191–200 of 462 posts
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Make an image search for "swiss political billboards"
And what do you expect I should learn from this?
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Exactly. I really do love switzerland, but a proper comparison would be to say, Marin County or Boulder or La Jolla. I think our pockets of "switzerland" stand up pretty well in comparison.
The difference is in Switzerland you don't have to be mega rich to have a good life and because those places don't have different laws than the rest of the US, they only compare if you're rich enough for laws not to matter, at which point it's a moot point. Even the rich won't get paid leave or sane taxes or decent working hours, so to be comparable the level of richness has to put one beyond the necessity of work. I…
Most of the US has a low cost of living compared to eg Switzerland. In most of eg Texas - most of the US actually - you can live well on $50,000 to $60,000 per year.
You're aware I'm guessing of the economic metrics of the top 50% in the US? It seems obvious to me that in fact you do not have to be mega rich to live well. The top 80 million Americans in the labor force would likely qualify as having at least as good of a life as the median Swiss standard of living.
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> The 2yo will be asleep when you come home anyway. This implies only one of the parents goes to work?
Yes, that is the second consequence of being expected to work >8h with 1h commutes - one parent stays home when you have kids.
"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…
Reading this as a European, it's fun and telling that you focused on salary differences, whereas what mattered to me were the other quality-of-life elements (I assume you're living in the US). To sum up, what matters to me, in what she described, were the consequences of the belief that one shouldn't be ashamed of having a life outside of work, and needing some time and peace of mind to actually enjoy it. More money…
"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…
Switzerland 2,335,059 immigrants, 28.9% of population
United States 45,785,090 immigrants, 14.3% of population
How about no commute because you're working remotely from anywhere in the world, awesome pay, the best health care coverage, dental,options (even with a great base pay package), 401k, relaxed work culture and a company that goes out of it's way to spoil the team. Our company and team are all US based. Sounds like the author picked a nasty US company for her article.
I think her point is more that the benefits she's talking about are average for the Swiss, they're to be expected wherever you work by default and they're not just for tech industry workers.
In the US, they're something so unusual that you feel lucky for having them, even if you work in the tech industry.
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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.
It's important to note that there are 3 different regions (German, French and Italian) which all have their own 'sub-culture'. Behaviors can be quite different ;)
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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.
For example, in dollar terms Sweden's economy hasn't expanded since about 2007.
They have a ~7.8% unemployment rate.
They have about twice the household debt to income ratio of American households, and have a present debt crisis among those households:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/09/sweden-economy-idU...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/sweden-s-d...
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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.
US PPP income is highly skewed because the US dollar is very strong, and a basket of consumer goods in the US is very cheap. Healthcare and education on the other hand are astronomical, and certain items seen elsewhere as 'luxuries' can be required in many parts of the US (one or two cars, for instance).
Anyhow, most quality of life surveys put the US at around 10th, which I think is pretty appropriate based on what I've seen (both statistically and anecdotally).