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

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Sunday, March 8, 2026 22:53
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1KIKI

Wednesday, July 29, 2015 5:36 AM

AHEM! I had no idea YOU were that bad at math!

Shall we agree that interest does NOT keep up with inflation? And that inflation affects wealth and GDP equally over the decades? And that since I used the maximum outstanding wealth as the basis of my calculation, and used inflation rather than interest, that I calculated the MAXIMUM wealth over the decades?

Now - my calculation involved FRACTIONS of Swiss GDP, not absolute amounts. I did that to specifically avoid inflation calculations. So it doesn't matter if the wealth was 20 million in 1945, or 150 million in 1996, it remained the same FRACTION of the GDP since they were both affected equally by inflation.

And by ratioing out the wealth FRACTION of the GDP, and adding up the naturally accruing GDP FRACTIONS over the decades, I calculated out the FRACTION that one time wealth was of the entire accumulated GDP over the decades.

No interest calculations required.

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.

SECOND

Wednesday, July 29, 2015 6:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

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.

If JewelStaiteFan is right then Switzerland must have surpassed the USA immediately after WWII in the Nazi Loot Theory. Except the Swiss did not surpass Americans for 40 years. Something else beside this Nazi Loot Theory was actually happening in Switzerland.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/countries/1W-CH-US?
display=graph
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&type=meta
data&series=NY.GDP.PCAP.CD#
During Bush 41, the Swiss passed the USA in GDP per person, and the Swiss never looked back. It has more to do with Republicans being less competent than Swiss having more Nazi Gold to invest.

JewelStaiteFan could be the next William F. Buckley contemptuously explaining about how the American rich cannot help the poor because there is not enough money to go around. If only America had Nazi gold, as Switzerland does, only then could America afford to raise the minimum wage, per Buckley, the richest commentator in America.

Watch Buckley sneer at and deride the poor in this video from 48 years ago. Buckley knew the poor never would rise up and kick his ass, so why should he treat them respectfully? Buckley drips contempt for lesser people. And he always has another rationalization for why the way things are is the way things must be. Again with the not enough money to change anything because America doesn't have the Swiss's Nazi gold:

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

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, July 30, 2015 4:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
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.

For those without reference: keep in mind that many people generate retirement income, merely trickling in for only about 35 years to become a few million for retirement

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, July 30, 2015 5:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
AHEM! I had no idea YOU were that bad at math!

Shall we agree that interest does NOT keep up with inflation?

No. This sometimes occurs, but normally interest and return rates do not fall behind inflation.

1KIKI

Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:11 AM

K- Shall we agree that interest does NOT keep up with inflation?
J- No. This sometimes occurs, but normally interest and return rates do not fall behind inflation.

Normally they do.

The interest the bank charges on a loan is inevitably greater than the interest it returns on investment or savings. That's true of any business. They receive more money than they return in value. It's the only way to make a profit. What people are charged is a measure of inflation which is greater. What an investment returns in interest is the rate of return which is lesser.

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.

1KIKI

Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:14 AM

For those without reference: keep in mind that many people generate retirement income, merely trickling in for only about 35 years to become a few million for retirement.

You're obviously not understanding the concept of a ratio. I won't be able to explain that to you here. Also it's not true that one can put in only a few dollars a week and end up a millionaire, even over 3 or 4 decades.

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.

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2015 8:01 AM

The Swiss have got more money than the USA per person, but prices are higher for the Swiss, making their purchasing power a little less than US. A Swiss and an American have about the same purchasing power today. The real trend is how much things have improved in both countries since 1950.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=RGDPCHCHA625NUPN,RGDPC
HUSA625NUPN,

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

1KIKI

Thursday, July 30, 2015 9:26 AM

Second, I know you're making a point about historical wealth - sources and growth.

But I just wanted to add that there's a problem with per capita figures - they're averages. A few REALLY wealthy people can raise the average of the miserable many. While the averages may be similar between the two countries, the life experiences of the people aren't.

Also, Signy, yes I forgot about the Swiss high-tech economy. Just a couple of weeks ago I was talking with one of the service reps I know, who used to work for Dionex (US) (acquired by Thermo, of course), and now she works for Metrohm AG (Swiss). But speaking of average standard of living and total wealth - taxes aren't the only means of redistributing wealth. She says Metrohm is light years ahead of Dionex/ Thermo in how they treat employees. So, there's that, too. A different business ethic has evolved over the years when you compare one country to the next.

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.

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2015 5:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Second, I know you're making a point about historical wealth - sources and growth.

But I just wanted to add that there's a problem with per capita figures - they're averages. A few REALLY wealthy people can raise the average of the miserable many. While the averages may be similar between the two countries, the life experiences of the people aren't.

Poverty rates are a forceful way to compare two countries without being distracted by trivia about the lives of the super-rich in each country. But there is always other distractions: definitions of poverty vary considerably among nations. The USA poverty line is at www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq1.htm#thresholds

Switzerland’s poverty line is 2,200 Swiss francs (1,800 euros, $2,466) per month for a single person and 4,050 francs for a couple with two children.

While many Americans would dream of such sums, Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in the continent, with sky-high rents and compulsory private health insurance eating into household budgets.

Poverty in the USA is around 15%. Figures from the Swiss federal statistics office showed that 7.7 percent of the nation of eight million people lived below the poverty line in 2012. http://business.inquirer.net/174776/poverty-rate-stubborn-in-rich-swit
zerland

These country to country comparisons of poverty never do settle anything because there is always some wiseguy who claims that USA poverty is really a low 4.5%, which is just a clever way to mislead and destroy all discussions. www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/15/the-true-us-poverty-rate-i
s-4-5-not-14-5/

1KIKI

Saturday, August 1, 2015 8:37 AM

Poverty rates are a forceful way to compare two countries without being distracted by trivia about the lives of the super-rich in each country.

That's an interesting idea.

We've also debated things like infant mortality, low and high birth-weight, lifespan, overall and male v female literacy rates, and other figures that show how the overall population is faring, Here average numbers are hard to throw with exceptional extremes - there's only so long even a very wealthy person can live, for example.

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.

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