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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)

#81

Post by whyileft »

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…

Well, I mean it is stolen money.

The Swiss I've known have been some of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I've had the pleasure of working with. Just saying that it's probably not the best country to use as an example even if they have done a lot recently to reform their economy away from the banking system.

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

#82

Post by louisswiss »

kjaer wrote: post #80
louisswiss wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One very important factor which hasn't been mentioned yet is the amazing educational infrastructure in Switzerland. There are truly world-class research universities, well connected business schools and a plethora of well-staffed technical colleges and vocational schools/apprenticeships. Fees don't even reach $2k/year to study at undergraduate/graduate level and children are encouraged to think vocationally from a yo…

I'm currently studying at the EPFL (one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology) and fees are actually almost half the amount you state -- I pay around 1250$ a year.

Some universities have slightly higher pricing for non-EU/Swiss citizens.

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

#83

Post by hocuspocus »

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.

From what I see among my friends working in the Bay area, those who moved to startups with "unlimited vacation" are taking less than the few ones who are at generous[1] big corps. And then of course there are still companies like Apple that give 12 days to new employees.

[1] By US standards :) For instance 25 days plus ~10 national holidays.

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

#84

Post by mkaziz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
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…

> There's no reason why it can't scale I grew up in Switzerland. Nobody checked if we bought metro tickets. Everyone bought them. The only people I remember being little shits about it were tourists. Cultural norms do not informally enforce themselves at scale--you need institutions, and those institutions cost money and freedom.

Disagree. As an immigrant to the US, I see many cultural norms that the US has (at scale, despite heterogeneous population) that were bizarrely foreign to me, but that I (and other immigrants like me) quickly picked up on and developed.

Examples: (good) giving pedestrians right of way when driving, stopping at stop signs, holding the door open for people (bad) empty small talk conversations used to fill silences with casual acquaintances.

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

#85

Post by stevejb »

drdeca wrote: post #65
ci5er wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 peo…

> adorable Do you mean admirable? I have a hard time thinking of an economy as being adorable, except maybe if the whole thing is very physically small (like, a city of miniscule people, or something like that)

Switzerland's economy is adorably small. It is approximately 3x the size of LA County, and in there are cheese makers, watch makers, ski chalets, etc.

"inspiring great affection; delightful; charming"

This seems adorable to me.

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

#86

Post by kgwgk »

izacus wrote: post #29
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…

Can you explain more what do you mean by the word "scale" here?

It's like trying to replicate Las Vegas in twenty different locations in the US, or increasing its population to 10 million people... It doesn't scale.

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

#87

Post by zigzigzag »

whyileft wrote: post #81
zigzigzag wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, I mean it is stolen money. The Swiss I've known have been some of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I've had the pleasure of working with. Just saying that it's probably not the best country to use as an example even if they have done a lot recently to reform their economy away from the banking system.

You just proved my point.

There is no actual evidence that Switzerland is a good place to live because of "stolen" money - in reality, in the American case, not even slightly stolen money but legitimate money owned by legitimate expats that the US Government somehow believes it owns by birthright. In that case it's America stealing from the Swiss, in fact.

There is plenty of evidence that it doesn't matter though, like the fact that the country is still the same even after eliminating all financial privacy rights for non-Swiss. Note that Swiss people still have very strong privacy from the Swiss government by law, a position that puts the Swiss government in a weaker position than most governments are, as tax investigators have much less power. It's only foreigners where the Swiss financial privacy has been dropped. Yet they still manage to make the system work well.

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

#88

Post by valuearb »

JackFr wrote: post #58
arjie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Switzerlan…

Those drugs were developed with stolen money, their banking system is the worlds harbor for frauds, thieves and dictators funds, and gets to lend all that money out at cheap rates.

Mining tunnels is cheap compared to a real military. Pax Americana means they, like all european countries, don't spend a fraction of what we spend on defense.

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

#89

Post by netsharc »

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…

> The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them

Honestly this "Oh we're so benevolent" argument always irks me. "Sorry poor folks, we can't have affordable healthcare because otherwise the rest of the world will suffer due to the lack of money in medical research!". It's excusing the insane medical fees (1000 dollars for a bag of salt water?) by lying to yourself "Oh but at least it means the money goes to health R&D!" (Hint, it's not, CEO's of medical insurers are the top 0.1%).

Medical companies can charge so much because the government lets them. If the government had single-payer and managed to force the price of medication down, the price will go up elsewhere, one hopes to a percentage equal in each country's GDP/purchasing power. If a government tried to sell this to you by saying "We want to make sure we pay the fair price, and that everyone else in the world pays the fair price.", are you going to say "Boo! No! We want to pay more than the fair share, because, oh we're just so benevolent!"?

Don't get me started on unprecedented peace. Even if that existed, it's all been unraveled post-9/11. How many democracies has the US toppled? See Iran 1953 for example.

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

#90

Post by rabidrat »

santaclaus wrote: post #71
Strom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before anyone thinks Switzerland is some bastion of democracy, I'd like to point out that they've been very conservative in some areas. Women didn't have federal voting rights until 1971, and received nation-wide local voting rights fairly recently in 1991. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_Switzerlan...

There is also a fair amount of xenophobia inherent in the Swiss national identity. I know Germans who have lived there for 10+ years and are still considered outsiders.

Being considered an outsider is not bad. Being treated as subhuman or as an enemy because you are an outsider, that's when it becomes a problem.
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