)

Psychonauts Library - 4 Essential Books About Psychedelics (KJ Book Rec) | Third Monk image 4

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Psychedelic agents, when properly understood, are probably one of the most valuable, useful, and powerful tools available to humanity. Yet, their use is extremely complex, which means that they are widely misunderstood and often abused.

It is not psychedelics that are complex. In their most useful application, they play a rather straightforward role. In my observation one of the outstanding actions of psychedelics is permitting the dissolving of minds sets. One of the most powerful mind set humans employ is the hiding of undesirable material from consciousness. Thus, a very important function of psychedelic substances is to permit access to the unconscious mind.

The unconscious mind is enormously complex and possesses an extremely wide range of attributes, from repressed, painful material to the sublime realization of universal love. With such variance in experience, learning more about psychedelics is essential for safe, sustained benefit.

These 4 books about psychedelics are an amazing foundational base for Psychedelic Knowledge.

Doors of Perception - Books About Psychedelics

The Doors of Perception PDF

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern. – William Blake from the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Beyond essential reading, Huxley’s recount of his afternoon trip with mescaline tops many psychonauts list for psychedelic themed reading. Aldous is well known for his love of psychedelics, and his narrative ability is undeniable.

To pierce the veil and gain insight into reality and ourselves, yet still bring back a semblance of those insights once rigid mind sets again solidify is the hope of many psychedelic users.

That within sameness there is difference, although that difference is not different from sameness. – Aldous Huxley

The Doors of Perception Audiobook

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Books About Psychedelics

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test PDF

What do you mean, blindly? That baby is a very sentient creature… That baby sees the world with a completeness that you and I will never know again. His doors of perception have not yet been closed. He still experiences the moment he lives in. – Tom Wolfe

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is known as the quintessential book that first documented the rise and growth of the burgeoning hippie movement.

Wolfe’s account of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters brought psychedelic use to the mainstream. This was a time before it was perverted by hedonistic tendencies, but more importantly, before both sides of the coin knew the other even existed.

The world was simply and sheerly divided into ‘the aware’, those who had the experience of being vessels of the divine, and a great mass of ‘the unaware’, ‘the unmusical’, the unattuned. – Tom Wolfe

TIME Interviews Author Tom Wolfe

godel-escher-bach- Books About Psychedelics

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid PDF

A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.

On the surface Hofstadter’s book may seem like it is about mathematics, art, and music, but it is actually about how cognition, thinking, and meaning itself arise from well-hidden neurological mechanisms.

Through analogies between mathematics (Godel), art (Escher), and music (Bach), Hofstadter explains how self-referential loops – ‘strange loops‘ – are the foundation for all meaning. Basically how meaning actually comes about from complex interactions between parts which when taken individually, possess none.

It is a wonderful book that will have you reevaluating the way you perceive and interact with your reality. 

Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.
– Douglas R. Hofstadter

PiHKAL - Books About Psychedelics

PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story PDF (2nd Part only)

How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn’t matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even a glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it. – Alexander Shulgin

PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story is a book by Dr. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin. The main title is an acronym that stands for Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved.

Arranged in two parts, the book is considered the Bible of Phenethylamines (a class of chemicals known for their psychoactive and stimulant effects):

1st Part: A fictionalized autobiography of the couple.

2nd Part: Detailed synthesis instructions for 179 different psychedelic compounds, including bioassays, dosages, and commentary.

How he could be a good user of LSD,” I asked, “And know about the spiritual dimension – all that sort of thing – and still be a crook? I don’t understand.”
“Then it’s time you did. Psychedelic drugs don’t change you – they don’t change you character – unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can’t impose it… – Alexander Shulgin

Ann and Sasha Shulgin – PiHKAL and TiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story

What other psychedelic books have you enjoyed reading?

Flower of Life GIF - Books About Psychedelics

> Are Psychedelics Useful in Buddhist Practice? | College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University

Aldous Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity (Interview)

Aldous Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity (Interview) | Third Monk image 1

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Aldous Huxley interviewed for The Paris Review (1960), reprinted in Moksha: Aldous Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience, edited by Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer (Park Street Press, 1999)

PDF version of this document

Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity

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Interviewers: Do you see any relation between the creative process and the use of such drugs as lysergic acid [diethylamide]?

