Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a lovely place. Why wouldn't you want to pass a law to keep it that way?
Why would you want less people to live in a lovely place?
To keep it lovely.
Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
461–470 of 891 posts
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#462Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually ar…
Considering the other EU ramifications, this is basically Swixit, is it not?
Yes. We can cap non-EU/EFTA immigration to zero but that's relatively small anyway. Getting out of Schengen-Dublin and more importantly the Freedom of Movement of workers would basically unravel all bilateral agreements.
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#463Switzerland is ranked 67th in country population density. For reference, the United Kingdom is ranked 48th and the United States is ranked 183rd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
That is an utterly meaningless statistic. Canada, with four times the population, ranks #233, because most of the country is uninhabited / uninhabitable.
Population weighted density is a better metric for this use case. It's more stable than population density when adding large areas of sparsely populated land, because the denser, more highly populated areas are more heavily weighted. It shows, roughly, the density experienced locally by the average person in some region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_weighted_density
The problem is it's difficult to compare across polities because nobody will agree on the right granularity of parcel size to use (and indeed, it is not really obvious what the right granularity is, and choice of parcel size can drastically change the number).
It's similar to the metrics of "average class size" vs. "student-weighted class size". https://allenschwenk.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/0...
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what did Romania experience?
Banks, energy, telecom, defence, oil & gas companies had to be sold to French, German and Austrian companies for below market value, so those countries would lift their veto. Same with joining NATO TBF. We had to buy some overpriced shoddy used F-16 from the US with a lot of miles on the clock, for the same price of brand new Swedish Gripens just so the US would accepts us in NATO. So if history does indeed repeat it…
Romanian banks were looted by Romanians in the 90s: see Paunesu brothers and BRD. Also see Dacia Felix bank, Bancorex.
Romanian telecom: post communist crash Romanian telecommunications were a disaster. For example two different phone numbers shared the same line (a.k.a. Cuplajul). In late 90s some western telecom companies started investing in Romanian cellular networks- they built all the tower and network infrastructure. I do not understand what you mean when you say the west stole telecoms from Romanian - the west actually built it.
Energy, oil and gas- the heydays of Romanian oil producing days were during the WWII when Romania supplied a lot of the oil used by the Germans. After that Russians took whatever was left over because of war reparations. Since I can remember Romania did not produce oil - it was dependent on Russian imports during communism for example. So there was no oil and gas for the West to steal either.
Re: NATO - in the 90s and early 2000sn Romania wanted to join NATO because that particular generation remembered the Russian all too well. The priceRomania paid was enforcing the embargo on the Serbs during the Kosovo and Bosnian wars.
Re: F16 - romanians are flying some hand me downs from Holland which were purchased at the dizzying price of 1 euro.
I am sorry, but you sound like a Romanian nationalist, one who unfortunately is convincing enough do that the current generation does not know how much better their lives are because of EU and NATO. But who knows, maybe they will get a chance to find out…
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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#465This is such a fascinating referendum. The population is at 9.1m, and at 9.5m it appears they'll stall asylum and family reunification, and at 10m they'll execute a Swexit - Switzerland isn't in the EU but it allows freedom of movement to EU nationals. Boy it is interesting to see what's going on in the world right now. There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up…
Calling it a population cap for something that seems to be about stricter border controls is a wild marketing choice.
To be fair that's not specific to SVP's populist initiatives, the parliament pushes bills with nonsensical names all the time.
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should check Geneva then - they are building apartment buildings like crazy in past 5 years. Too much if you ask me - in very center, almost every small park or green spot is now 6 story concrete building. Only the biggest protected parks are untouched. City is visibly and permanently degrading into concrete field. Weirdly schizophrenic move - they try to keep pushing bike lanes everywhere, even where not safe to…
These jobs are unpopular because the pay is shit, not because people don't want to do them, the government could simply have grants/bonus program for people employed in these positions so that the taxpayer money directly funds the bettering of the society and environment around them. Besides, Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty";…
> Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty"
Japan heavily utilizes foreign workers via a Gulf style guestworker program, and even that has led to the far-right Sanseito becoming Japan's highest rated opposition party and the far-right wing of the LDP winning internal party politics.
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#467This initiative is a trap. Essentially, it would allow for the termination of bilateral agreements with Europe. This is what the SVP has been trying to do for decades, and this initiative provides them with a convenient excuse. And it’s particularly ironic because the SVP has always opposed legislation promoting sustainability.
Convenient how? Even if you take the spin at face value, it’s downright dystopian.
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#468Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually ar…
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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isolationist is an interesting way to describe Switzerland: economically they're probably one of the most internationally integrated, and thus dependent, countries in the world.
True, and yet at the same time they're incredibly wary of political and military alliances.
For good reason, at the Congress of Vienna 1815 the largest powers in Europe signed a treaty that guarantees Switzerland's neutrality. As a result, Switzerland got spared in world war one and two. So far not entering into any alliances has been a very good strategy for Switzerland to ensure peace.
Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also swiss here. So many people seem to think that this is about refugees. Wrong. It's about Europeans. Mostly Germans. They are educated and highly skilled and for some swiss, that's a problem. They blame them for not finding a job or an appartement. Just read the comments on inside paradeplatz, you can translate with any llm, on a post about the referendum. A subset of the swiss Middle class has decided that they d…
seems to be a common concern amongst the local population everywhere "X identity is hiring only X identity"
Because it's an unfalsifiable claim. If you need to bring in highly skilled people and most of them come from X Y or Z, it will be near impossible to distinguish in-group preference from a continuation of skilled immigration which for most countries that practice it, is beneficial for the economy.
Also hiring is often based on trust and networks. People refer others to their company and jobs. That trust tends to work out pretty well for companies. If people get laid off they tell their friends and their friends pass on opportunities to them or try to help them find new jobs. And people tend to make friends with others they share a culture and language with.
If you add a bunch of barriers to make companies have to hire proportional amounts of every ethnicity or culture, that slows down hiring and can be an extra regulatory burden for what reason?