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Can someone here elucidate the downsides to living in Switzerland, over the US, particularly for those in the HN crowd?
I still really like Switzerland.
They were peasants.
Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad and thrown down a well.
But there were still plenty of gentry left, and so a deal was struck: we (the peasants) get old age pensions and some trifling property ownership and a handful of other "benefits" and protections, and you get to retain the landed class privileges you've constructed and ... we promise not to chop your heads off.
Ok, deal.
The european social model is not the result of sophisticated empathy and communalism. It's a deal made fair and square - you stop treating us like cattle, and we won't revolt and murder you and your children.
But there's a converse to all of this ...
What if a population was not systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for, oh, say, 2000 years ? What if there is not an intricate system of landed class and privilege and you build the social and welfare state first ?
The deal still gets made, it just gets made in reverse.
You want cradle to grave welfare and benefits ? Fine. These folks over here will give it to you (the money has to come from somewhere, after all) but they will absolutely assert a system of privilege and class benefits. You won't like it. It's "unamerican". Those consequences will be unintended, but there's no way to leave that equation out of balance.
After all, a deals a deal.
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The divergent views on work life balance happened later, perhaps during the USA's rapid industrialization and sold to the people under the idea of 'land of oppertunity'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is very expensive
Compared to San Francisco, or Oklahoma?
Switzerland is generally considered to be very expensive compared to most places though.
[1] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...
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Given systems that are equally difficult to circumvent, the type of taxes that would be most beneficial are those that don’t punish earning income and saving and investing money. Things like sales taxes, consumption taxes, and transaction taxes discourage consumption and also discourage financial system manipulation by the super-wealthy.
But I think the Swiss succeed despite this because they have a much more compassionate view towards their fellow citizens and are willing to pay higher taxes if it’s used for things that genuinely make people lives better rather than line the pockets of big business and cronies. Also, US workers have a terrible work ethic and an adversarial relationship with their employers. If you feel you should get more out an employer than you give them, you’re not really understanding how the system works. If you provide high productivity and there is mutual interest in the company succeeding, then taking time off or working a normal work schedule is not anything an employer would need to argue about. A company has to make money in order to hire people. They aren’t a public service. If you’re not productive, then you are probably going to have to work longer hours so that the company can succeed enough to keep your job.
And in general, Americans are greedy. It’s what brought people here as a young country and it’s in our DNA. What works in Switzerland probably can’t really work here. But what actually could work is to use economic incentives to try to encourage a healthier economy. Instead, we waste our time thinking that taxing the rich more is the solution to everything. Sure, they should pay more than lower income people do, but it’s a multi-layered problem.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is very expensive
Compared to San Francisco, or Oklahoma?
Given the re-float of the Franc, it's even worse now.
(I live in SF but one of the rsync.net locations is in Zurich and I travel there frequently)