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Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

swissinfo.ch

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

#221

Post by therealdrag0 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #211
mfuzzey wrote: post #134

Interesting that those supporting the motion claimed it was because there was no space left for new arrivals and that it put too much pressure on infrastructure like trains and yet the largest support came from the countryside which proably has less overcrowding and the cities were greatly against it. Makes me think that "overcrowding" wasn't thre real reason...

Probably a pretty big selection bias there. People who don't like crowding and want space are more likely to live in the country. People already living in a dense City are less sensitive to more of the same. I have a friend who voted yes and he lives outside of Basel because he thinks the city is too crowded. If you've been there you might find that amusing. His most vocal complaint is about too many people on Swiss…

Yep. 0 to 1 is much more noticeable than 99 to 100.

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

#224

Post by JumpCrisscross »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #145
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences There is always room for negotiation. Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat. And again, 2 years provides time for another referendum. > wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU the…

> Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat. The "diktat" is the thing you just voted on which says " we will not negotiate". There is always room for negotiation until you vote for a law that says "no negotiations, we are now legally mandated to do X". > 2 years provides time for another referendum. Voting for a no-negotiations amendment to your constitution as a negotiation tactic with the idea that you will later pass…

> There is always room for negotiation until you vote for a law that says "no negotiations, we are now legally mandated to do X”

Which isn’t a thing for a sovereign. Past sovereigns can’t bind future ones. Laws can always be repealed.

> some kind of 4D checkers strategising that I suppose I am not enlightened enough to grasp

Neither was I. Hence my vote against. Doesn’t mean the core concept is flawed, or that we have to accept EU treaties as perpetual because my ancestors voted for it to be that way.

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

#225

Post by ProllyInfamous »

vladms wrote: post #128
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand and encourage the "breaking up" aspect. Smaller, more home-rule societies. Looking at it from the Slovene POV (which ultimately benefited from the dissolution of Yogoslavia, occurring within my/most lifetime), local industries/GDP benefitted greatly .

Slovenia joined EU rather fast (2003), so that might also have contributed to the prosperity. Joining EU is not exactly "breaking up", is more like "joining". Currently, the rest of ex-Yugoslavia countries don't seem to do as well as Slovenia, and the main difference is date of joining the EU...

Slovenia has been doing way better than the rest of Yogoslavia for longer than it's been a country... it's one of the reasons they lead initial Days War. IIRC their GDP (regionally) was 6x the Yogoslavian average in 1990~

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

#226

Post by theodric »

inigyou wrote: post #36
viking123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Does Switzerland hate Indians or something?

Without revealing too much...I hired one when I worked in a senior role at a major financial institution, and apparently some (older Swiss) people in the team called him "curry person" to his face and told him he wasn't really [demonym for his naturalized European nationality]. So that was cool and nice.

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

#227

Post by porkchoppers »

mrtksn wrote: post #143
optimalsolver wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe the kids of the Swiss elite would be cleaning sewers if not for the low pay.

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.

The higher paying water systems jobs are in fact filled by the children of the elite in both Switzerland and the US; it is a very impressive green job that they tend to get pushed to leave for more conservatively stable jobs.

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

#228

Post by ip26 »

mrtksn wrote: post #96
brightbeige wrote: post #68

Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl... Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

[dead]

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

#229

Post by joe_mamba »

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…

>Immigrants do not suppress wages, business owners do.

Of course business owners suppress wages. By using immigrants as leverage to tilt the supply/demand of labor in their favor. Duh.

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

#230

Post by vrganj »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #182
dyauspitr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around. They don’t want the southern Europeans around. That’s textbook xenophobia.

They don’t want Germans around!

They don't mind Austrians tho.

Germans are kind of disliked in the rest of DACH.

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