11–20 of 243 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.
Proximity to both ETH and EPFL, two relatively well regarded academic institutions ? Full disclosure: I'm certainly biased since I'm both Swiss and a recent graduate from EPFL.
It better be, given the cost of living and the salaries here… :-) On a more serious note, although I have no idea how this report was produced, one might note that it was produced by the WEF (a business-friendly Swiss organisation) and that it may well be part of the ongoing political debate in Switzerland on how to implement the referendum result on restricting immigration. I'm not saying it's right, wrong, objectiv…
Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.
I always feel like it is unfair how we place different European nations in same category as the US in these rankings or whatever, and for the US, we average over all the states in the US. As homogenous the US is, different states have different economies, different laws, in some cases, some slight but important cultural differences. Is it really fair to say have the US compete on terms of "competitiveness" or in othe…
Eh, not really. Central bank-controlled states are a reasonable grouping measure, which is why it's the US, EU, Switzerland, the UK, etc. that people compare (even though the UK is part of the EU, and Switzerland has signed on to most economic measures the EU mandates).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.
Well, in Google's case, there's ETH Zurich. Just today, I saw in the newspaper (WSJ university rankings[1]) that ETH was rated top of the pops globally in computer science. (On a related note, I remember vaguely that Disney built a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team.[2]) Also, in the good old times (= before the rise of right-wing populism and the referendum) Google could attract g…
They do amazing work, actually. Some seriously good CG researches in Zurich.
It better be, given the cost of living and the salaries here… :-) On a more serious note, although I have no idea how this report was produced, one might note that it was produced by the WEF (a business-friendly Swiss organisation) and that it may well be part of the ongoing political debate in Switzerland on how to implement the referendum result on restricting immigration. I'm not saying it's right, wrong, objectiv…
Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.
The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like, Swiss is well known for it around Europe. That it hasn't been dealt with is not strange since we live in the age of hidden plutocracy (trading outposts and the like exist in many countries for the rich to circumvent the law - this should put Brexit in a new light for some).
Things are slowly changing for the better as people start to realise what is the real problem within society (or rather outside society), but seing as what happened to the "Panama" leak where the concentraded information wasn't released and basically ICIJ sat on it for a year or so (the initial estimates during that time dwindles from over $62T to less than $30T, the official cause was accounting for the same money several times).
I always feel like it is unfair how we place different European nations in same category as the US in these rankings or whatever, and for the US, we average over all the states in the US. As homogenous the US is, different states have different economies, different laws, in some cases, some slight but important cultural differences. Is it really fair to say have the US compete on terms of "competitiveness" or in othe…
Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like.
I always feel like it is unfair how we place different European nations in same category as the US in these rankings or whatever, and for the US, we average over all the states in the US. As homogenous the US is, different states have different economies, different laws, in some cases, some slight but important cultural differences. Is it really fair to say have the US compete on terms of "competitiveness" or in othe…
> different states have different economies Eh, not really. Central bank-controlled states are a reasonable grouping measure, which is why it's the US, EU, Switzerland, the UK, etc. that people compare (even though the UK is part of the EU, and Switzerland has signed on to most economic measures the EU mandates).
I always feel like it is unfair how we place different European nations in same category as the US in these rankings or whatever, and for the US, we average over all the states in the US. As homogenous the US is, different states have different economies, different laws, in some cases, some slight but important cultural differences. Is it really fair to say have the US compete on terms of "competitiveness" or in othe…
In that regard, is it really fair that the US has a single Olympics team? Or a single world-level anything team?
But I'm afraid I have no retort to the Olympic question other than that is it a completely different ranking of the best of each population rather than the average, so different rules apply? I'm not sure that is a good argument against your sentiment, though.