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Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

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Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#231

Post by kayoone »

titzer wrote: post #154
kayoone wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, 360 EUR or 16% of my salary goes to public healthcare and i still have to wait for weeks/months for the most basic appointments. Really makes me want to switch to private even though i think it will be worse in the long run.

My experience has been very different. I can walk into my doctor's office without an appointment, wait an hour, and immediately talk to him. Appointments can usually be made for the next week. I had to see a specialist or two, even get an MRI, and those appointments were not more than 2 weeks out. Maybe it's the city you live in. I'm in Munich and have TK, and about the only thing I've paid out of pocket for is 25 eu…

Maybe it's Berlin, but it's pretty common to wait for 2 months for many basics things, if they take on new patients at all.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#232

Post by _nalply »

A Swiss speaking up here. Switzerland economy is competitive because economy is very tough here due to the high Swiss Franc. Even local businesses compete with abroad. In Basel for example there's a tramway which crosses the border to Germany. Just behind the border there's a row of malls. It's crazy.

In other words, companies need to be exceedingly efficient, i. e. competitive, to survive.

This has been this way as long as I remember, that means for at least thirty years. And the hostile environment has only exacerbated massively in the last five years.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#233

Post by ekianjo »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #136
ekianjo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Belgium about half of your salary goes to taxes.

Is it worth it?

No, unless you have 10 children I guess. I was single at the time and basically it's a net loss compared to married couples with kids.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#234

Post by lordnacho »

ccozan wrote: post #216
shin_lao wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I tried to get a gig in Switzerland as a freelancer, they told me there is no such thing as a freelancer there, every one must be hired. That's absolutely wrong, you've been lied to. Which part of Switzerland was it?

That was Zuerich. They told me, there is no such thing a service contract between an individual and a company. I must be either hired or I need to have my own company. I am not inventing this, simply repeating what the companies said, and they really meant it.

That's totally wrong.

You can be a sole proprietor for basically nothing. There's also two forms of limited companies requiring 20K/100K of capital. The 100 is actually 50K because you only have to pay up half of it upfront.

I found quite often when the Swiss explain something, they explain it with a degree of confidence that is not merited by the actual facts. They cut a few corners here and there to make it easy to explain.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#235

Post by __jal »

jomamaxx wrote: post #139
__jal wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 innova…

> Important to lawful civilizations.

You seem to have misread. I was arguing about word choice about tax policy, not tax policy. I choose to recognize a range of behavior as "evasion". That's what we're talking about. None of your post is relevant to what I wrote.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#236

Post by mike_hearn »

Annatar wrote: post #223
mike_hearn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. Political bias much? I'm a Brit who lives in Zürich. I would not describe Zürich as being anywhere near as glamorous as New York nor as being the "new London". It's a lovely city to live in, but it's tiny - the entire population of Switzerland is smaller than the population of London and that reflects in the variety of things to do, things to see, services available and so on. My brother lives in London Zone 1 a…

Political bias much? Much. The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed, Except that the UK economy took a severe hit and the British Pound Sterling has been pounded into the ground - lowest that it has ever been in over 50 years. And that's been going on for exactly three months. I take it you don't shop on UK Amazon much? Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed…

No, all economic metrics from the UK are positive at the moment with the exception of the currency, which fell because the central bank had announced it'd devalue the currency if the vote went the "wrong" way! The BoE policy looks pretty questionable now: their predicted economic armageddon didn't take place, leaving pundits saying "well it would have done if we hadn't printed lots of money", ignoring that the mechanisms used to print that money don't trigger real business growth so fast.

I really don't know where you get the idea that the UK is somehow totally dependent on the EU in ways Switzerland isn't. Switzerland is far from an island. It has massive trade with both the EU and the rest of the world. That's why the Swiss Parliament is desperately trying to ignore the vote - they know Brussels will happily wreck the Swiss economy if it doesn't get its way, even if that also damages Germany (German devotion to the EU is perceived as bottomless in Brussels, it seems). Switzerland would absolutely suffer if its deals with the EU were terminated, and it's laughably far from self sufficient.

WRT what Zürich lacks, just compare the wealth of cultural events, museums and shows in London to what's available in Zürich! Don't get me wrong, for its size it does pretty well, and there are many other things London can't match (like the lake life) ... but you can't seriously claim a city more than 10x bigger provides literally nothing more.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#237

Post by jomamaxx »

__jal wrote: post #235
jomamaxx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 innova…

> Important to lawful civilizations. You seem to have misread. I was arguing about word choice about tax policy, not tax policy. I choose to recognize a range of behavior as "evasion". That's what we're talking about. None of your post is relevant to what I wrote.

The definition of 'tax evasion' is 'the illegal nonpayment or underpayment of tax'.

So - it's not up to you to decide what is 'tax evasion'.

You can commandeer the term if you want, but you'd have to be very clear that you are doing that.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#238

Post by tn13 »

nraynaud wrote: post #133
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.

Clearly you have not lived in other countries :P

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#239

Post by tn13 »

wycx wrote: post #112
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.

It is not that puzzling if you live in Australia and pay attention to the economy. We have a residential real estate bubble that is worse than that of the US in 2006. Median house price to median income ratios in Sydney are worse than almost anywhere but Hong Kong. We have the highest per capita private mortgage debt of any country. This represents a massive unproductive overhead on the Australian economy, as the ele…

Yeah most of my friends in Australia barely afford the basic things that we take for granted in USA and that surprised me because their job seems to be almost identical to my.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#240

Post by clock_tower »

stepanhruda wrote: post #118
clock_tower wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mississippi's GDP per capita being similar to that of France, Italy or Spain is really hard to reconcile with the fact that many of us would love to live in the latter countries and couldn't be paid to move to Mississippi. Remember good GDP versus bad GDP; a traffic jam increases GDP, but isn't anything particularly worth buying. Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, an…

Oh man you're mixing up so many concepts. GDP is product - what value you produce during the year. Nothing is produced during a traffic jam. If you want to see accumulated wealth and climate taken into account, compare quality of life.

Wikipedia describes three ways of modeling GDP: production, income, and expenditure. A traffic jam means more production of fuel (and vehicles, accounting for wear and tear), more income for fuel producers and mechanics, and higher expenditures (fuel, wear and tear, and radio ads); GDP rises on all three measures. Free time does not contribute to GDP; neither does use of accumulated capital.
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