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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)

#111

Post by Pica_soO »

Malice wrote: post #76
santaclaus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you name a place that doesn't have that? I've lived in three different (Western) countries and felt the same thing in all of them.

Actually, that is a human trait you will find everywhere. Sometimes it comes in a cultural disguise (unbelievers), sometimes hidden away, because the rich guy/woman might share the wealth, but wherever you go, people are suspicious/hateful of strangers. Only group exempt from that is teenagers, who seem to be less risk averse, but if socially lower ranking also go full foreigner hatred to boost self-esteem.

Milk the hatred and distrust for the benefits (Always double-check on foreign science! ) and name it to everyone falling for it as what it is: Ancient Ape bugs. So mild mockery would be the best reaction i guess.

Social suppression seems to have failed on a large scale recently.

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

#112

Post by bdavisx »

jeffdavis wrote: post #31

Comparisons between the US and European countries are often useless. Either they pick a rich European country that has restricted immigration for a long time, or they say "Western Europe" while ignoring many of the countries in Western Europe that have some real challenges (like unemployment). Germany or the UK might be reasonable comparison points. Not perfect, of course (still huge differences), but it's much more…

>they pick a rich European country

Aren't we (U.S.) the richest country in the world?

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

#113

Post by zigzigzag »

Bartweiss wrote: post #104
zigzigzag wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's obviously unknowable, but I present evidence that the model has scaled. I see no reason why China couldn't become as wealthy as Switzerland if it followed the same models (but I doubt it will any time soon).

But I think the claim being made is "scale in size only works with a larger scaling somewhere else". Pointing to growth in Switzerland doesn't do much to argue with the idea that this model only works when you have massive regions with less wealth to absorb exports and services. To simplify absurdly, average global global wealth per person is ~$24,000. If everyone in China had median Swiss wealth, that would be half…

But we aren't talking about the short term, or are we? 50 years in the grand scheme of things seems quite short term when discussing such extreme cases as a communist country that was starving only decades ago and Switzerland: they are two polar opposites.

But fundamentally wealth is not a zero sum game. Countries have internal markets too. The idea that China can only grow if the rest of the world gets richer too isn't right: they can achieve enormous growth by selling things to themselves as well. That wasn't their primary economic model so far but that has more to do with the political priorities of the CCP than anything else.

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

#114

Post by quotemstr »

I don't want a work-life balance.

Sure, the Swiss model is very attractive for a person in a certain phase of life with a certain attitude toward work --- one for whom work is something distinct from life.

Me? I want the freedom to pour myself into something I love. I'd rather spend 60 hours per week using all of my faculties to produce something worthwhile than to spend 35 or 40 hours just trading my time for money, doing something I have to force myself to do, even if I can go swim with the swans on my break.

I've seen people use the concept of "work-life balance" as an excuse to propose caps on the impact a single developer can have. These people want to live in a Harrison Bergeron world where my work beyond 40 hours wouldn't count so that they don't feel pressed to work more than 40 hours a week. I couldn't be more opposed.

When I'm doing something I love, I always think about ways I can do it better. When I'm doing something I hate, no amount of work-life balance will compensate.

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

#115

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa »

lacampbell wrote: post #99
marktucker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, all you have to do is (passably) speak swiss german to be accepted by the locals. A lot of Germans live here 10+ years without speaking swiss german and I notice some distaste from the Swiss since a Swiss guy will feel like it's rude if he doesn't speak high german with a German, and many really don't like speaking high german. There's definitely other forms of xenophobia here, though. There are a l…

> and many Swiss I talk to dislike the idea of refugees coming to Switzerland and choosing not to work I'm sorry, but who actually likes that idea?

I mean, it's kind of weird to feel anything about what others do with their time.

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

#116

Post by gnopgnip »

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…

If 100% of the Swiss GDP went to pharmaceutical spending it would still be less than the United states.

The benefit Switzerland gets from the US military is about trade. Without the US presence around the world there would be no one to export goods to.

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

#117

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa »

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)

I think it's meant as a diminutive. Also, economies have natural sizes that are not bound to geography; it's rather easy to compare them on any number of characteristics.

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

#118

Post by FabHK »

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 the contention that Switzerland cannot scale (like Singapore) merits serious discussion and can not be dismissed easily.

However, many (if not most) of the benefits discussed in the article are also available in the rest of Europe (at least Northern Europe).

So, what the article talks about does scale. (You could still question whether the lifestyle of "the West" will scale to the globe, and it seems we are about to find out.)

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

#119

Post by arthur_sav »

louisswiss wrote: post #32
germinalphrase wrote: post #4

While this sounds lovely, can anyone with experience speak to the difficulty of finding sponsored work in Switzerland? For instance, my wife is a social worker in the U.S. and speaks conversational German - but this is not likely to be considered a "high need" type of job for which a company would hire a foreign worker.

As a non-EU/Swiss citizen you can only be employed in Switzerland if the company can demonstrate that no suitable EU/Swiss candidates could be found for the job role. Exactly how this works I am not too sure, but anecdotally it is very difficult unless you are in top-management or a highly specialised field.

The company must advertise the position in a EU forum for at least a month. If someone else wants to apply, they can.

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

#120

Post by ivm »

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…

Recently I've started to wonder if the Finland's model scale. Because they:

- have little natural resources

- located far from the big trade ways

- were occupied by neighbors

- did not have colonies or conquered anybody

- do not have a big financial sector like Switzerland or Singapore

Still it's a great country to live in, with an amazing education system (probably the source of the greatness).

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