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

Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 289 posts

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#201

Post by s1artibartfast »

Larrikin wrote: post #195
mrtksn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, they would have totally done it if the immigrants didn’t suppress the wages and the pay was %15 higher. Now they need to do some office jobs for 5 times the pay since the unemployment rate is %3. There are no Swiss sitting around and not cleaning the sewers because the pay was too low, it will have to fetch workers from other industries.

Immigrants do not suppress wages, business owners do. The solution there is the same solution as the US. If the US introduced a (for example) 4x median salary fine for every year an employer employed someone not legally eligible to work the problem would fix itself. If they did not keep records assume 5 years or whenever the person's visa expired, since that is the most common case of illegal immigration. But the bus…

This is the best argument in the thread against allowing immigration. That sounds awful. Better to avoid by keeping them out

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#202

Post by mrtksn »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #200
mrtksn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you let people decide who works with who in a free market and if you are worried about low wages introduce higher minimum wages. Or, what I actually prefer is face who you are and say I don’t want those people who are a generation or two behind in wealth? Why the gymnastics? As if there are people pf your kind who would have done these jobs but they are just sitting around or doing rocket science because th…

Weird to see free market and minimum wage in the same sentence. The people that I know who voted yes on this don't want the people at all, no matter if the wage. They don't want the population density and they don't want the dilution of their culture

What is weird about it, free market is not rule-free market.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#203

Post by Saline9515 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #176
Saline9515 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ok to have less restaurants? I prefer to have less restaurants and staff that isn't treated like slaves?

Slaves my ass. If they had it worse than where they were coming from they wouldn’t be there. It’s also not just less restaurants, it’s wiping out the main streets of most small towns like conglomerates did in the US and that the US has been able to painfully rebuild because of Mexican/immigrant labor in the kitchens and back offices. And that’s not mentioning the immigrants that essentially run the entire US economic…

I don't care if working here in a sweatshop is marginally better. I don't want Indian dalits being used to be treated like outcasts in their host society and earning 100€ a month to be the lowest bidder for work in mine.

Besides, what you say is plainly false. Hairdressers are for instance in majority locals, command rather high rates, and are in demand. Maybe we also don't need 6 malls per medium-sized town either.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#204

Post by kgwgk »

lovich wrote: post #189
Saline9515 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

I’m somewhat sympathetic with that critique on mass immigration in regards to dropping wages at the low end, but as I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants, I am comfortable just assuming it’s racism. Everytime I get into the weeds with anti immigration people I feel like I run through the IQ meme with “it’s just racism” on the low and high ends and…

> I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants, I am comfortable just assuming it’s racism.

How wouldn't it be just as racist to attack companies for hiring immigrants?

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#205

Post by mrtksn »

Larrikin wrote: post #195
mrtksn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, they would have totally done it if the immigrants didn’t suppress the wages and the pay was %15 higher. Now they need to do some office jobs for 5 times the pay since the unemployment rate is %3. There are no Swiss sitting around and not cleaning the sewers because the pay was too low, it will have to fetch workers from other industries.

Immigrants do not suppress wages, business owners do. The solution there is the same solution as the US. If the US introduced a (for example) 4x median salary fine for every year an employer employed someone not legally eligible to work the problem would fix itself. If they did not keep records assume 5 years or whenever the person's visa expired, since that is the most common case of illegal immigration. But the bus…

I agree with your argument but this particular case is for the legal workers, just like UK significant portion of the Swiss population don’t want legal workers from the rest of Europe. They attempted to limit the legal rights of the EU citizens that currently have.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#206

Post by Saline9515 »

mrtksn wrote: post #138
Saline9515 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

Why don’t you let people decide who works with who in a free market and if you are worried about low wages introduce higher minimum wages. Or, what I actually prefer is face who you are and say I don’t want those people who are a generation or two behind in wealth? Why the gymnastics? As if there are people pf your kind who would have done these jobs but they are just sitting around or doing rocket science because th…

Most salaried people don't choose their coworkers, their bosses do.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#207

Post by comrade1234 »

Things were fine during Covid. Now that the tourists are back the trains and trams are packed. The marketing for this campaign specifically talked about trains being packed but it should have focused more on how Swiss natives have to move out of Zurich to find an affordable place to jive, but the SVP would never focus on Zurich because theyre unpopular here.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#208

Post by lovich »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
rdtsc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While they're at it, they should kick out the French, the Germans, the Italians, and any other immigrants refusing to speak Swiss. What's this Swiss language you speak of? I never heard of it. You must mean Romansh but that's only 0.5% of the population or so. You'd have to kick out 95.5% of the Swiss population too then?

That’s their point. Switzerland is a nation of immigrants. We don’t tend to be portrayed as such outside. And the SVP tends to forget this. (As does the GOP.)

Are you Swiss? I thought you were American from previous interactions.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#209

Post by Hammershaft »

comrade1234 wrote: post #207

Things were fine during Covid. Now that the tourists are back the trains and trams are packed. The marketing for this campaign specifically talked about trains being packed but it should have focused more on how Swiss natives have to move out of Zurich to find an affordable place to jive, but the SVP would never focus on Zurich because theyre unpopular here.

Isn't that a consequence of Zurich housing & zoning policy?

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#210

Post by like_any_other »

lovich wrote: post #189
Saline9515 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

I’m somewhat sympathetic with that critique on mass immigration in regards to dropping wages at the low end, but as I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants, I am comfortable just assuming it’s racism. Everytime I get into the weeds with anti immigration people I feel like I run through the IQ meme with “it’s just racism” on the low and high ends and…

> but as I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants

They did this already back when Reagan granted amnesty in exchange for stronger border protections [1], it just hardly ever got enforced because employers are good at lobbying. This is slowly starting to change [2].

Despite this, yes, it is xenophobia. As much as they hate to admit it, opposition to immigration usually stems from wanting to maintain some semblance of a country, not an economic zone. Though the economic case for immigration has also been debunked [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/28/employ...

[3] https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2024/02/fiscal-impact-of-immigr...

Post reply on HN