Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Sunday, March 8, 2026 22:53
VIEWED: 11318
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KPO

Wednesday, July 22, 2015 6:46 AM

Why it's good to live in Switzerland: work-life balance, wages, taxes, healthcare, public transport, etc etc

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance

KPO

Wednesday, July 22, 2015 7:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Why it's good to live in Switzerland: work-life balance, wages, taxes, healthcare, public transport, etc etc

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance

Sounds exactly like Ohio.
They also have this: http://www.swisstrails.ch/swisstrails_engl/

Looks amazing. That would be worth getting into shape for.

It's not personal. It's just war.

SECOND

Wednesday, July 22, 2015 11:24 PM

Quotes from that article:

The average Swiss worker earned the equivalent of $91,574 a year in 2013, while the average American worker earned only $55,708. But the real story is that the average American had to work 219 hours more per year for this lesser salary.

Compared with taxes in the United States, Swiss taxes are easy on the average worker. For example, a worker earning the average wage of $91,574 would pay only about 5 percent of that in Swiss federal income tax.

The average adult in Switzerland has a net worth worth of $513,000 according to the 2013 Credit Suisse Wealth Report. Average net worth among adults in the US is half that.

When I gave birth in Switzerland, I was encouraged to stay five days in the hospital. So I did. The $3,000 bill for the birth and hospital stay was paid in full by my Swiss insurance. The average price for a vaginal birth in the US is $30,000 and includes an average of less than a two-day hospital stay.

Returning to the United States made me realize who I've become: someone who can't believe companies aren't required to pay into a pension fund beyond Social Security. Someone who is offended that most women in America don't have the maternity benefits she had. And someone who is mad that she must own a car for lack of efficient public transportation.
www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance

http://mshades.deviantart.com/art/Firefly-Inara-Fat-Children-547390762

SIGNYM

Saturday, July 25, 2015 7:59 PM

That's part of the benefit of not having to support a military-industrial complex which smothers the globe and sucks up half of all taxes. The Swiss are prepared to defend ... themselves.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, July 26, 2015 3:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Why it's good to live in Switzerland: work-life balance, wages, taxes, healthcare, public transport, etc etc

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance

Does it help if you thieve and steal gazillions of wealth from everybody in the world, pretending that your Nazi thug clients are credible owners of all the loot?
How many nations COULDN'T make a go of it by stealing from every honest person on the planet, or conspiring with the Nazis?

1KIKI

Sunday, July 26, 2015 4:44 AM

That was 70 years ago, too long ago to account for Swiss wealth today. Roughly 20% stolen wealth was returned from Switzerland as of 2005. But "At least $115-$175 billion (2005 prices) remains unreturned despite numerous clear and explicit international agreements ..." However, Swiss GDP in 2005 was $400 billion. And the Swiss have been accumulating wealth at that comparative rate for many decades. A single, relatively insignificant, one time infusion of stolen wealth 70 years ago can't account for the magnitude of Swiss wealth today. Or, to calculate it out, if the stolen wealth represented at most 1/2 of Swiss GDP in 1945, the Swiss accumulated GDP since then is 140 TIMES that amount. Stolen wealth represents much less than 1% of Swiss wealth.

And too, the AVERAGE Swiss citizen never did then, and certainly doesn't now, have access to any of that wealth.

You'll have to account for their superior standard of living some other way.

I would suggest that being bankers to the world is a high-profit business, that, if adequately taxed and redistributed to the people, would contribute significantly to a high standard of living. So, the first conclusion to be drawn is an economy needs a high profit GLOBAL business, second, that wealth needs to be taxed, and third, that military spending is dead weight on an economy.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=n
y_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:CHE:NOR:SWE&hl=en&dl=en
http://jcpa.org/article/restitution-of-holocaust-era-assets-promises-a
nd-reality/

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

JO753

Sunday, July 26, 2015 6:40 PM

It duznt jibe with the American cattle ranch manajment style.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

SECOND

Sunday, July 26, 2015 7:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Does it help if {the Swiss} thieve and steal gazillions of wealth from everybody in the world, pretending that your Nazi thug clients are credible owners of all the loot?

How many nations COULDN'T make a go of it by stealing from every honest person on the planet, or conspiring with the Nazis?

To be really blunt, if the Swiss are rich today partly because of Nazis stealing Jewish wealth, then Americans should be fabulously more wealthy than the Swiss because of Europeans stealing the wealth of Native Americans.

