Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 243 posts

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#221

Post by languagewars »

ccozan wrote: post #217
languagewars wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they meant that there isn't really a freelancer visa, so most people would have a chicken and egg problem. AFAIK you can run your own business with a B permit which is in turn justified by income/employment in that business, but you would usually transition from a permit through another employer or other types of visas (family, student, etc.) I think waiting until you had a C permit would be more common, espe…

I wouldn't need a visa as a German ( or any other EU national ). If I want to work ( as employed ), I would need an "Aufenthaltsbewilligung".

If you are from the EU then you could currently use your right to a resident permit based on right to travel and probably transition to a B based on self-employment before your time was up. But as noted in the article, you could run into trouble since the vote indicated quotas that would somehow reduce residents in that group, while the treaties don't allow such a control. So some kind of odd technicality could develop.

If you are German then no one should have told you there's no possibility of freelancing, but it might make more sense to first take on enough Swiss customers freelancing from Germany, or as a commuter to Basel, etc. I would just recommend being conservative about maintaining a reasonable/stable salary sourced from Switzerland when renewing a residence permit.

If you really mean contractor gigs from abroad, everyone I met doing that actually works permanently for a placement agency, and most of them are not very nice. IMO it is just as easy (or hard) to find a job directly and better.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#222

Post by mms1973 »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #136
ekianjo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Belgium about half of your salary goes to taxes.

Is it worth it?

No. Services from the state are crap. Motorways and roads are crap. Healthcare is good but not free. A country with 11 million people and 8 parliaments.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#223

Post by Annatar »

mike_hearn wrote: post #188
Annatar wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know what the incentives are for them. ETH Zürich is among the top ten computer science schools in the world, that's what. Zürich was and is a glamorous place to live, au pair with New York, Tokyo or Milano, and after the "Brexit", Zürich is the new London now. Financial industry is withdrawing from the island and going home. Those things create incentives and an upward spiral for Zürich. And also bear in…

Heh. Political bias much? I'm a Brit who lives in Zürich. I would not describe Zürich as being anywhere near as glamorous as New York nor as being the "new London". It's a lovely city to live in, but it's tiny - the entire population of Switzerland is smaller than the population of London and that reflects in the variety of things to do, things to see, services available and so on. My brother lives in London Zone 1 a…

Political bias much?

Much.

The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed,

Except that the UK economy took a severe hit and the British Pound Sterling has been pounded into the ground - lowest that it has ever been in over 50 years. And that's been going on for exactly three months. I take it you don't shop on UK Amazon much?

Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed.

One minor difference: Switzerland doesn't need or want the EU, but EU always wanted to have a grab at all the cash and Gold stored in Switzerland. Switzerland has been designed, implemented and tuned from the ground up to be a self-sufficient island, and it is this very idea that has made investors storm the Swiss national bank to dump their U.S. dollars and Euros and get the Swiss francs - stability and self-sufficiency, a safe haven. At the height of the USD / EUR dumping craze, the SNB was swimming in 480 billion CHF worth of surplus in foreign currency, until the Swiss national bank said stop, and lifted the currency peg:

(time point 13:08 in the video)

http://containersummit.io/events/sf-2015/videos/wolf-of-what...

My brother lives in London Zone 1 and I am often envious of the fantastic things that city has to offer.

Paul Graham summed it up pretty well in one of his essays:

Nerds don't care about glamour, so to them the appeal of New York is a mystery. People who like New York will pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment in order to live in a town where the cool people are really cool. A nerd looks at that deal and sees only: pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment.

http://paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

My mistake is that I should not have compared Zürich to those cities, because I've actually done a disservice to Zürich. It sounds like you really like London, and if you like it so much, perhaps you're in the wrong city, and going back home might be a worthwhile consideration, if you think London is so much better.

But back to Zürich: I'd like to know what Zürich doesn't have or offer?

but Swiss direct democracy is an admirable thing and I am 100% convinced it's a part of the reason Switzerland is so successful. Watching the EU systematically tell voters in the most successful European countries to bend the knee is not impressing me one bit.

Here, Sir, we are in agreement.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#224

Post by uola »

ccozan wrote: post #216
shin_lao wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I tried to get a gig in Switzerland as a freelancer, they told me there is no such thing as a freelancer there, every one must be hired. That's absolutely wrong, you've been lied to. Which part of Switzerland was it?

That was Zuerich. They told me, there is no such thing a service contract between an individual and a company. I must be either hired or I need to have my own company. I am not inventing this, simply repeating what the companies said, and they really meant it.

That presumably just means that you have to register as a sole proprietor. Some countries have special freelancer/self-employed tax categories (or whatever), others don't.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#225

Post by chrischen »

stepanhruda wrote: post #118
clock_tower wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Remember good GDP versus bad GDP; a traffic jam increases GDP, but isn't anything particularly worth buying. Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, an…

Oh man you're mixing up so many concepts. GDP is product - what value you produce during the year. Nothing is produced during a traffic jam. If you want to see accumulated wealth and climate taken into account, compare quality of life.

He's right though, a traffic jam creates a problem that must be solved, and someone solving that problem (providing gas, advertising on the radio while you helplessly listen, etc) will sell product.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#226

Post by maxerickson »

grecy wrote: post #81
heydenberk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Miss…

> Mississippi's GDP per capita being similar to that of France, Italy or Spain And that's why GDP per capita is so useless. You have a few multi billionaires running your country, and you have tens of millions of people in abject poverty, tens of millions with no health insurance, etc. Don't look at GDP per capita, it tells you noting about life for the average person.

