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

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

#181

Post by throwaway1410 »

yxhuvud wrote: post #141
rhizome31 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peasantry was different from slavery. The middle age has actually seen slavery disappearing from Europe, which is incidentally why slaves had to be taken from somewhere else to bring to the "new world". Class struggle that led to welfare and benefits wasn't against the gentry but against the bourgeoisie (factory owners). The same bourgeoisie who had chopped the gentry's heads before.

Peasantry wasn't slavery, but they were serfs, and in the end serfdom didn't end up being very different to slavery.

AFAIK (I'm not a historian): serfdom started disappearing from most of Western Europe around XV century. In XVII-XVIII it was mostly forgotten, and peasants were free men, who either owned land or rented it from the big land owners. Having said that, their standard of living was dismal (including starvation when prices or crops were low) - often actually lower than in countries which maintained serfdom, such as Poland or Prussia.

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

#182

Post by Tomte »

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 number one reason for Switzerland's wealth is that they were clever enough to stay out of wars as much as possible.

Other countries start from ruins and rubble periodically. Switzerland grows its prosperity incrementally, without catastrophes.

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

#183

Post by rhino369 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #93
rhino369 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. They have higher standards for the lower classes. America has a higher standard of living but is far more sink or swim.

The lower classes' standard of living is all that matters. If you're rich, you can live especially well even in 3rd world countries (where servants are cheap and anything can be paid for).

By lower class I don't mean everyone not rich. I mean everyone not middle class or better.

Median household income PPP adjusted in America is 30-40% better than France and Germany.

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

#184

Post by longjohnbatton »

mercurialshark wrote: post #11
asdfologist wrote: post #4

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

I hardly "lived" there, but I found the culture to be lacking a sense of silliness and in general less personable. It's like what they say about German comedy, it's no laughing matter. I still really like Switzerland.

Why would you want people to be silly? Do you mean wasting your time and getting in your way kind of silly or something else?

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

#185

Post by low_battery »

cjsthompson wrote: post #133
low_battery wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make an image search for "swiss political billboards"

And what do you expect I should learn from this?

Nothing contradicting with your statement, Just gave some example of bullshit their cute democracy produces.

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

#186

Post by atmosx »

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…

Actually the average European enjoys a way better living standard than the average American. Just take a look at healthcare system in the US. A disease in the US could ruin a family in Europe is taken care by the state... Same goes for education, etc.

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

#187

Post by alkonaut »

chimeracoder wrote: post #174
alkonaut wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil doesnt' really make that much difference in Norway. They tend to keep most of the money in a state reserve to not create too much inflation. Subsitute Norway for non-oil Sweden, a country with huge immigration. Sure it's a small and "rich" country, but the cultural things like good work/life balance applies anyway. Edit: as was pointed out to me in another comment: this is using a loose definition of "life" w…

> The oil doesnt' really make that much difference in Norway. They tend to keep most of the money in a state reserve to not create too much inflation. It absolutely does make a difference to have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund[0], as well as the economic status that allows you to leave it untouched. Simply having guaranteed future access to that kind of wealth changes your political and economic options to…

> It absolutely does make a difference to have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund[0], as well as the economic status that allows you to leave it untouched. Simply having guaranteed future access to that kind of wealth changes your political and economic options today.It absolutely does make a difference to have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund[0], as well as the economic status that allows you to leave it untouched. Simply having guaranteed future access to that kind of wealth changes your political and economic options today.

It probably makes a political difference yes, but I mean that if you woke a swede in norway, they wouldn't really notice apart from that everyone sounded funny.

> much of the "huge immigration" comes from other Scandinavian countries or EU member states.

The biggest recently is Syria, followed by Eritrea (2014).

I'm not saying that immigration is a net positive economically in Sweden (this is a hot topic, which isn't PC to talk about btw), short term at least that is very hard to believe, especially for refugees. Long term you get a different set of factors though when you weigh in demographics etc, the opinion on immigration is somewhat positive here though.

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

#188

Post by zantana »

asdfologist wrote: post #4

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

Harry Lime: Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

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

#189

Post by evilhaskeller »

As a French living in the US, I share your sentiment. Western Europe's quality of life is ridiculously high, I am not sure if that is reflected very much in the way we measure QoL but that's my experience.

I thought that public transportations in Paris sucked, that was before I had to ride BART. Same goes for homelessness, crimes etc... I love SF, there is a ton of amazing places to hang out at etc.. but damn, I do miss Paris.

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

#190

Post by cjsthompson »

brandonmenc wrote: post #178
cjsthompson wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The OP's response was in no way jingoistic. I guess you were hurling the epithet at the US in general, which adds nothing to that particular conversation. As for the somewhat racist term "third world," I assume you really meant "underdeveloped economy." Which, for all of the United States' problems, it is not. The UN puts our HDI in the top 5, and it's nearly equal to Switzerland's.

"Third world" means a place where the average people have appalling living conditions. And, yes, compared to the average central/northern European living conditions, U.S. average living conditions are appalling. And your use of cheap smear words like "racist" designed to appeal to emotions is not going to change this. Who trusts what the U.N. says?
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