
Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture - jeena
https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/living-in-switzerland-ruined-me-for-america-and-its-lousy-work-culture/
======
blfr
"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality"

Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher
standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy,
France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce
it.

All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people
enjoying work-life balance in America than alive in Switzerland. You could
carve out multiple Switzerlands of the US if you broke it up and tightened
immigration (as the Swiss are doing right now).

~~~
fab13n
Reading this as a European, it's fun and telling that you focused on salary
differences, whereas what mattered to me were the other quality-of-life
elements (I assume you're living in the US).

To sum up, what matters to me, in what she described, were the consequences of
the belief that one shouldn't be ashamed of having a life outside of work, and
needing some time and peace of mind to actually enjoy it.

More money won't make me happier if I don't have holidays, week-ends, and some
time during workdays to actually enjoy spending it, without being chronically
on the verge of a burn-out. This is common sense in Europe, whereas it seems
to be considered leftist heresy in the US.

~~~
jqm
More money would make me happier. I'd give up a few Saturdays for it. One day
a week is enough rest. Besides, few pleasures compare to productively working.

~~~
jqm
I'm a little surprised by the negative reaction. You people don't derive
pleasure from working... from the process of building things, from molding
reality? I damn sure do. But then again... I'm an American.

~~~
yodsanklai
It's not contradictory at all. One can derive pleasure from working, and still
enjoy their free time. The good thing about _free_ time is that you can use it
to build things if that's what you want.

And don't forget that most people don't have the luxury of an enjoyable job.

~~~
tluyben2
That last point is debatable in the Western world but yes it holds globally.

------
simonw
This appears to be copy and pasted straight from
[http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-
life-b...](http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance)
\- this link should point there instead.

~~~
cantrevealname
Not only that but they[1] didn't bother to copy and paste the author's name.
It's seems extra obnoxious to copy the _entire_ article but not the author's
name and two sentence bio.

[1]
[https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/living-i...](https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/living-
in-switzerland-ruined-me-for-america-and-its-lousy-work-culture/)

(I'm mentioning the original link--so this comment makes sense--in case the HN
moderators later change the link to the real article on Vox.)

~~~
Eupolemos
And that's why I also look at the comments before the actual link.

Or maybe not THE only, but it is a fine excuse.

------
ap22213
I grew up very poor in the U.S. Poor as in, my single mom earned $6000 / year
with little federal benefits to raise four kids. But, now, I'm in my late 30s
and very successful. So, in that regard, I love the U.S. For the upper middle
class and wealthy, the U.S. is like an adult playground. And, I don't mind the
long hours of work; I still get plenty of work-life balance.

But, honestly, the only way that this occurs (unless born rich) is if one is
smart, ambitious, hard-working, cunning, and lucky. If one is poor and doesn't
have those attributes, they'll have a very hard time here. For instance,
intelligence will not get one very far, alone. I grew up gifted and talented.
All of my siblings were also gifted and talented. But, of my family and
classmates, only 20% made it out of poverty. In that way, the U.S. is quite
horrible.

~~~
Cthulhu_
This is what I liked about my upbringing; my parents weren't rich either, but
at the same time my quality of life was decent. Thanks to government funding,
I was able to get a decent education (bachelor's degree, I could go for a
master's but I couldn't be arsed) and as a result a very good job (I've got
the best job of anyone I know besides my colleagues). Upward mobility is very
good here, unlike in the US where as far as I know you either need to have
your parents save up half a house worth of college funding, or some magic
college fund that only kids in movies get by playing in bands or being good at
sports, or however that thing works. It's an equal opportunities system.

