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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

#201

Post by agumonkey »

jfoutz wrote: post #164
staz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The three first Google results for 'Quality of Life index' put the USA at the 16, 12 and 10th place. While salary in Italy, France and Germany may not be as high as in Switzerland, they all have longer maternity leave, bigger number of vacation, better public transportation and better benefits than in the USA

Sane health care is the biggest one.

There was another long and widely exposed article about an American citizen going to Europe (France IIRC) to treat his father's cancer. He said that healthcare spirit only would have been worth it, more human and less a business than in the USofA.

I guess we should all travel to get perspective on our local environments and see what's possible with different organizations and beliefs.

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

#202

Post by dubcanada »

adventured wrote: post #180
noja wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. You have to be kidding me. The average standard of living in the US is not the fourth best in the world. The US only got universal heathcare this century, it has a ludicrous work-life balance, the minimum wage in some states is very low (and sometimes includes tipping!), the infant mortality rate is lower…

In fact America does have one of the highest standards of living. It also has one of the highest median incomes, and among the highest disposable incomes. OECD better life index: http://i.imgur.com/ekhWXeG.png Maternity leave is common in America. You are free to choose your job based on the benefits you desire, including vacation time and maternity leave. Switzerland and Germany to name two, are famous for not havin…

Maternity leave in America is basically unpaid vacation. In most countries you get paid maternity leave.

Vacation time is also the lowest (2 weeks) compared to Europe which on average has 4 weeks of vacation time.

Where did you get your information about healthcare from? Very affordable healthcare in America? Seriously, what are you smoking?

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

#203

Post by cjsthompson »

hectormalot wrote: post #191
cjsthompson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you expect I should learn from this?

For one, you might find the bill boards from the SVP, that shows minarets (the tall part of a mosque) depicted as rockets, or the one where they show white sheep kicking a black sheep out of Switzerland. I think it is a good example of how 'direct' Switzerland can be if you are a foreigner there. (I still love the country though)

Well I agree that patriarcal culture (of which veils and minarets are symbols) has nothing to do in central/northern europe. I don't care about freedom of religion, I care about being freed from religion. And it sounds like the swiss do too. So if that was suposed to make me think that democracy as opposed to parliamentary regimes is a bad thing, think again.

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

#204

Post by alkonaut »

sampo wrote: post #194
alkonaut wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is the second consequence of being expected to work >8h with 1h commutes - one parent stays home when you have kids.

I have to wonder, which is more efficient/beneficial for the society, two people both working 7.5 hour days, or one person working 10-12 hours and another staying at home.

I think it depends. In the long run the trap that must be avoided is when women (usually women) leave the workforce after having children since "one parent stays at home" often means "mothers stay at home", after which they have a hard time reentering it (or have to re-qualify/take other jobs etc, which is a huge waste).

If the burden of looking after children is split more evenly between mother and father (say 1 year at a time as long as necessary) and both parents keep their careers afterwards, the difference is smaller. The question is what the state can do to encourage this kind of equality and prevent women from leaving the workforce. The view in progressive economies tends to be that it's long parental leaves, where there is a large part earmarked for the father.

Edit: I should add that the US actually has a pretty decent labour force participation for women. The view that women in the US often end up "homemakers" after having children seems to be pretty exaggerated.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/ted_20120907.htm

There are countries (Italy and Turkey stand out) where the situation is much worse, to the point where it probably makes a significant dent in the GDP/Capita.

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

#205

Post by _pmf_ »

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…

> Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US.

If you're judging by average income. The wealth distribution is so off in the US that you'll find several dozens of countries where people in the low middle class are much better off.

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

#206

Post by adventured »

alkonaut wrote: post #143
chimeracoder wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they all are known as tax havens except for Norway which has half a million dollars of oil reserves per citizen :). > But I do think the article is right in pointing out a lack of options in the U.S. if you want to live a lifestyle that doesn't center around work. This is the "option" of being both a very small and very rich state, which is simply not feasible. To put this into perspective, Norway is just over…

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…

Over time Norway's GDP expansion almost perfectly matches the increased production domestically and price increases globally.

Track the price of oil against Norway's extreme GDP per capita growth from 2000 to 2008 ($37k per capita to $95k per capita), a time in which the price of oil went up ~10 fold. It's plainly obvious that Norway's economy is highly dependent on the performance of oil. Their wealth boom the prior 15 years came almost exclusively from the big oil run. Until the year 2000, they did not stand out as especially wealthy compared to other top tier nations. Their GDP per capita was almost identical to the US throughout the 1990s.

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

#207

Post by ohsnap »

alkonaut wrote: post #123
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...

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.

Yes your correct, nordic countries have achieved a very high standard of living without 300 years of government supported racketeering, money laundering etc. Unfortunately, anything Switzerland brings out my ill tempered side.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by [deleted] »

alkonaut wrote: post #143
chimeracoder wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they all are known as tax havens except for Norway which has half a million dollars of oil reserves per citizen :). > But I do think the article is right in pointing out a lack of options in the U.S. if you want to live a lifestyle that doesn't center around work. This is the "option" of being both a very small and very rich state, which is simply not feasible. To put this into perspective, Norway is just over…

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…

[deleted]

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

#210

Post by hessenwolf »

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…

This doesn't sound hugely informed. I spent the evening discussing this yesterday with Americans in a beer garden in Munich.

Actually, more than the working conditions, the Americans didn't want to go back because of the guns.

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