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Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

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Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#51

Post by zigzigzag »

csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

But if the export markets were as rich as Switzerland, they would buy even more luxury watches. So I don't see how your point makes sense.

The Swiss model does seem to scale. The population has scaled from 6.2 million in 1970 to about 8.2 million today. GDP per capita also went up significantly during this time, and outpaced GDP per capita growth in the USA.

You can find a lot of people who write off the Swiss example by just handwaving and saying things like "well it's all stolen money". But the Swiss economy is diversified. The entire financial sector including insurance and pensions is about 10% of the GDP. Private banking is far from the entire financial sector. And in recent years the Swiss have started to give other governments lots of surveillance data on their citizens. You can't get numbered accounts for many many years now, and since FATCA Americans trigger so much reporting that they're being turned away from banks due to the compliance overheads alone. EU governments have benefited from Swiss cooperation too. Still, Switzerland hasn't got poorer since these changes came in.

I suspect the reason so many people ignore Switzerland and fail to learn lessons from it is because one of the most obvious and important causes of Swiss wealth is their rather unique system of government. Lots of people in America in the UK are doubting democracy entirely right now. I see totalitarian worldviews put forward quite openly all over the place in these days. The Swiss have a very weak federal government, a rapidly rotating presidency and a vast number of referendums. It leads to a very stable sort of society with few political issues compared to other western countries. Compare to other parts of the world where often apparent stability comes from simply ignoring political problems in the hope that they'll go away, instead of addressing them early.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#52

Post by rayiner »

6DM wrote: post #35
csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

We spend only 3.5% of GDP on defense. We spend 17.8% on healthcare, 6.4% on education, 4.7% on energy, and a bit over 3% on entertainment.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#53

Post by 6DM »

arjie wrote: post #40
6DM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

Drug companies are still able to make a healthy profit selling pills to millions of patients, the margins may not be as fat but they'll still be there. Instead of us protecting other countries, maybe they would find reason to protect themselves and trade would be the same. I'm sure we bring a lot of innovation to the table, but we don't bring ALL of the innovation. My point is the reason we're taxed so high, probably has to do with the fact that we're out spending everyone else in defense and it makes up a significant portion of where our taxes go.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#54

Post by anotherboffin »

musha68k wrote: post #37

Somewhat expected in the more conservative midwest (the author is comparing her Zürich experience with living in Chicago) but apparently "unlimited vacation" seems to become increasingly common in the Bay Area at least.

Unlimited vacation sounds nice, but from what little I read on it, it wasn't really unlimited. Rather, it seems to be based on what's acceptable at your workplace and how much work you can get done.

Hopefully someone with first-hand experience or more knowledge will elaborate a bit on this.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#55

Post by michaelmrose »

arjie wrote: post #40
6DM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

You mean like the peace we have brought to iraq and the middle east right? Also honestly we could have steam rolled most anyone out there with half the forces most of the money spent on defense is wasted.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#56

Post by skriticos2 »

arjie wrote: post #40
6DM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

You sound awfully patronizing. The US does like to play world police and other countries do take advantage of this. However if this would not be the case, I'd argue that the other countries would rely more on military alliances like NATO and the world would still be all right.

Also nobody really wants to break loose WW3. Economic warfare is the name of the game today.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#57

Post by louisswiss »

csomar wrote: post #39
sleavey wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason why it can't scale, but one problem in implementing this kind of system is convincing the population to accept higher taxes (and Swiss taxes are, overall, still significantly higher than the US despite what the article seems to make out). It is, ultimately a case of the government taking more of your personal wealth to provide services to society as a whole, which flies in stark contrast to the trad…

See the example I added above. This has nothing to do with high taxes but rather with Switzerland catering for luxury export stuff (medicines, watches, banking etc..) that relies on a huge external economy.

I understand what you mean, however I don't really see medicines and banking (in general) as luxury products.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#58

Post by JackFr »

arjie wrote: post #40
6DM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

I'm sympathetic to your point, in general, but Switzerland is hardly a good example:

> when America develops drugs for them,

"Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical companies, including very large groups, such as Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche. In 2013, 41 life science companies had their international headquarters (and 29 more their regional headquarters) in Switzerland.

The pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland directly and indirectly employs about 135,000 people.[1] It contributes to 5.7% of the gross domestic product of Switzerland and contributes to 30% of the country's exports.[1]"

> protects them from harm,

"The Swiss Armed Forces (German: Schweizer Armee, French: Armée suisse, Italian: Esercito svizzero, Romanisch: Armada svizra) operates on land, in the air, and in international waters. Under the country's militia system, professional soldiers constitute about 5 percent[citation needed] of the military and the rest are conscripts or volunteers aged 19 to 34 (in some cases up to 50). Because of Switzerland's long history of neutrality, the armed forces do not take part in conflicts in other countries, but it does participate in international peacekeeping missions.

Thousands of tunnels, highways, railroads, and bridges are built with tank traps and primed with demolition charges to be used against invading forces; often, the civilian engineer who designed the bridge plans the demolition as a military officer. Hidden guns are aimed to prevent enemy forces from attempting to rebuild.[14] Permanent fortifications were established in the Alps, as bases from which to retake the fertile valleys after a potential invasion. They include underground air bases that are adjacent to normal runways; the aircraft, crew and supporting material are housed in the caverns."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_Swi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#59

Post by [deleted] »

camperman wrote: post #46

There's another factor here that hasn't been mentioned: Switzerland is only a couple of hundred kilometres across. That makes a difference when it comes to public transport and other infrastructure like broadband. I laugh when I see case studies about high-speed broadband in Europe. Europe is small. If you put my country on top of Europe, the south-westernmost city would be in Portugal and the northernmost in Estonia…

[deleted]

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#60

Post by ci5er »

zigzigzag wrote: post #51
csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

But if the export markets were as rich as Switzerland, they would buy even more luxury watches. So I don't see how your point makes sense. The Swiss model does seem to scale. The population has scaled from 6.2 million in 1970 to about 8.2 million today. GDP per capita also went up significantly during this time, and outpaced GDP per capita growth in the USA. You can find a lot of people who write off the Swiss exampl…

> The Swiss model does seem to scale. The population has scaled from 6.2 million in 1970 to about 8.2 million today. GDP per capita also went up significantly during this time, and outpaced GDP per capita growth in the USA.

While that is certainly adorable (and, seriously, good for them!), "scale" in GP is referring to: "Will it work for 450M people at the same time?" -- or in China's case: "Will it work for 1.3B people at the same time"?

GP posits that in a large liquid world, big enough to support the Ch or SG populations, they will both do well, but that it requires this large external world to pull it off. If the model WAS the external world, it wouldn't.

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