Huxley: I don’t think there is any generalization one can make on this. Experience has shown that there’s an enormous variation in the way people respond to lysergic acid. Some people probably could get direct aesthetic inspiration for painting or poetry out of it. Others I don’t think could. For most people it’s an extremely significant experience, and I suppose in an indirect way it could help the creative process. But I don’t think one can sit down and say, “I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I’m going to take lysergic acid [diethylamide].” I don’t think it’s by any means certain that you would get the result you wanted — you might get almost any result.

Interviewers: Would the drug give more help to the lyric poet than the novelist?

Huxley: Well, the poet would certainly get an extraordinary view of life which he wouldn’t have had in any other way, and this might help him a great deal. But you see (and this is the most significant thing about the experience), during the experience you’re really not interested in doing anything practical — even writing lyric poetry. If you were having a love affair with a woman, would you be interested in writing about it? Of course not. And during the experience you’re not particularly in words, because the experience transcends words and is quite inexpressible in terms of words. So the whole notion of conceptualizing what is happening seems very silly. After the event, it seems to me quite possible that it might be of great assistance: people would see the universe around them in a very different way and would be inspired, possibly, to write about it.

Interviewers: But is there much carry-over from the experience?

Huxley: Well, there’s always a complete memory of the experience. You remember something extraordinary having happened. And to some extent you can relive the experience, particularly the transformation of the outside world. You get hints of this, you see the world in this transfigured way now and then — not to the same pitch of intensity, but something of the kind. It does help you to look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually introduced into the kind of world that Van Gogh lived in, or the kind of world that Blake lived in. You begin to have a direct experience of this kind of world while you’re under the drug, and afterwards you can remember and to some slight extent recapture this kind of world, which certain privileged people have moved in and out of, as Blake obviously did all the time.

Interviewers: But the artist’s talents won’t be any different from what they were before he took the drug?

Huxley: I don’t see why they should be different. Some experiments have been made to see what painters can do under the influence of the drug, but most of the examples I have seen are very uninteresting. You could never hope to reproduce to the full extent the quite incredible intensity of color that you get under the influence of the drug. Most of the things I have seen are just rather tiresome bits of expressionism, which correspond hardly at all, I would think, to the actual experience. Maybe an immensely gifted artist — someone like Odilon Redon (who probably saw the world like this all the time anyhow) — maybe such a man could profit by the lysergic acid [diethylamide] experience, could use his visions as models, could reproduce on canvas the external world as it is transfigured by the drug.

Interviewers: Here this afternoon, as in your book, The Doors of Perception, you’ve been talking chiefly about the visual experience under the drug, and about painting. Is there any similar gain in psychological insight?

Huxley: Yes, I think there is. While one is under the drug one has penetrating insights into the people around one, and also into one’s own life. Many people get tremendous recalls of buried material. A process which may take six years of psychoanalysis happens in an hour — and considerably cheaper! And the experience can be very liberating and widening in other ways. It shows that the world one habitually lives in is merely a creation of this conventional, closely conditioned being which one is, and that there are quite other kinds of worlds outside. It’s a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it’s healthy that people should have this experience.

> Huxley on LSD and Creativity | MAPS Org

Vinchen: Social Commentary From Ohio’s Best Street Artist (Art Gallery)

Vinchen: Social Commentary From Ohio's Best Street Artist (Art Gallery) | Third Monk image 21

warmthOwners - Vinchen

Vinchen’s street art offers simple insights into supposed complex social issues. It causes us to question the notion of their complexity altogether, leaving you to wonder why we are plagued by social inequities at all.

Asking questions incidently leads to answers, and Vinchen’s street art places the onus back on those looking back. 

Vinchen – Social Commentary Street Art Gallery

notAnotherIpod - Vinchen

newListing - Vinchen

nsfw - Vinchen

marketCorrection - Vinchen

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forYourSafety

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99PercentStore

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theStartIsNigh

unlimitedSurveillance

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Enemies of Peace – Law Enforcement, Private Prisons, Alcohol and Pharmaceutical Companies Spend Against Cannabis Legalization

Enemies of Peace - Law Enforcement, Private Prisons, Alcohol and Pharmaceutical Companies Spend Against Cannabis Legalization | Third Monk image 2

Some of the most lucrative and powerful industries in America oppose marijuana decriminalization because it threatens their financial bottom-line.

