Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 243 posts

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#131

Post by oldmanjay »

grecy wrote: post #81
heydenberk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was making this point a few weeks ago and after looking into it more, I still think it's a valuable point to raise, but the truth is more nuanced than I expected. States in the US vary in nominal GSP per capita by only 2x — from Mississippi at $35K to Delaware at $70K. In the EU, it ranges from Bulgaria at €6K to Ireland at €55K. (This excludes DC and Luxembourg, which are outliers in many ways.) In fact, even Miss…

> Mississippi's GDP per capita being similar to that of France, Italy or Spain And that's why GDP per capita is so useless. You have a few multi billionaires running your country, and you have tens of millions of people in abject poverty, tens of millions with no health insurance, etc. Don't look at GDP per capita, it tells you noting about life for the average person.

Luckily, we have so many people on the outside flinging poo at us to keep us humble.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#133

Post by nraynaud »

tn13 wrote: post #62

I will not be surprised. Switz is also easily among the top 10 most economically free countries in the world. Economic freedom, competitiveness and foreign direct investments are so well correlated with economic freedom. Australia's ranking seems extremely puzzling though. The general perception is that it is very very competitive economy.

economically free?? everything is forbidden, regulated, enforced and your neighbor will call the police on you there.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#134

Post by faebi »

Nobody mentioned yet the swiss apprenticeship system. Most young people make one and I think it is a main factor. The thing is the economy nearly always educates as much people as it needs. Within a 10 year range there should be always as much people as needed. So if one sector grows there are usually more available apprenticeships in that sector so that withing 10 years this hole should get fixed. Also I should mention that this is mostly good for the median person not for the top 1%.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#135

Post by gozur88 »

acchow wrote: post #56
kukx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The states in the US may vary, but so do regions in Spain and other countries. And the differences are often way bigger than between any pair of states. It would be more unfair to compare separate US states with European countries. While US states share a common fate, the same can't be said about say Germany and Greece even though they are both in the EU.

> While US states share a common fate Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? Individual US states are pretty close to sovereign. Other than ability to tax and a few other things, the US federal government doesn't have much power.

>Individual US states are pretty close to sovereign.

At this point US states are mostly satrapies of the federal government, since the feds can withhold block grants to the states who don't fall in line.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#136

Post by truth_sentinell »

ekianjo wrote: post #119
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living should be considered along with their income tax rate. It varies from canton (province) to canton, but hovers around 10%. That's a great deal compared to most any other European country. In neighboring Germany for instance, if you earn €55k, your tax rate is about 44% (including solidarity surcharge). In Zurich it's about 11% (canton plus federal tax). The top rates are 47% and 16%, respectively. S…

In Belgium about half of your salary goes to taxes.

Is it worth it?

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#137

Post by wrong_variable »

faebi wrote: post #134

Nobody mentioned yet the swiss apprenticeship system. Most young people make one and I think it is a main factor. The thing is the economy nearly always educates as much people as it needs. Within a 10 year range there should be always as much people as needed. So if one sector grows there are usually more available apprenticeships in that sector so that withing 10 years this hole should get fixed. Also I should ment…

what is good for the median person is also good for the 1%

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#138

Post by truth_sentinell »

__mp wrote: post #63
HSO wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in Google's case, there's ETH Zurich. Just today, I saw in the newspaper (WSJ university rankings[1]) that ETH was rated top of the pops globally in computer science. (On a related note, I remember vaguely that Disney built a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team.[2]) Also, in the good old times (= before the rise of right-wing populism and the referendum) Google could attract g…

Disney Research Zürich is super awesome. I did my master thesis there

What was it about?

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#139

Post by jomamaxx »

__jal wrote: post #103
jomamaxx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transfer pricing is not 'tax evasion' - it's 'tax avoidance'. To be clear, 'tax evasion' is illegal. Most companies do what they can to avoid paying taxes, which is rational in some ways, but they usually don't do anything illegal. It's important that we don't mix the two :)

Important to whom? I intentionally do not make a distinction. I'm not going to start, because the point is important to me. The distinction matters to: decision-makers at the firm in question, shareholders of the firm in question, the sovereign collecting the taxes[1]. And given the the dispute resolution with large corps' tax issues rarely involves people going to jail or even admissions of fault, I'm not sure why a…

"Important to whom?"

Important to lawful civilizations.

If you think that there should be better regulations around setting transfer pricing, then vote for it.

Unless companies are breaking the law, then there is a very profound 'distinction'.

Some tax issues are easily resolved, or at least, easily improved. 'Transfer pricing' is not one of them. It's very thorny.

I for one think that Apple's argument of 'the innovation and design is done in California - not Ireland' - is pretty reasonable.

Im fact - the US government should be reaping most of the tax dollars that Apple generates, not Ireland.

That said - if they have operations in Ireland they should be paying taxes there.

I think that a company should pay it's 'primary corporate tax' in the place where it is incorporated and has it's major operations.

And then ancilliary countries like Ireland can tax them at a corporate rate, but discounted for what they payed in America. Ireland's biggest tax receipts from Apple should come from VAT - which is the fairest tax of them all, because it's applied to each iPhone sale in Ireland, not France or wherever.

Currently - it's upside down: if a Canadian company has a subsidiary in France, they pay their corp tax rate in France for sales there - and then only a 4% remittance fee to Canada. To me that's backwards.

The American system is the worst: American companies pay full tax overseas - and then full tax back in America. Plus American corporate taxes are high.

Post reply on HN