Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by comrade1 » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #140

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

Basically every country in Europe will give you longer vacations, standard health care, shorter working hours, ... In some countries you might even get worker's rights like workers councils, unions on the board, ... If you work for example for Volkswagen, every factory in the world will have strong unions, only the US factory won't.

Interesting note - switzerland has workers councils too.

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

#152

Post by digi_owl » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #136

digi_owl wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil is a curse rather than a boon.

How? Oil is largely the reason Norway is better off than Denmark and Sweden. Norway seems to manage it's oil very well with an eye towards the long term.

Pretty much the whole damn coast has come to a screeching halt as the oil price drops. This because Everything is tied directly or indirectly to the continued extraction of oil and gas.

Anything else is a minority industry that can barely keep going because the oil export is driving the exchange rate through the roof.

This to the point that the government is fearful of doing anything major or else the exchange rate will really go out of whack.

Here is the thing, public buildings are disintegrating around us while the continued line out of the politicians is that we need to save "for future generations".

If you want to care for future generations you build, and you maintain what you build. But no, we must "save it for the future".

Damn it, we have basically turned Poland into a factory for "Norwegian" products. If you glance at a "Norwegian" chocolate bar these days it is likely to read "made in Poland".

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

#153

Post by bsbechtel » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #43

"Currently an estimated 28 percent of all funds held outside the country of origin (sometimes called "offshore" funds) are kept in Switzerland." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#Banking It's cute that she even provides numbers and leaves this out. This is the only number you need to know. Everything else is the direct result of this. You know who else does awesome? A closed community of multi-mill…

Exactly. The reason Switzerland can live like this is because of the political environment in Europe that allows specialized, regional industries to keep their wealth instead of transferring it to poorer regions through cross-continental benefit programs. Vox, where this was originally posted, posted multiple times about how this is one of the causes of the Greek crisis, but never mentioned Switzerland or the other Nordic countries, just Germany and France. Switzerland's situation is similar to if New York were its own country, and didn't have to pay any federal taxes. Instead, New Yorkers would pay high taxes from their high salaries, mainly from Wall Street, to lift the living standards of only New Yorkers, which costs significantly less than paying for an entire country.

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

#154

Post by comrade1 » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

Sfi81 wrote: post #113

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

Well you have to remember that the Swiss have both better income sources (assisting the world's wealthy & many corporations evade/optimize taxes for instance) and don't have military expenses and such due to neutrality. While many problems of the US are of its own creation due to either ideology or wealth dominating politics (healthcare & education spring to mind), it is quite unfair to compare what the Swiss governm…

The Swiss attitude is that many countries, including the u.s., are corrupt with corrupt governments and it is your responsibility to put your money someplace safe and out of hands of that corruption.

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

#155

Post by eps » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

asdfologist wrote: post #4

Can someone here elucidate the downsides to living in Switzerland, over the US, particularly for those in the HN crowd?

It's expensive.

$20 for a chicken expensive. $50-70 for a mid-week not-so-fancy dinner for two w/o wine expensive. Basically, you go grocery shopping and you'll pay about 40-60% more than you'd pay for the same across the border in France.

English is not commonly spoken at all, not in the French part at least. In fact, if you ask if they speak English, you'd get a surprised Non. Just as if you asked if they spoke Mongolian. In retail there'll be always someone who speaks English though, but he'll be there because people like you exist between customers and not because he is a natural occurence.

Residence permits are a bitch if you are not a EU citizen. It's twice the pain if you are trying to run your own company there as you'd be expected to hire locals in droves, who (as you have just read) tend to cost an arm and a leg and come with very high expectations.

Otherwise it's a superb country. High quality food, excellent roads, tons of places to visit and very close to everything in Europe (3 hours by TGV train to Paris).

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

#156

Post by cjsthompson » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #126

cjsthompson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France and Germany have a higher standard of living than the U.S. In fact except Greece, Italy and Spain all European countries have a higher standard of living than the U.S.. Face it you are the third world compared to Europe. Ooooh, those poor little jingoistic feewings are butthurt... :D

> Face it you are the third world compared to Europe. Ooooh, those poor little jingoistic feewings are butthurt You seem to not know the actual definitions of "third world" and "jingoism."

And so now's the time when you are going to reveal to me the special case U.S. meaning of these words? I'll make it simple for you: U.S. society is nothing to be proud of and should not be looked up to as a model.

Oh and by the way. What part of "compared to" do you not understand?

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

#157

Post by joesmo » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

The frustrating part about living in America is that the solutions to problems are not only known, they're achievable. Yet because of a combination of stupidity amongst regular people and corruption amongst officials, people continue to suffer needlessly. There isn't a single thing in this article that wouldn't work if adopted in America, especially taxing the rich and having mandated time off. Yet it's not just the people that run the oligopoly that are understandably against such changes for the better, but also the average poor American who votes for the representative that is guaranteed to make life worse, not better for regular people.

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

#158

Post by xyzzyz » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

letitgo12345 wrote: post #79

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

Also looking at PPP per capita (59K vs 53K), it's not that much higher. Norway, I'm not sure should count given their large oil reserves which one cannot really replicate.

Sweden seems to be replicating it pretty well, without any oil.

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

#159

Post by alkonaut » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

pepon wrote: post #149

alkonaut wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nordic countries have similar quality of life. Granted, a bit less purchasing power and much higher taxes, but even better work/life deal (longer holidays, more parental leave) etc. And apart from norway it's not oil. And none is a parasite I think.

I guess we all have different definitions of "quality of life". IMHO, the salary may be very high in the nordic countries, but with the weather the have, I wouldn't consider that a high quality of life.

That is true. I specifically meant work/life balance. Where life is considered life even with 1h daylight and -20C outside (and I agree that might be stretching it).

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

#160

Post by nota_bene » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

ohsnap wrote: post #110

Switzerland is the world's most successful parasite. So it's hard to recreate their 'success' unless you have lots of host countries to feed from https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Switzerland:_A_parasite_feeding_o...

That logic applies to anybody who has somebody below them who's poorer (so, everybody).

The richer guy simply dominates the poorer guy. This logic applies on any scale - person, city, country, continent, social class... People like Jesus were against this system (and personally, I'd abolish this system in a heartbeat if I could).