Four different interest groups form the backbone of the anti cannabis legalization campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks political spending.

Alcohol Companies

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First, there’s the spirits, wine and beer companies. Legalized marijuana represents a direct threat to this industry’s business model. The more people can legally smoke a bud, the less need they’ll have to buy a Bud.

In 2010, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors contributed $10,000 to help defeat California’s Proposition 19, which sought to legalize recreational marijuana in the state.

Law Enforcement

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Law enforcement groups also want to maintain criminal penalties for pot possession. If the country stops waging its war on drugs, including marijuana, fewer government dollars will flow to police efforts to address this public policy issue. Municipalities will also receive less money from property seized in drug raids.

Prison System

prisons-weed

Others in the criminal justice world that want to keep the status quo of locking up marijuana offenders are private prison operators and prison guard unions. States that legalize marijuana use are likely to experience a decline in prison populations—and that will reduce the need for government to hire private prison companies and correctional officers.

Another example is the Golden State’s mighty prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), a major player in state politics for decades. CCPOA contributed $1 million in 2008 to defeat Proposition 5, which sought more drug treatment and rehabilitation programs for inmates.

Pharmaceutical Industry

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Finally, there’s the legal drug industry: Big Pharma. It opposes marijuana decriminalization because it could mean people spend less money on painkillers and anti-inflammatory remedies like ibuprofen.

Its primary lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), has loads of money to spend. Two years ago, it dropped nearly $22 million on congressional races, demonstrating how big a war chest it can muster.

Who’s Funding the Anti-Marijuana Movement? Private Prisons, Prison Guards, Police and Alcohol, Beer and Pharmaceutical Companies | AllGov

Don’t Believe in Anybody Else’s BS – Robert Anton Wilson (Video)

Don't Believe in Anybody Else's BS - Robert Anton Wilson (Video) | Third Monk

Robert Anton Wilson shares his view on belief systems and offers us a glimpse into the framework of his own.

A must see for anyone who is having trouble harmonizing their expanding beliefs (many of which may be contradictory).

If one can only see things according to one’s own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. – Robert Anton Wilson

Omega Point created this video, his youtube page has a number of similarly themed works, featuring luminaries Alan Watts, Terence Mckenna, & Carl Sagan.

truth lies robert anton wilson

Ayahuasca Is Helping Western Minds Align with the Earth’s Vibrations

Ayahuasca Is Helping Western Minds Align with the Earth's Vibrations | Third Monk image 1

Ayahuasca_prep

Rak Razam is an Australian journalist whose gonzo-style coverage of ayahuasca tourism explores how the ancient Amazonian spiritual healing tradition is impacting the lives of more and more Westerners—and vice versa.

Q: What are the healing benefits of psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular?

Rak Razam: This is the thing, which has been missing on a core level: trying to look at the root causes of issues, not just the symptoms. The entire world is, at the moment, out of balance.

Our relationship with the planet is out of balance. The ecology is out of balance. The politics are out of balance. The monetary system is out of balance. You name it. It seems to be unsustainable “isms” that we’re living in that are not in right relationship with the planet.…

It’s very strategic and very serendipitous, really, that many, many tribal peoples all across the world still are caretakers for, and have the knowledge and the heritage of, ayahuasca and this entheogenic revival of looking at what the planet gives us with these plants and their substances.

They have held the flame, while, basically western culture—the dominating culture, which has subjugated so many of these cultures—is now getting ready again to come back into balance. Ayahuasca is going out into the world.

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Q: What makes it important to you to educate people about these substances? What drives you to talk about and to share what you’ve experienced with other people?

Rak Razam: I’m a writer and I’m a journalist and I’m communicating and documenting what used to be called the counter culture and I call the alter culture now: this multiplicity of communities which are engaging in archaic practices or ways of being which bring them closer back to the planet and its rhythms—whether that’s altered states or counter culture or sovereignty movements or using technology.

I guess ultimately I’m more of a mystic, or as much a mystic as I am a writer. … Things like ayahuasca or psychedelics, they’re only the tip of the iceberg. They’re the finger which points at the moon; they’re not the moon itself. What these things have revealed to me is that there’s a deeper pattern and a deeper game afoot, I guess. I really feel that in the planetary organism of the Earth itself, and then the larger, deeper cosmic ecology, there are rhythms within rhythms. We’re one species among many on the planet and we’ve thrown the world out of balance.

