391–400 of 462 posts
What surprised me - average salary of $90k+. Does someone have any insight what this country produce to be able to pull of such pretty significant wages?
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And you're picking an unusually great company. 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.
And my point is that hers is very one-sided and there's some serious selection bias going on. Living in Switzerland can actually suck. It's expensive - about 2+ times the rest of Europe and there is some serious xenophobia. Benefits in the US are not unusual and are pretty darn good by world standards. But hey, everyone loves a grass-is-greener post.
I'm saying this not as a European or an American with a particular bias either way but as an Australian who's been in both countries and frequently interacts with their citizens. I'm also someone who's worked in "low" positions (cooked fries at McDonald's) as well as someone who's worked in "high" positions (Software Engineer at a rather large company) and the conditions I've noticed in the US are just straight out bad.
I got more vacation time as a McDonald's fry cook than I do as an engineer at one of the world's largest tech companies (20 days McDonald's, 15 in US tech). And that company is one that's celebrated for being one of the "best" places to work in the US for its revolutionary benefits. The majority of those benefits are statutory back home or in the more affluent European countries.
Just have a look at some of the numbers:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_empl...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_leave
- http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ (adjust by work life balance and watch it fall even further)
The US has no statutory parental leave, vacation time, very limited sick leave and a minimum wage that in many cases leaves full time workers living paycheck to paycheck. Switzerland by comparison has 4 weeks statutory leave, 14 weeks at 80% pay maternal leave, 3 weeks sick leave and while it has no government mandated minimum wage, most of the population are covered by union agreements giving them a minimum of $15k/year PPP adjusted (http://www.therichest.com/business/the-top-10-countries-with...), one of the highest in the world.
Sure there are some people who have it better in the US than Switzerland but the people right at the bottom get a lot more benefits from Switzerland than they do from America.
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It's too expensive. So's SF. In regards of programming jobs, sometimes it's like living 40 years ago. You program with punch cards? 40 years ago was 1975. Racism is annoying, but normal here. And you must be proud of being Swiss. You say that like it's a bad thing, but it's a big reason I like Switzerland. Life's too short to be ashamed of who you are. Switzerland is tiny. Finding (and keeping) friends here can be ha…
Dont act like SF is the average place to live in the US
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It's too expensive. In regards of programming jobs, sometimes it's like living 40 years ago. Racism is annoying, but normal here. And you must be proud of being Swiss. Switzerland is tiny. Finding (and keeping) friends here can be hard, because if you even dare to fart, the whole village knows about it within seconds. And you shouldn't use your brain too much, so you can keep up with the others. But I'm pretty sure t…
It's too expensive. So's SF. In regards of programming jobs, sometimes it's like living 40 years ago. You program with punch cards? 40 years ago was 1975. Racism is annoying, but normal here. And you must be proud of being Swiss. You say that like it's a bad thing, but it's a big reason I like Switzerland. Life's too short to be ashamed of who you are. Switzerland is tiny. Finding (and keeping) friends here can be ha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's too expensive. In regards of programming jobs, sometimes it's like living 40 years ago. Racism is annoying, but normal here. And you must be proud of being Swiss. Switzerland is tiny. Finding (and keeping) friends here can be hard, because if you even dare to fart, the whole village knows about it within seconds. And you shouldn't use your brain too much, so you can keep up with the others. But I'm pretty sure t…
It's too expensive. So's SF. In regards of programming jobs, sometimes it's like living 40 years ago. You program with punch cards? 40 years ago was 1975. Racism is annoying, but normal here. And you must be proud of being Swiss. You say that like it's a bad thing, but it's a big reason I like Switzerland. Life's too short to be ashamed of who you are. Switzerland is tiny. Finding (and keeping) friends here can be ha…
Really man? So people like you do exist in 2015?
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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 N…
> The reason Switzerland can live like this Oh bullshit, all of the points enumerated in the article save for average salary (which clearly isn't the article's focus) are equally applicable throughout western and northern europe, except maybe in the UK.
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I'm a little surprised by the negative reaction. You people don't derive pleasure from working... from the process of building things, from molding reality? I damn sure do. But then again... I'm an American.
Well, it's largely because you're trolling. It worked, too.
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I think you're getting entirely the wrong message from the article. It's not about whether it's possible to reproduce Switzerland's standard of living in America. It's about asking some difficult questions about the fundamental aspects of American work culture and how they can be changed for the better. For example, why isn't there mandatory paid maternity and paternity leave in America? Why does the culture essentia…
Why the hell is the U.S. Presidential campaigns about which clown did the fewest embarrassing gaffes, rather than who can actually stand up and promise to do something, like "If I'm elected, 3 weeks paid holiday will be the new minimum"? Are business interests too strong? Is everyone afraid to be labelled "socialist" and thereby disqualified if suggesting something worker-friendly?
What I am saying is that you can't compare two countries with such dissimilar profiles without examining and making sense of a lot of data. And you certainly can't conclude that one has a great work culture and the other does not.
Just a few data points...
Population
US 320,000,000
CH 8,000,000
Employment among 15 to 65 year old population:
US 67%
CH 80%
Tourism (arrivals):
US 60,000,000
CH 8,600,000 (yes, more people visit than live there)
Employment
US 123 million
CH 4.2 million
Number of businesses
US 18,200,000
CH 160,000
Number of billionaires
US 615
CH 29
Foreign aid (given to other countries)
US 30,154,000,000 (it's actually double this number if grants and loans included)
CH 2,295,000,000
GDP
US 18,125,000,000,000
CH 688,000,000,000
Tax revenue:
US 3,001,721,000
CH 217,900,000
Deficit/Surplus
US -648,805,000
CH 3,400,000
National Debt
US 18,540,448,667,000 (58,437 per capita; 106% of GDP)
CH 1,610,897,000,000 (154,063 per capita; 229% of GDP)
Clearly in the US we can do a lot better. And we do this by voting the right people into office. We are at a point where fiscal responsibility isn't an interesting concept but rather a requirement for survival. What we have been doing is not sustainable in the long term, not even close. So, tax and spend needs to go out the window. And no, we can't fix it by taxing the rich.
The differences are huge and, while it might feels good to write a blog post trashing the US, the reality is that nobody --blog post writers and people posting comments on HN-- ever seems to want to take a few hours to throw numbers up on a spreadsheet, build some economic models and try to understand the underlying data. That's where the truth lies. Not in how we feel. That's all bullshit. Everybody feels great just before a tsunami. Yet, the earthquake that triggers it has been building-up underground for years, for decades or centuries. What matters are the numbers. Most everything else is complete nonsense.
I'd like someone to explain the impact of a per-capita debt of over $150K and 229% of GDP on the People's Republic of Switzerland. A house of cards looks great until the reality that is happens to be a house of cards has to be confronted.
Don't argue with me with feelings or ideology. Put numbers up on a spreadsheet and figure it first.
In the end, we are all bailing water in one way or the other. And a lot of what's going on points very solidly at China, in more ways than one.
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Any smart boss with decision making power should instantly give workers an additional 2 weeks off for a 10% pay cut. (Assuming the workers work more than 20 weeks a year and their duties can be taken up by someone else). It's pure profit at that point. That aside... there is always a choice. Don't ever think otherwise. You don't have to stay there. You don't have to drive a nice car. Always a choice. It's just a matt…
Again, easy for you to say when you're in your early 20s, single, no kids and few friends.
I'm not single either. I have a great girlfriend I've lived with for over 10 years.
I don't have kids and only a few close friends, so you did hit that part correctly.