Which unfortunately has been cut / downsized thanks to the economic crisis and
probably capitalist goals, so the generation after me has less opportunities
and can't, for example, do a master's after they do a bachelor's without
working alongside it or taking out a big loan.

~~~
gorbachev
You can also shackle yourself for decades by borrowing money on student loans,
some of which you can't discharge in a bankruptcy thanks to legislators who
thought the student lending industry needed a handout.

------
joesmo
The frustrating part about living in America is that the solutions to problems
are not only known, they're achievable. Yet because of a combination of
stupidity amongst regular people and corruption amongst officials, people
continue to suffer needlessly. There isn't a single thing in this article that
wouldn't work if adopted in America, especially taxing the rich and having
mandated time off. Yet it's not just the people that run the oligopoly that
are understandably against such changes for the better, but also the average
poor American who votes for the representative that is guaranteed to make life
worse, not better for regular people.

------
atmosx
> Instead of taxing salaries at high percentages — a practice that puts most
> of the tax burden on the middle class, where most income comes from wages
> and not from capital gains — Switzerland immediately taxes dividends at a
> maximum of 35 percent and also has a wealth-based tax.

That's the secret. The Swiss are _brave enough_ to tax the wealth. They are
not afraid to do so. They also are extremely respectful of their electorate:
They do referendums often and for any reason (building a bridge or allowing
foreigners to work in their country). There is a sort of just distribution of
social responsibility which unfortunately lacks elsewhere.

If you look for the city with highest living standard in the world though,
it's not in Switzerland but right next to it, the beautiful Vienna :-)

~~~
lordnacho
Where is this coming from? I got a dividend in Switzerland, and it isn't taxed
at 35%. What they do is they keep 35% until the next year, at which time you
can have it. Dividend tax is a much lower amount.

~~~
atmosx
Here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland#Federa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland#Federal_withholding_tax)

[http://www.lawyersswitzerland.com/dividend-tax-in-
switzerlan...](http://www.lawyersswitzerland.com/dividend-tax-in-switzerland)

ps. Is there any change you're tax-evading? :-) j/k probably to get taxed at
35% you need to be pass a specific amount or something (not sure though).

~~~
lordnacho
It says it can be deducted in full. That's not really a tax now, is it?

~~~
atmosx
Depends on the specifics, I don't know how easily and under what circumstances
you get the refund. But you have a point there, sure.

On the other hand, their tax system seems to work wonders and gives you the
impression that there is a strong justice estate.

------
evilhaskeller
As a French living in the US, I share your sentiment. Western Europe's quality
of life is ridiculously high, I am not sure if that is reflected very much in
the way we measure QoL but that's my experience.

I thought that public transportations in Paris sucked, that was before I had
to ride BART. Same goes for homelessness, crimes etc... I love SF, there is a
ton of amazing places to hang out at etc.. but damn, I do miss Paris.

------
phaemon
I think living anywhere other than your home country for a while is a valuable
experience. You learn to not only recognise the flaws in your own country
(which you can then push to improve), but you also learn to appreciate what
you previously took for granted.

~~~
adwf
That's one of the most pernicious things about the US tax system though.
Because citizens get taxed by both the USA _and_ the country they're in, it
strongly disincentivises people from ever moving abroad (unless they revoke
their US citizenship).

This leads to Americans never really discovering, en masse, what life in
foreign countries can be like. They're just tourist destinations.

~~~
toephu2
not totally true, you are not taxed up to 100k while working abroad. see
"Foreign Earned Income Exclusion".

~~~
jleyank
This and unless your country of residence has lower tax rates than the US you
merely end up filing, not paying the US. If the tax rate is lower, then the
tax hit is what you'd pay in the US less the foreign tax credit. Only thing
would be tax free income in your country of residence that is taxable in the
US...

------
alexashka
"Currently an estimated 28 percent of all funds held outside the country of
origin (sometimes called "offshore" funds) are kept in Switzerland."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#Banking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#Banking)

It's cute that she even provides numbers and leaves this out. This is the only
number you need to know. Everything else is the direct result of this.

You know who else does awesome? A closed community of multi-millionaires in
the USA. Except you're not a part of that elite. Somehow, you got to be part
of the European elite (anyone who lives in Switzerland) and feel like the rest
of the world can magically live like that. No, that lifestyle is at the
expense of the rest of the world.

~~~
bsbechtel
Exactly. The reason Switzerland can live like this is because of the political
environment in Europe that allows specialized, regional industries to keep
their wealth instead of transferring it to poorer regions through cross-
continental benefit programs. Vox, where this was originally posted, posted
multiple times about how this is one of the causes of the Greek crisis, but
never mentioned Switzerland or the other Nordic countries, just Germany and
France. Switzerland's situation is similar to if New York were its own
country, and didn't have to pay any federal taxes. Instead, New Yorkers would
pay high taxes from their high salaries, mainly from Wall Street, to lift the
living standards of only New Yorkers, which costs significantly less than
paying for an entire country.