I feel with these psychoactives or these entheogens, which the planet itself secretes—which basically only the higher mammals get high off—there’s a reason. There’s a synergy between the planet and these creations and there’s a larger pattern unfolding, despite all the war and heartache and seeming evil in the world. … Things are changing. There’s a new cycle beginning and I can really feel that. I think many people around the world feel that. I’m hoping to help give language to that and give perspective to that. It’s deeper than ayahuasca. It’s deeper than the psychedelics. It’s a return to I guess what Terrence McKenna called this archaic revival….

It’s like John Lennon [said]. Peace is there if you want it. Utopia is there if we want it, but it’s all about consciousness. I’m not pushing my agenda here, or saying that we should all elevate our consciousness.

What I’m saying is I think the Earth is in cahoots with with our subconscious here. It’s bringing us back into the garden, into this sustainable frequency of being with it, and that is elevating our consciousness.

> Life-Altering Lessons of the Psychedelic Ayahuasca Plant | AlterNet

Swiss Plan to Pay Monthly Basic Income to Each Adult

Swiss Plan to Pay Monthly Basic Income to Each Adult | Third Monk image 2


Switzerland may start paying every adult (whether they work or not) a salary of over $2000 per month.

Based on the idea that their citizens will have more time to devote to things they are intrinsically interested in, instead of spending the majority of their time worrying about how they are going to survive; as many individuals with entry-level positions find it hard to meet their needs.

The income initiative promises every Swiss citizen a living wage, so they can always survive without basic financial worry.

The 2,500 francs would work out to be an income of 30,000 Swiss francs per year. Statistics released by the European Union in 2002 showed that Switzerland was the third most expensive country in Europe, after Norway and Iceland, to live in.

Switzerland currently has a population of 8.02 million people, equivalent to that of large cities such as the San Francisco Bay Area which has a population of 7.15 million. The Swiss pay particularly high prices for meat, cooking oil, fish and vegetables. Basic utilities (electricity, heating, water, garbage) are around 200 francs per month, and the average rent of a one bedroom apartment in the city center runs about 1,400 francs.

Imagine you are being born and society tells you ‘Welcome, you will be cared for, and asks you what you want to do with your life, what is your calling? Imagine that feeling, that’s a whole different atmosphere. – Daniel Straub, Co-founder, Basic Income Initiative

Basic Income Swiss

Parliament was presented with a petition signed by over 100,000 people, proposing to afford every citizen, regardless if they are working or not, a monthly paycheck of 2,500 Swiss francs.

To mark the day, a truck full of 8 million five-cent coins was deposited on the square and spread out in front of the Swiss Parliament in Bern, supporters gathered around and spread the coins out using shovels. A typical fast-food worker in the US earns roughly $1,500 per month. Anything less than that specified amount of 2,500 francs, would be deemed illegal, even for people working in one of the lowest paid jobs.

A date for the vote itself is yet to be confirmed, however, it could take place before the end of 2014.

The money to fund the measure would likely be supplied by the Swiss social insurance system, so in other words it would be taken from taxpayers. We know that the government has no money itself, everything that it gives to others it must first take from others or print it out of thin air.

This new system will force business owners to pay their workers a certain wage, regardless if their labor is considered worth less than the stipulated amount. This idea aims to set the minimum standard of living higher, but this might prompt business owners to take their company elsewhere, where they have more freedom over wage decisions. Of course, this would also mean they get no cut whatsoever of the Swiss market.

On the other hand, the new income may also lure new business owners to the country in looks of attracting those new consumers. One prominent CEO in Switzerland has stated that if the measure passes, he would seriously contemplate moving his company out of the country:

I can’t believe that Switzerland would cause such great harm to its economy. – Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

The unemployment rate currently remains at 3 percent in Switzerland and is arguably one of the most stable economies in the world. The nation has built the reputation of having some of the most friendly laws toward foreign investors.

Will this measure make more money flow, by putting liquidity in the hands of those more prone to putting it back in the economy, or will it drive investors away and cause the Swiss economy to stumble?
Swiss-Voting-Whether-To-Pay-Basic-Income-2500-Francs-Per-Month-To-Every-Adult

> Swiss to Pay Minimum Wage Per Month | Earth We Are One