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Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#261

Post by usefulcat »

mrtksn wrote: post #249
brainwad wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Switzerland the problem is the cheap foreigners commute over the border from Italy or France, and drive down the going rate for labour to levels where it's then unreasonable for people who actually live on Switzerland to do those jobs. This is especially the case in Ticino.

Sounds like they need min wage increase then.

If the labor supply is flexible (which is the case being discussed here with foreign workers commuting to Switzerland), then increasing wages will tend to increase the number of potential workers, but it won’t create additional jobs.

Meaning that if you are able to get a job yes you’ll get paid more, but because there are now more people competing for the same number of jobs you’re also less likely to get a job.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#262

Post by mrtksn »

usefulcat wrote: post #261
mrtksn wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they need min wage increase then.

If the labor supply is flexible (which is the case being discussed here with foreign workers commuting to Switzerland), then increasing wages will tend to increase the number of potential workers, but it won’t create additional jobs. Meaning that if you are able to get a job yes you’ll get paid more, but because there are now more people competing for the same number of jobs you’re also less likely to get a job.

That's fine, the complaint is that the wages are too low. It's not that there are no jobs. In the case of Switzerland its not even that, the unemployment and the wages are both fine which results in people being able to work in those jobs and build a life in Switzerland and making the country overcrowded thus 10million population limit was proposed. What the Swiss demanded was that the workers go away once they finish the work, they did not demand shitty jobs for their kids.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#263

Post by leejo »

includenotfound wrote: post #234
leejo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 27% of Swiss residents were born outside the country. Swiss nationality is not linked to your birth country, it is linked to lineage. There are second, third, (fourth, fifth, sixth?) generation immigrants in Switzerland that are not Swiss. Conversly, there are Swiss nationals that have never set foot in Switzerland.

The point OP is making is that Switzerland undisputably has a very large proportion of immigrant population and that adding more should be carefully considered for various legitimate reasons, but it looks like you chose to be willfully ignorant.

OP could have made this point in a better way without expressing it in a way that isn't true or implying that nationality is by birth. Let's do that having looked at https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/m...

  * 41% of the permanent resident population aged 15 and over has a migration background
  * 27% of the permanent resident population is not Swiss
  * 22% of the permanent resident population was born outside of Switzerland
Notice the subtle distinction in the phrasing of the second point above and OP's phrasing? OP chose to phrase in a way that was a) wrong, and b) misleading. This has been classic tactics around this vote and others over the years.

Here's some more countries by immigrant background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_im... # Switzerland is on a par with Austria, Australia, and New Zealand, and way below many other countries that have > 50%.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#264

Post by greyhound »

brainwad wrote: post #253
greyhound wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments do land on the xenophobic side though. E.g."Indians with German passports": You need to pass a naturalization and language tests before applying for citizenship. Until recently you couldn't even apply without living in the country for 6+ years - now reduced to 4+. So how do you or potential Swiss know they are Indians? The first thing that comes to mind is that you're assuming it by the way they look.

Eh, my PM has been in Switzerland for 8 years and it's still very obvious he's Indian from his accent, from his restaurant preferences and from his choice of holiday destinations... Just like I've been here 10 and it's still obvious I'm an Aussie. You can legally naturalize, but you will never truly be like a kid who grew up there in their formative years.

[flagged]

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#265

Post by rsynnott »

whstl wrote: post #80
stephbook wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this Berlin that decides anything and rolls it out contintent-wide with us in the room right now?

I believe the point was more that Germany can accept lots of immigrants being a large country, and freedom of movement will allow them inside all countries, which can lead to backlash.

No, that's not how it works, not unless they naturalise.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#267

Post by rsynnott »

comrade1234 wrote: post #207

Things were fine during Covid. Now that the tourists are back the trains and trams are packed. The marketing for this campaign specifically talked about trains being packed but it should have focused more on how Swiss natives have to move out of Zurich to find an affordable place to jive, but the SVP would never focus on Zurich because theyre unpopular here.

The train thing is particularly weird. The trains and trams and buses in Dublin are overloaded. I have never heard _anyone_, not even the fringe racist parties who'd happily blame bad weather on immigration, blame immigrants for this. People generally blame the _government_ for it. As you'd expect.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#268

Post by rsynnott »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
alephnerd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is this means in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen - which is very doable over two election cycles. A 55% win with 58% turnout despite how this vote was front and center of media discourse is very worrisome as this shows how disengaged the other 42% are.

> in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen If the marketing were less xenophobic and the cap were derived from some scientific basis, I think I could be persuaded to vote for it. Particularly since it is not a vote for Chexit, but a democratic vote to confront the EU. (Britain triggered Article 50. Nothing in this referendum directs Berne to do that.)

> Particularly since it is not a vote for Chexit, but a democratic vote to confront the EU

To confront the EU on an absolute red line, yes.

The EC is already not thrilled with the Switzerland situation and was fairly clear that it would not allow the UK to negotiate something similar; it is unlikely that it would allow Switzerland to make the deal _worse_. At a certain point it'd just cast off Switzerland entirely.

If the UK (70 million people) was unable to get the EC to move on this, it seems implausible that Switzerland (9 million) would be able to.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#269

Post by vrganj »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #237
vrganj wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't mind Austrians tho. Germans are kind of disliked in the rest of DACH.

That one Austrian guy some time ago brought a lot of wealth to the Swiss. Who could blame them.

Well that one self-identified as German tbf.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#270

Post by Saline9515 »

Larrikin wrote: post #242
Saline9515 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of argument is the same as "guns don't kill people". Yes they do.

Explain in detail

Little Pete can't shoot himself in the head by mistake with daddy's glock if there isn't a glock in the house and daddy has to deposit his guns at the armory. Switzerland fixed its gun suicide epidemic by requiring this, by the way.

Not an anecdotal fact: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/guns-remain-leading-cause-...

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