Keep in mind, we have a company called "swissinfo" declaring that Switzerland has the most competitive economy.
Bias much?
Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
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Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#52I 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…
The states in the US may vary, but so do regions in Spain and other countries. And the differences are often way bigger than between any pair of states. It would be more unfair to compare separate US states with European countries. While US states share a common fate, the same can't be said about say Germany and Greece even though they are both in the EU.
> The states in the US may vary, but so do regions in Spain and other countries.
From whose perspective? A us state, Spain, or a third party?
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#53Anyway, 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.
Thats a funny conclusion about Vienna because Austrian banks are great for tax evasion and pretty much reporting of anything. Some jurisdictions market slight nuances in their laws to foreigners as a perk, and other jurisdictions simply have, and if you can read you can avoid the stereotypes.
FWIW you are an idiot if you use Austrian banks for tax evasion.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#54I 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…
Yeah this always drives me crazy. You will often see stories about how successful is the school system of, say, Finland, compared with the USA. Well Finland has about as many school children as the Bronx has, so it's kind of an odd comparison. If you threw in Estonia and Romania and enough other European countries to make an equipopulous comparison, then it would make sense.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#55Keep in mind, we have a company called "swissinfo" declaring that Switzerland has the most competitive economy. Bias much?
You can argue against the WEF who created the study. But the newspaper itself is not declaring anything more than the study presents.
"Switzerland achieved its highest score of 5.8 out of 7 in the WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2016/2017"
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#56I 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…
The states in the US may vary, but so do regions in Spain and other countries. And the differences are often way bigger than between any pair of states. It would be more unfair to compare separate US states with European countries. While US states share a common fate, the same can't be said about say Germany and Greece even though they are both in the EU.
> While US states share a common fate
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
Individual US states are pretty close to sovereign. Other than ability to tax and a few other things, the US federal government doesn't have much power.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#57I 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…
I was making this point a few weeks ago and after looking into it more, I still think it's a valuable point to raise, but the truth is more nuanced than I expected.
States in the US vary in nominal GSP per capita by only 2x — from Mississippi at $35K to Delaware at $70K. In the EU, it ranges from Bulgaria at €6K to Ireland at €55K. (This excludes DC and Luxembourg, which are outliers in many ways.)
In fact, even Mississippi, the poorest US state, is wealthier than the EU average (€28K, about $31K)! Only the wealthiest EU countries are wealthier than Mississippi: Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Austria, Finland, German, Belgium, France. And of those, only Luxembourg and Ireland have a higher GDP per capita than the US average.
So the EU member states vary economically far more than the states in the US do, and the US is more easily characterized as a uniformly "high income" region than the EU is.
Mississippi's GDP per capita being similar to that of France, Italy or Spain is really hard to reconcile with the fact that many of us would love to live in the latter countries and couldn't be paid to move to Mississippi.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that regard, is it really fair that the US has a single Olympics team? Or a single world-level anything team?
There are completely different purposes for the Olympic games and a ranking of economies. We-have-a-different-flag is perfectly fine for the purposes of friendly competition. Something with more justification is appropriate for discussing economies, especially since the boundaries of 'an economy' are naturally nebulous.
The US is basically a single market for goods and labor.
Individual banks have branches all over the country. It's one currency. There's one federal set of trade laws with minor state limits on some goods. Shipping goods across state lines or selling digital wares across state lines are covered mostly by federal law. Contracts may or may not, by their own language, invoke state laws in interstate sales with few exceptions (some states don't allow a seller to waive certain of a buyer's rights in a standard sales contract).
There's no government interference moving from one state to another for work (unless you're a felon or a sex offender or some other special case). There's one set of immigration laws. There's one set of passport requirements.
Yes, you could say each state is its own market. But then you could say the same about each city and town. For some people individual cities in the US compete directly against one another more than state vs. state. Am I likely to find work in my field in any little farm town in northern California, upstate New York, rural Georgia, Texas hill country or scrub desert, or in downstate Illinois? Not at all. In San Francisco and the Valley? In NYC? In Chicago? Houston? Dallas? Austin? LA? Atlanta? Sure.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#59I 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…
If we were to create a new category including only nations of a certain area size or population then the US would probably get a high or at the top ranking. However, if the US seeks to become ever greater they, and all other nations for that matter, should aspire to rise above all nations and not seek to change the system in order to shield themselves from the truth of their issues.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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, 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…
> The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like Source? Switzerland is famous for its private banking sector and it used to be easy to hide assets for individuals (with FACTA and tax data sharing, I don't think it's as popular now, or at least the minimum amount required is way higher since banks don't want the risk). Unlike Ireland, I'm not aware of Switzerland being commonly used to reduce corporate tax (at least…
Here's a well-known Canadian Supreme Court case about transfer pricing that highlights the role of a Swiss subsidiary in a scheme to dramatically reduce taxes on income earned from selling pharmaceuticals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc