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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)

#121

Post by ktRolster »

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…

Strictly speaking, in an economy of specialists (which is what the global economy is, we've all become specialists. We're to the point that even 'programmer' has individual specialties), there is no single thing that will scale to everybody.

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

#122

Post by geodel »

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.

So it seems there is no easy way I can move from writing CRUD apps in US with 2 weeks vacation policy to Switzerland and have 6 weeks of vacation. I would've ample time there to rant about crappy USA.

Now I am stuck in US which allow third worlders like me to come and work in tech.

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

#123

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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.

Well, concerning "match better work culture and comparable or better standards of living than the US" you could use any Nordic country too, which doesn't depend on a specific financial situation like Switzerland does with banking.

An even more apt question: does the American model scale -- without 1+ century of wars, meddling in foreign countries, befriending and installing dictators and friendly lackeys in power, resource grabbing, and the huge military that ensures all that is possible?

For Britain and France, their similar colonial past it didn't work that well in the end.

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

#124

Post by nine_k »

Strom wrote: post #64
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…

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...

If you run a democracy for nearly 850 years, it sort of looks a bit conservative.

Progressivism != democracy. Athens as of 500AD were technically utterly democratic, and had slavery, let alone no voting rights for women.

Progress can also be quite un-democratic. E.g. Soviet Union in 1920-30s progressed quickly to afford universal education, equal rights for women, let alone science and industry (especially military industry). It was quite anti-democratic, though, with fake elections (having just one "contender" in the bulletin), those who happened to be born into former "bourgeoisie" having severe restrictions in civil rights, let alone incarcerating and executing lots of people without any due process.

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

#125

Post by coldtea »

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…

>But the Swiss economy is diversified.

It's easy to be diversified if you funding it with "stolen money" -- or the world's rich banking accounts in any case.

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

#126

Post by st3v3r »

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 think it is an incredibly obvious claim that America would be better off. For one, we'd be able to spend that money on other things, or just lower taxes by that much.

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

#127

Post by coldtea »

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #115
lacampbell wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Depends if they do it on your dime and in your country -- the one you're supposed to take care of because you live in it.

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

#128

Post by kgwgk »

erinnh wrote: post #94
Malice wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Switzerland is very much worse than a lot of other country in that regard. It might happen in other countries as well, but its very much the majority in Switzerland.

Switzerland has one of the largest percentages of foreign-born and non-citizen residents, so probably it's not so bad.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign...

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

#129

Post by FabHK »

hueving wrote: post #7

"Being rich ruined me for being poor and its lousy perks."

Let me fix that for you: "Some societies have policies and tradeoffs that offer significant benefits to the average citizen, and that ruined me for living in other societies (even of similar wealth) that are not that progressive."

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

#130

Post by coldtea »

gnopgnip wrote: post #91
Malice wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Talk to some immigrants in those places that are not white/asian and/or successful.
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