"abject poverty" means something like "the worst poverty you can think of". For the US, that probably means some portion of the ~1.6 million homeless (not all of them though), not the tens of millions of people that are below the national poverty line.

We do have about 25 million people with no health insurance.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#227

Post by Rasco »

luispedrocoelho wrote: post #218
Rasco wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The French tourist officials make sure to monetize the Louvre for all they can." The access to the Louvre (permanent collection) is free for : everyone under 18 years old whatever the nationality, every resident of the European Economic Area (31 countries) under 25 years old, everyone under 26 years old whatever the nationality the Friday from 6 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., everyone the first sunday of each month between octo…

The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c). The official Paris tourist office has a picture of the Louvre on the top of its front page. Let me put it this way: if I say that google monetizes its search engine as much as it can, I don't mean it charges you to search.

"The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c)." yes, you can infer that from the last sentence in my previous comment, but still, they do not monetize it as much as they can because they could have decided not to make the entrance free for the youngsters and they would make more money even if the number of young visitors decreases.

The difference with the google search engine is if you are not willing to pay and so do not use the search engine then google won't make money at all from you whereas few people will decide no to go to Paris just because the Louvre entrance is not free.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#228

Post by uola »

Annatar wrote: post #223
mike_hearn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. Political bias much? I'm a Brit who lives in Zürich. I would not describe Zürich as being anywhere near as glamorous as New York nor as being the "new London". It's a lovely city to live in, but it's tiny - the entire population of Switzerland is smaller than the population of London and that reflects in the variety of things to do, things to see, services available and so on. My brother lives in London Zone 1 a…

Political bias much? Much. The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed, Except that the UK economy took a severe hit and the British Pound Sterling has been pounded into the ground - lowest that it has ever been in over 50 years. And that's been going on for exactly three months. I take it you don't shop on UK Amazon much? Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed…

> But back to Zürich: I'd like to know what Zürich doesn't have or offer?

You're kidding right? Zurich is a glamorous village, it's the worst of both worlds. It's expensive and posh like a big city, but doesn't have the verity range or range of quality. Incidentally this is what PG has to say about Switzerland:

For example, many startups in America begin in places where it's not really legal to run a business. Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Google were all run out of garages. Many more startups, including ours, were initially run out of apartments. If the laws against such things were actually enforced, most startups wouldn't happen.

That could be a problem in fussier countries. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities.

But the worst problem in other countries is probably the effort required just to start a company. A friend of mine started a company in Germany in the early 90s, and was shocked to discover, among many other regulations, that you needed $20,000 in capital to incorporate. That's one reason I'm not typing this on an Apfel laptop.

http://paulgraham.com/america.html

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#229

Post by ccozan »

languagewars wrote: post #221
ccozan wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't need a visa as a German ( or any other EU national ). If I want to work ( as employed ), I would need an "Aufenthaltsbewilligung".

If you are from the EU then you could currently use your right to a resident permit based on right to travel and probably transition to a B based on self-employment before your time was up. But as noted in the article, you could run into trouble since the vote indicated quotas that would somehow reduce residents in that group, while the treaties don't allow such a control. So some kind of odd technicality could devel…

Thank you for the insight. It was hard to find this kind of information at that time.

I tried directly and also over an agency, but in both cases the requirement was to hire me, with the previous mentioned "limitation". Since I had no clear source of information, I gave them credit and didn't pursue the matter. Even if the money was really really good ( 10k+ euro monthly ).

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#230

Post by Annatar »

uola wrote: post #228
Annatar wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political bias much? Much. The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed, Except that the UK economy took a severe hit and the British Pound Sterling has been pounded into the ground - lowest that it has ever been in over 50 years. And that's been going on for exactly three months. I take it you don't shop on UK Amazon much? Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed…

> But back to Zürich: I'd like to know what Zürich doesn't have or offer? You're kidding right? Zurich is a glamorous village, it's the worst of both worlds. It's expensive and posh like a big city, but doesn't have the verity range or range of quality. Incidentally this is what PG has to say about Switzerland: For example, many startups in America begin in places where it's not really legal to run a business. Hewlet…

Zurich is a glamorous village, it's the worst of both worlds. It's expensive and posh like a big city, but doesn't have the verity range or range of quality.

I plain and simple disagree, and further, I think that is insane. I can't even begin to imagine what that statement could possibly be based on. For example, Pittsburgh, PA is a collection of villages, and there is just no way Zürich is anywhere close to that, in fact it's light years above and beyond. Compare New York and Zürich for instance: New York is an overcrowded, ugly, filthy dump of concrete and asphalt, and then compare Zürich, it's clean and green and elegant, and I can't think of anything it doesn't have. Have you actually lived in both?

That could be a problem in fussier countries. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities.

That is just not true for Switzerland: you can run a single person company or even a GmbH out of your bedroom or garage and nobody will say a peep, especially not the municipality, whose tax commission will be more than happy that you started one, because you'll be paying them nominal tax no-matter-what. Have you actually tried it? Almost every village in Switzerland has more than one such company in a residential building.

Post reply on HN