To mean, this sounds pretty meaningless. If true, I would take it to mean that if you start a successful business in, say, the USA, you are likely to face your most dangerous competition from Switzerland. Hardly likely unless you're working on something like watches or private banking...
Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
71–80 of 243 posts
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#72If this were true I'd expect them to have less generally mediocre datacenters and network carriers. They are markedly inferior to the US and most European countries, including much less wealthy countries.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#73Earlier 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…
ETH was also the home of Niklaus Wirth and all his research in safe systems programming languages with Modula-2(Lillith), Oberon(Native Oberon, EthOS), Active Oberon (BlueOS) and the commercial descendent Component Pascal.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#74Earlier 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…
Switzerland managed to build a highly specialized economy in several high-value sectors: pharma, banking, computer science, micro-mechanics, manufacturing machines...
ok, why all the high tech industries that come to my mind are based in SV, UK, SE Asia, Japan but I can't thing of anything in Switzerland?
Honestly it is the first time in my life that I hear the association computer science - Switzerland..
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#75I 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.
By that logic, you would have to throw all of north and south america's population combined in order to compare anything with China or India in order to get close to an equipopulous comparison.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those negative cultural attitudes that can hold back a vast country packed with resource that has oceans separating it form two world wars maybe should be fixed. Otherwise one must wonder what is the point in remaining a single nation if the end result is always less happiness, education and "competitiveness".
There is no point. Or rather, as originally established, the Federalist intent was to allow states significantly more freedom to direct their own affairs. Sadly, this is no longer the case. The point of keeping the US as a single nation is to further the interests of those who are aligned with FEDGOV, not for the education or happiness or prosperity of ordinary people.
With no historic federal interference, Mississippi would out do Switzerland in happiness, education, prosperity and general liberty? Somehow I doubt that.
If anything, the Federal government is overly distracted bringing the slow parts of the country kicking and screaming into the 21st century and by those same parts randomly derailing it.
But anyone ever want to secede again, I won't object.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#77I 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…
Whether talking about the US as a whole or any particular state, we don't compare to the modern European countries. One important way we don't compare is that healthcare and retirement costs are a massive drag on our economy. Just an hour ago I received an e-mail from my employer letting me know that their 401k matching is decreasing 1% next year, but that they're cool with it because it's still "competitive". The re…
> One important way we don't compare is that healthcare and retirement costs are a massive drag on our economy.
By "our economy", do you mean private persons? The whole country?
Regardless, coming from one of those magic fairylands of modern Europe - health care and retirement costs are a massive drag on our economy as well, they're just not as easily seen by general people (you certainly don't see it on your pay slip).
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
By that logic, you would have to throw all of north and south america's population combined in order to compare anything with China or India in order to get close to an equipopulous comparison.
I try to be fair. It also drives me crazy when people compare USA or EU with much larger countries like China or India. Also driven nuts by "Chinese food". FYI.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes and payroll taxes are much lower in Switzerland than in France, for example, so an employee might cost the same to the company in both countries, but have much more net income in Switzerland. Most people don't see payroll taxes, only income taxes. Having a large percentage of foreigners and English-speakers also contributes to that, as well as the clustering effect (IBM Research has a lab in Zurich since 1956).
The median income in Switzerland is PPP$35,083 and PPP$24,233 in France. The main difference is in healthcare, which in Switzerland is entirely private, post-payroll, and can easily amount to $500/month, whereas in France it's part public (payroll) part private. And the private part is usually paid on payroll too. Health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland, so it really is not disposable income, even if you have pr…
Health insurance starts at around CHF 280/month for a 35 year old currently: https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/grundversicherung/krank...
You can reduce that if you opt for less choice (e.g. you can only use particular doctors) to around CHF 235/month.
Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether talking about the US as a whole or any particular state, we don't compare to the modern European countries. One important way we don't compare is that healthcare and retirement costs are a massive drag on our economy. Just an hour ago I received an e-mail from my employer letting me know that their 401k matching is decreasing 1% next year, but that they're cool with it because it's still "competitive". The re…
> American competitiveness is a joke. Not really. "It's complicated" and there are many aspects to it. US health care is terrible, for instance, in terms of costs/benefits. The startup I worked for in Italy dedicated all of 0 person-hours to health care or health insurance stuff because it's none of their business . Big advantage. OTOH, the public pension system in Italy is pretty creaky and I would not trust it a lo…
In italy there are a bunch of people retired in the early 40es, until 3-5 years ago retiring at 60 was normal for EVERYONE.
And until about 15 years ago the pension cheque was a very high fraction of the last salary earned, regardless of how much did you contribute in your entire working life.
There are stories of newly promoted generals just a couple of month before retirements so that their monthly pension would be substantially higher because of the "retributive" rule.
Politicians get a pension after 2 years and half in the parliament regardless of their age.
And this is with today rules. With the previous rules there are actually people that get a pension even if they were elected and stayed in charge for something like 3 days.
Believe me, you have absolutely no idea of what incredible huge mess is italy pension system.