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Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

nytimes.com

31–40 of 174 posts

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss comp advantage started in WWII when they were used to exchange Nazis gold into other currencies - this gave them a topstart for the economic period after the war since they were perfectly connected globally and they understood to scale & keep this advantage for long time. Maybe its fading a little bit nowadays

This seems a highly biased view. You could also say that because Switzerland wasn’t war raged they had a had start.

> You could also say that because Switzerland wasn’t war raged they had a had start.

The Nazis may have found the Swiss more useful as a 'neutral' country than they would have as conquered territory:

> No, the controversy in Swiss conduct comes from three major factors. The trade in gold, Nazi banking, and Jewish banking.*

> When the war began, Germany had less than 50 million dollars in gold in their national stores. Yet, during the war, the Allies claimed that the Swiss purchased over 300 million in gold from the Germans. Where did the extra gold come from? Well, the obvious answer is that Nazi Germany stole it from the countries they invaded. With most powers unwilling to accept what was obviously stolen gold as payment for goods, the Swiss didn't have the same scruples. They bought the gold for Swiss francs, which Germany than could use to purchase stuff they needed from other neutral powers such as Turkey. When confronted after the war, the Swiss only would admit to 58 million of French and Belgian gold, which they compensated the respective national banks for. Investigations couldn't prove the rest, and when suspiciously new, gold 20-Fr pieces began appearing in the late 1940s, bearing dates from the 1930s, no one seemed able to prove that the Swiss had melted down the gold and was trying to secretly pass it into circulation.

> Gold wasn't all they got though. The Allies also believed there to be hundreds of millions in assets from Nazi officials stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As the occupying powers of Germany, the Allies claimed that ownership of these accounts defaulted to them, while the Swiss not only disagreed, but also claimed near total ignorance, as their strict banking laws prevented any disclosure verifying the claims. […]

* https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4rciqp/why_d...

> The Swiss helped transform almost four-fifths of all German gold into highly convertible Swiss Francs. As a result, Germany was able to buy strategic raw materials from Spain and Portugal.

> Switzerland as a nation was immensely important to the German military machine and economic planning. In 1941, for example, Hitler received a billion Swiss francs as credit for the Russian campaign.

* https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/nazis-neve...

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe work on changing zoning laws instead of pandering to farmers and rural cantons?

Citizens can choose to prioritize quality of life over maximizing housing stock to increase the domestic population. “We’re all full up.” It is their country after all, it is their choice. Those who want in are not stakeholders nor have a vote.

It's amazing how quickly globalists were able to get the ideological left to switch from having riots protesting against globalism to declaring it racist to have any anti-globalist thoughts. Even more amazing are the intellectual knots they'll tie themselves up into when explaining how this came to be. The participants of the Battle of Seattle in 1999 now would be considered Nazis.

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#33
post #24
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that very much. Sure there's places where the rent is less, but there's no jobs there. So a very low rent will still be over 40% of your pay (ie. nothing)

Then maybe actually check places yourself? I am looking at a 4 room apartment in a very nice villa next to a small national park right now, for 560€, with a train going twice an hour 15 minutes ride to the town with my potential next job. (In germany) So salaries there are lower, but so is apparently rent. Way less than 40%, more like 20%.

Could you please send name of city and district? Maybe in eastern germany, yes; Chemnitz is cheap. But most cities are by far not that cheap.

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#36
post #4

"Anti foreigner sentiment"? Dear NYT, try to find an apartment in the EU or Switzerland. At best, you will get a furnished (to circumvent rent caps), overpriced 30 square meter dump that takes up 40% of your net salary. Once that problem is solved, we can talk about "sentiments".

So what you are saying is that these places have not built enough housing. That sounds like the actual problem, not the population size.

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's very likely against the Swiss constitution

Please elaborate and send me the link to the relevant www.parlament.ch docs :)

Let’s pretend it’s within the constitution. How are they going to enforce this?

For baby 10M+1 are they going to tell a Swiss woman that she can’t have a baby?

In any case, this is definitely not conformant to the treaty that the Swiss have with the EU around rights of free movement.

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#39
I support that. If you tried doing the inverse, for example, migrate to an Islamic country and bring over Christianity there, you would not be welcomed at all. I’m an expat and one thing I’ve learned is to integrate myself with the culture of the country that adopted me, I believe this shows respect and that I am aligned with its values and principles.

Re: Switzerland to vote on capping population at 10M

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss comp advantage started in WWII when they were used to exchange Nazis gold into other currencies - this gave them a topstart for the economic period after the war since they were perfectly connected globally and they understood to scale & keep this advantage for long time. Maybe its fading a little bit nowadays

Sure in finance (and even then it has been overshadowed by London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam by the 2000s), but not really in innovation industries like the Life Sciences - which has historically been Switzerland's strongest niche and a major reason for Switzerland's modern success. This was largely due to the success of Biogen in the 1980s which helped link American biopharma IP with the Swiss ecosystem along with a…

Biogen? Seriously?

Swiss pharma was driven by Roche and Lonza, which are much older than Biogen.

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