~~~
masklinn
> The reason Switzerland can live like this

Oh bullshit, all of the points enumerated in the article save for average
salary (which clearly isn't the article's focus) are equally applicable
throughout western and northern europe, except maybe in the UK.

~~~
bsbechtel
So you're essentially agreeing with the point that the rich countries (western
and northern Europe) can afford to live like this, while the poor countries of
Europe suffer through crisis after crisis because they can't afford the social
programs their richer neighbors have.

------
rsync
In Europe, many, many people were essentially slaves. They were property of a
small class of landed gentry who ruled over them with, at best, patriarchal
indifference and at worst homicidal, spiteful authoritarianism.

They were peasants.

Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads
chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put
in front of a firing squad and thrown down a well.

But there were still plenty of gentry left, and so a deal was struck: we (the
peasants) get old age pensions and some trifling property ownership and a
handful of other "benefits" and protections, and you get to retain the landed
class privileges you've constructed and ... we promise not to chop your heads
off.

Ok, deal.

The european social model is not the result of sophisticated empathy and
communalism. It's a deal made fair and square - you stop treating us like
cattle, and we won't revolt and murder you and your children.

But there's a converse to all of this ...

What if a population was not systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for,
oh, say, 2000 years ? What if there is not an intricate system of landed class
and privilege and you build the social and welfare state _first_ ?

The deal still gets made, it just gets made in reverse.

You want cradle to grave welfare and benefits ? Fine. These folks over here
will give it to you (the money has to come from somewhere, after all) but they
will absolutely assert a system of privilege and class benefits. You won't
like it. It's "unamerican". Those consequences will be unintended, but there's
no way to leave that equation out of balance.

After all, a deals a deal.

~~~
airza
what? America had an _actual_ slave class. Also indentured servants.

~~~
rsync
Nobody would dispute or ignore that - of course that occurred to me when
writing the original comment.

I stand by my analysis since American slaves were (at the time) a small
minority of the country that existed in a fraction of the geography and lasted
for less than 90 years after 1776.

No portion of americans were "systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for
... 2000 years" and no majority (or even large plurality) of americans were
ever enslaved at all.

~~~
dalke
Sweden, Norway, and Finland did not have serfdom.

If your analysis is correct, shouldn't there be a large difference in the
social welfare systems between those them and the Nordic countries with
serfdom-like systems; the Danish stavnsbånd, from 1733 to 1788, and the
Icelandic vistarband, from 1490 until 1894?, or between the Nordic countries
and, say, The Netherlands?

~~~
rsync
False.

Sweden, Norway and Finland all had monarchies, a landed gentry, and a peasant
class. If you'd like to make a subtle (and perhaps useful) distinction between
"peasant" and "serf" then I suppose that's worth talking about, but my
generalizations about Europe _include_ the nordic countries.

"The peasant proprietors, who, under the name of the "Lantmanna" party, formed
a compact majority in the Second Chamber, pursued a consistent policy of class
interests in the matter of the taxes and burdens that had, as they urged, so
long oppressed the Swedish peasantry;"[1]

"Outside the political sphere, however, the peasants were considered at the
bottom of the social order—just above vagabonds. The upper classes looked down
on them as excessively prone to drunkenness and laziness, as clannish and
untrustworthy, and especially as lacking honor and a sense of national
spirit."[2]

"The difference from serfs elsewhere was that the farmer did not directly own
the life and property of the homesteader (Husmann), _but in most cases, he
practically did._ "

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_the_late_19th_ce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_the_late_19th_century)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland#Peasants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland#Peasants)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_serfdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_serfdom)

~~~
dalke
You said "What if a population was not systematically enslaved and
disenfranchised for, oh, say, 2000 years". You used the terms "systematically
enslaved" and "They were property". Those are terms applied to _serfs_. They
do not apply to all peasants.

You therefore cannot be referring to Sweden's relatively recent and short
period of absolute monarchy when you talk about 1000+ years of time. See for
example [https://www.quora.com/Sweden/In-Swedish-history-why-did-
most...](https://www.quora.com/Sweden/In-Swedish-history-why-did-most-of-the-
peasants-own-land-and-why-did-they-ally-with-the-king-against-the-
nobility?share=1) "In Swedish history, why did most of the peasants own land,
and why did they ally with the king against the nobility? This is
substantially different from the rest of Europe, and I wonder why it developed
this way?" Quoting from it:

> The Swedes retained that almost primordial, archaic concept of individual
> liberties and rights when other Germanic tribes had been subsumed into other
> legal or property concepts, such as what happened in the Holy Roman Empire.

