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Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#781

Post by cycomanic »

account42 wrote: post #722
eqvinox wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, it's nationalism instead of racism. Born on the wrong side of the Rhine? F right off. No better at all. Worse, arguably.

Yes, that's how nations work. Otherwise you end up paying for the world's social security while not collecting everyone's taxes.

Yeah it's much better to make your money by enabling the worlds worst dictators to steal money from their populations. In fact it's all the other countries taxes that are paying for the swiss social security, because of all the aid money being funneled into swiss bank accounts.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#782

Post by no-name-here »

autoexec wrote: post #766
panick21_ wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im sure the ecology is much improved by letting people stay where they are and be poorer. In fact we should start to remove people from all rich places so the can live in sustainable poverty.

Leaving those climate refugees where they are wouldn't mean they were poor, it would mean they were dead. There are all kinds of irrational extreme positions that would maximize environmental protection. Certainly the best thing we could do for the environment would be to kill ourselves off, but very few people would argue for that. Instead it's better to go for something more balanced and limiting the number of peop…

> to an amount the land can sustainably support seems pretty reasonable

Is the land in refugees home countries better able to sustainably support the populations on average, whether moving because of climate, lack of a way to support the people, etc?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#783

Post by s1artibartfast »

Stevvo wrote: post #113
transcriptase wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes far more sense than the “population must increase forever” pyramid scheme the rest of the West is running. Check out Canada for a look at what happens when you try to juice GDP via population growth at the expense of literally everything else.

The data/facts disagree with you. In a low birth rate society a constant influx of new tax payers is required. Without it you end up with decades of stagnation like Japan.

This sounds like a strong argument for having a stable cap. It's not a total immigration ban and would freeze population at a steady state. This makes all of the boom and bust problems easier, not worse

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#784

Post by mike_hearn »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #780
mike_hearn wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Brexit had no impact on the British economy. From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit > The majority of economists believe that Brexit has harmed the UK's economy and reduced its real per capita income in the long term, and the referendum itself damaged the economy.

That specific statement has five citations and all of them are from 2016 or 2017, when Brexit hadn't happened and so they were merely speculating about possible future effects. So none of the citations supports the claim.

The citations also contradict the statement, "the referendum itself damaged the economy". Instead they admit the referendum's effects were better than predicted by which they mean there weren't any:

"It won't mean Armageddon, but the broad consensus of economists—whose predictions about the initial fallout were largely too pessimistic—is for a prolonged effect"

and

"Unlike the short-term effects of Brexit, which have been better than most had predicted"

Wikipedia is a hopelessly compromised source, you shouldn't rely on it for anything where a left wing activist might have strong opinions because they'll just straight up lie to you, unfortunately. Grokipedia's article is marginally better, but still makes the mistake of citing discredited analyses and making false claims based on them.

If you really want to know the truth about this you have to just go to the core data and see for yourself, because the space is full of claims made by people with a clear agenda.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#785

Post by inglor_cz »

joxdosba wrote: post #760
inglor_cz wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU would have to rely on German, Austrian, French and Italian cops/soldiers to actually enforce any sort of physical blockade against Switzerland. I am not certain if all the respective governments would simply obey such an instruction if they didn't have any beef with the Swiss themselves. Which now means that the EU has to block not just Switzerland, but (say) Austria, which means compliance from four other cou…

Trade policies are very much set at an EU level. > The EU would have to rely on German, Austrian, French and Italian cops/soldiers to actually enforce any sort of physical blockade against Switzerland Without these treaties, there absolutely will be permanently manned border checkpoints. None of these countries love Switzerland enough to be willing to end the EU over it.

Manned border checkpoints are likely in that case. I don't believe in complete blockade, though.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#786

Post by throwaway2037 »

bluebarbet wrote: post #284
stymaar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in Switzerland is worried about the population growing due to birthrate. This referendum is about stopping immigration (even though in Switzerland more than anywhere else, immigration is at the foundation of the country's wealth).