And slavery should still be giving an extra wealth boost to the US states that were once part of the Confederacy. The Swiss did have something that looked much like slavery, so there is that. www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/opinion/slaverys-shadow-on-switzerland.html
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/a-dark-chapter-in-history_recognising-switzerland
-s--slave-children-/35429120

And the Swiss were in the African slave trade. Like all western countries, Switzerland must answer questions over the source of its wealth.
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-played-key-role-in-the-slave-trade/34
72130

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 26, 2015 9:49 PM

OK, I know this is going to sound a little conspiratorial (yanno, like almost everything else I post ) but I recall seeing a show that tried to find the treasure of the Knights Templar, who - in addition to providing protection for Christians making pilgrimage to the Holy Land- also started the first international banking system. Instead of taking cash money to the Holy Land, where it might get robbed from you, the Knights Templar handed out letters of credit that could only be used by that person, based on the wealth you had "at home".

Quote:
By 1150, the Order's original mission of guarding pilgrims had changed into a mission of guarding their valuables through an innovative way of issuing letters of credit, an early precursor of modern banking. Pilgrims would visit a Templar house in their home country, depositing their deeds and valuables. The Templars would then give them a letter which would describe their holdings. Modern scholars have stated that the letters were encrypted with a cipher alphabet based on a Maltese Cross; however there is some disagreement on this, and it is possible that the code system was introduced later, and not something used by the medieval Templars themselves.While traveling, the pilgrims could present the letter to other Templars along the way, to "withdraw" funds from their accounts. This kept the pilgrims safe since they were not carrying valuables, and further increased the power of the Templars. The Knights' involvement in banking grew over time into a new basis for money, as Templars became increasingly involved in banking activities. One indication of their powerful political connections is that the Templars' involvement in usury did not lead to more controversy within the Order and the church at large. Officially the idea of lending money in return for interest was forbidden by the church, but the Order sidestepped this with clever loopholes, such as a stipulation that the Templars retained the rights to the production of mortgaged property. Or as one Templar researcher put it, "Since they weren't allowed to charge interest, they charged rent instead."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Knights_Templar

The Knights became fabulously wealthy from their banking activity, and by soliciting money and the sons of the nobility "at home" with the idea that this would help protect the Holy Land and gain an entrance in heaven.

Because the Knights Templar owned large tracts of land, were fabulously wealthy, "international" (not bound by fealty to any specific king, by papal decree), had expressed a desire to have their own "state", AND were headquarterd in France, King Phillip of France decided to destroy them first.

Quote:
At dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307, scores of French Templars were simultaneously arrested by agents of King Philip, later to be tortured in locations such as the tower at Chinon, into admitting heresy and other sacrilegious offenses in the Order. Then they were put to death.

In the end, the Pope disbanded the Knights Templar and ordered all of their assets transferred to other knight orders.

Aside from their land holdings (which were transfered) the Templars had portable wealth- jewels and gold.

All of that is to suggest that one place where the Knights may have taken refuge is Switzerland, which up until then was a land of primitive goat-herders, but became shortly afterwards a region known for its military acumen. In other words, Swiss banking may have even had its start in the 1300s with a remnant of the Knights Templar and treasure preserved from their former banking empire.

----------------

As far as Swiss banking and the Swiss economy is concerned, Switzerland does not have the highest percentage of bankers. Switzerland's manufacturing economy is slightly higher than that of Europe as a whole (although its agricultural sector is, not surprisingly, lower).

http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/european-un

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Wednesday, July 29, 2015 3:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
That was 70 years ago, too long ago to account for Swiss wealth today. Roughly 20% stolen wealth was returned from Switzerland as of 2005. But "At least $115-$175 billion (2005 prices) remains unreturned despite numerous clear and explicit international agreements ..." However, Swiss GDP in 2005 was $400 billion. And the Swiss have been accumulating wealth at that comparative rate for many decades. A single, relatively insignificant, one time infusion of stolen wealth 70 years ago can't account for the magnitude of Swiss wealth today. Or, to calculate it out, if the stolen wealth represented at most 1/2 of Swiss GDP in 1945, the Swiss accumulated GDP since then is 140 TIMES that amount. Stolen wealth represents much less than 1% of Swiss wealth.

And too, the AVERAGE Swiss citizen never did then, and certainly doesn't now, have access to any of that wealth.

You'll have to account for their superior standard of living some other way.

I would suggest that being bankers to the world is a high-profit business, that, if adequately taxed and redistributed to the people, would contribute significantly to a high standard of living. So, the first conclusion to be drawn is an economy needs a high profit GLOBAL business, second, that wealth needs to be taxed, and third, that military spending is dead weight on an economy.

70 years worth of interest and return from stolen goods has no effect?
I had no idea you were THAT bad at math.
And funding the national treasury with the income and taxation of that stolen loot in comparison to other nations having that stolen treasure missing from their reserves and revenues makes no difference? I can't tell if you are proclaiming that you are really stupid or you only profess to be naive.

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