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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

#281

Post by walshemj »

zantana wrote: post #188
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.

Apart form the bit where for long periods swiss mercenaries where feared and much more prone to war crimes than the Italian condotta

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

#282

Post by toephu2 »

refurb wrote: post #274
toephu2 wrote: post #237

The author claims she was double taxed by the Swiss and American governments. I doubt that she actually paid the U.S. taxes, as up to 100K earned abroad is exempt. It's called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei...

There are plenty of errors in her article. Like when she used Romney as an example of low taxes for the rich. She conviently failed to mention it was because he gave a HUGE chunk of it to charity.

technically she was right though about his tax rate, it was low because most of his income came from long term cap gains investments

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

#284

Post by beagle3 »

benkuykendall wrote: post #92
sampo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to make comparison even more complicated, I assume in Switzerland you don't need to pay as much for health insurance, and put as much money aside for retirement, and people in US do. And I know college fees in Switzerland are around 1000 to 3000 per year, not 10 000 to 40 000 like in US. So if you have kids, you don't need to save for their college. (...But then you can only send them to European universities. I…

That's the reason I used GDP per capita instead of after-tax income. Even if employees do not need to pay for insurance, retirement, or schooling, the nation as a whole still has to.

But that comparison is flawed too; I don't know about Switzerland, but e.g. both Canada and Israel have effective single payer healthcare systems, which cost half as much per capita as in the US, and deliver higher life expectancy with 100% coverage and no medical bankruptcies.

It's too complex to summarize it with just one number per country.

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

#285

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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...

Most of the US financial industry is a parasite, yet I don't hear much complaining about that.

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

#286

Post by ido »

jqm wrote: post #259
ido wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More time off would make me happier. I'd give up $10k/year for it. $90k/year is enough money. Besides, few pleasures compare to spending quality time with your loved ones. So now we have two pieces of anecdotal evidence, worth exactly twice as much as one (2*0)

So do it. Do what makes you happy. If you aren't happy working or you don't get enough time off... change the situation. But don't spend a bunch of your life unsatisfied.

I am actually a freelancer, my example was not of my current situation. But while I was employed it was very hard (I didn't manage to get it despite trying for a while) to get a job as a developer for less than full time regardless of salary.

Anyway that wasn't the point, my point was that stating your particular preference doesn't really add much to the conversation.

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

#287

Post by smoe »

jkot wrote: post #27

I think article skips anything negative. For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss. Second the taxation leaves various compulsory "contributions": social, pension, wealth, tv, petrol etc. It is not 5% but more likely 50% of average salary. And third, I have totally different experience with american compan…

Labour laws in Switzerland demand a 15 minute break for >5.5h working days, 30 minutes for >7h and 60 minutes for >9h. [0]

This is mostly to protect the employees and depending on the sector, people are pretty flexible about that. Lot of people I know just eat a sandwich at the desk and leave earlier in the evening.

After compulsory taxes and insurances, a swiss household has on average 70.9% of their income left for spending. [1]

[0] https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19640049/...

[1] http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/20/02/bla...

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

#288

Post by comrade1 »

plonh wrote: post #278
comrade1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to Godwin, but, the Swiss supported plenty of money stolen by Nazi government. Much of the money being "protected from corrupt government" was obtained through corrupt activity.

They provided a place for the jews in nazi germany to move their money outside of germany. But if I was Jewish and in Nazi Germany I would have done the same, as my Catholic great-grandparents did by moving their money from Germany to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power.

It's unfortunate that most of their Jewish customers were killed by the Nazis. They also accepted deposits from the Nazis, but I can understand their attitude of not taking sides. In the end you want a neutral party like that, no matter what side you're on.

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

#289

Post by [deleted] »

plonh wrote: post #278
comrade1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to Godwin, but, the Swiss supported plenty of money stolen by Nazi government. Much of the money being "protected from corrupt government" was obtained through corrupt activity.

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by [deleted] »

plonh wrote: post #278
comrade1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to Godwin, but, the Swiss supported plenty of money stolen by Nazi government. Much of the money being "protected from corrupt government" was obtained through corrupt activity.

[deleted]
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