>in Switzerland more than anywhere else, immigration is at the foundation of the country's wealth Such a claim would need terms to be defined, even before justification. Switzerland's mercenary attitude to immigration is well known, yes. I would argue that endogenous factors (history and culture) are far more important in explaining Switzerland's success. Neither natural resources nor immigration are determinative of…

    > Switzerland's mercenary attitude to immigration is well known
What is meant by "mercenary attitude" here?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#787

Post by pjmlp »

hocuspocus wrote: post #711
pjmlp wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a B permit in 2003 - 2004 was indeed hard enough experience that I ended up not staying there and refuse any job offer from Swiss companies to this day, regardless of the Swiss friendships I managed to make there. My stay at CERN was temporary, and every single company where I had an interview clearly communicated to me that the paperwork to get a B permit instead of a Swiss national, or a foreigner with exis…

Bilateral agreements were signed in 1999 and freedom of movement enacted in 2002 so you must not have looked very hard. Also claiming that immigration from a country like Portugal was hard before FoM is extremely funny given the number of Portuguese immigrants in Romandie. Words have a meaning and bringing diplomatic permits to the topic when they follow their own rules and are specifically outside any immigration qu…

It wasn't me that wasn't looking very hard, because apparently those bilateral agreements didn't cut it.

Yes, there are plenty of us in Suisse Romande, yet not everyone is welcomed, and plenty don't have it easy.

There are plenty of ways of folks land there, and true not everyone behaves the way they should.

But lets leave at this, because the discussion won't lead to any constructive place.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#788

Post by ericmay »

tpm wrote: post #779
mike_hearn wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use that definition of breaking a treaty if you like. But it's not a good idea. It sends the world a message that negotiating with European countries is dangerous because to avoid getting screwed you'd have to write down all known common sense and social conventions in the text of the treaty, and probably include the contents of a specific dictionary as well, and even then they might just do something crazy y…

Treaty law just doesn't work with 'common sense and social conventions' any more than compilers that won't compile your 'common sense and social conventions' text. You have to say exactly what you want, nothing more, nothing less. That's the work of lawyers and negotiators. As my lawyer friends say, well-written agreements make good friends (and vice versa). But also note that you are the only one against Spain creat…

> But also note that you are the only one against Spain creating a path for a group of people that live there to gain legal status.

Nah I have an issue with it too, conceptually. You're basically rewarding bad actors for breaking rules and laws which is unfair to those who were and are trying to immigrate legally. At a minimum.

Immigration isn't a moral good, it's just a switch we can flip on or off. Too few people? A given society can have more permissive rules. Too many people? Have more restrictive rules. Being an immigrant is just a random status one has by virtue of moving to another country - it's just paperwork.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#789

Post by throwaway2037 »

stymaar wrote: post #631
mschuster91 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no obvious reason to have just half the population density of Germany. France was historically always focused on Paris, because that was where the Emperor was. If you were not a farmer, there was little reason to live anywhere but Paris or other large cities. In contrast, Germany historically consisted of thousands of small fiefdoms that each held some sort of local importance and each held authority of some sort.…

> France was historically always focused on Paris, because that was where the Emperor was. So much misconception in such a short sentence… First of all France only had an “Emperor” for a few decades (10 years for Napoléon 1er, 17 for Napoléon III). Then, Paris wasn't even the King's main residence for a good part of French Monarchy (the Loire valley (hence the list of famous castles here) and Versailles both aren't P…

    > French people just stopped having babies one century before other European countries
I'm not here to doubt this statement. Rather, I want to know: Why did this trend occur in France? I am curious to learn more.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#790

Post by throwaway2037 »

tempay wrote: post #412
throwaway85825 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better definition of slave wages is: After food, shelter and necessities is there something left over? Lately consuner spending is increasingly debt indicating that its not break even.

> consuner spending is increasingly debt Geneva has the highest minimum wage in the world precisely to try and avoid the "working poor". Also the "consuner spending is increasingly debt" is very US centric view. The situation in Europe is less extreme and totally absent in many countries.

    > Geneva has the highest minimum wage in the world
I was surprised when I read this, but I Googled, and it looks true. Minimum wage in Geneva is 24.59 CHF per hour. Wow! With 1.5 working parents, you can definitely live on 1.5 * 2000 * 24.59 CHF = 73,770 CHF (92.5K USD) per year in Geneva. (To be clear: I am not writing this sarcastically. I think 74K CHF per year will definitely not be "working poor" in Geneva.)
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