You second link, for Finland after it was conquered by Sweden, says:

> In contrast to serfdom in Germany and Russia, the Finnish peasant was
> typically a freeholder who owned and controlled his small plot of land.
> There was no serfdom in which peasants were permanently attached to specific
> lands, and were ruled by the owners of that land. In Finland (and Sweden)
> the peasants formed one of the four estates and were represented in the
> parliament.

These are not "systematically enslaved and disenfranchised" peasants who were
"property".

As your third link says, the "Norwegian serfdom" social system for Norwegian
lower class farmers 1) started in 1750, so well after slavery was firmly
established in the American colonies, and ended in 1860, that is, before the
US abolished slavery, and 2) was "not actually in serfdom by European
standards". This isn't the 2000 years or even 200 years you alluded to.

------
jkot
I think article skips anything negative.

For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra
hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my
boss.

Second the taxation leaves various compulsory "contributions": social,
pension, wealth, tv, petrol etc. It is not 5% but more likely 50% of average
salary.

And third, I have totally different experience with american companies. All
american corporations I worked for had strong life-work balance, holidays etc.

~~~
chaostheory
There's one thing I'm interested in since this is on HN... How easy is it to
start a venture over there?

Also, my old roommate from college works at CERN now as a researcher. He tells
me that he can't afford to go out and eat since it's so expensive. Is this
true?

~~~
lordnacho
Since I live in Switzerland, I'll try to address these issues for you.

>There's one thing I'm interested in since this is on HN... How easy is it to
start a venture over there?

On paper, it's easy. You go to a bank, deposit either 20K or 50K depending on
your corporation type, and they give you a letter. You take the letter to a
notary, and the bank gets a doc from him. They put your money in your new
company's account. Whole process may cost you 2.5K in notary fees and a few
hundred more in government fees.

Of course, there's some more things a company needs than mere existence. If
you're looking for capital, it isn't SV. But they do have government programs
to help startups and that sort of networking thing. There's contests. What I
mostly see though is high-tech university type stuff rather than "guys hacking
in a garage".

There's also a number of designated venture parks where you can find cheap
office space and infrastructure. A friend of mine rents one in Luzern, and my
wife went to see some in the one in Zurich. They're reasonably large
buildings, but not entire towns like in SF.

>Also, my old roommate from college works at CERN now as a researcher. He
tells me that he can't afford to go out and eat since it's so expensive. Is
this true?

It is ridiculously expensive to eat out in this country, and your friend is
probably not exaggerating. A pizza can easily cost 25 CHF. You can't do a meal
at a middling restaurant for less than 100CHF. And the food is not great for
the price. I've been to Michelin star places that cost less money than an
ordinary meal at a Swiss restaurant.

------
JamesBarney
While I agree with many of the sentiments in the article, I don't think a
comparison of wages is entirely fair. Some small nations have an out-sized GDP
per capita such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Singapore because of their
large financial industries. These industries are possible because the
countries attract wealth and the wealthy through very low taxes(like
Singapore) or very strong banking secrecy laws. And while bringing in a large
amount of wealth can lead to a GDP per capita for boost small countries its
not reproducible when a country is the size of the United States.[0]

[0] - Because if every billionaire in the world moved to the U.S. it would
barely move the needle on wealth per capita unlike Singapore, Switzerland, and
Luxembourg.

~~~
lispm
The US also has a skewed GDP per capita. Large financial industry, various
economic bubbles (housing, stock market, ...), printing money, huge debt
financed consumption, huge military expenses. The trillion dollar Iraq war
costs are increasing the GDP.

~~~
adventured
The trillion dollar iraq war cost harmed US economic performance massively in
fact.

It stole productive capital and put it toward destruction. The debt cost then
goes on perpetually in the form of interest (currently at $430 billion per
year), making it even worse over time. Instead of investing into factory
production, business expansion, R&D, science, healthcare, infrastructure,
long-term economic growth in general, you accumulate a trillion dollars in
long-term veteran care costs, and perhaps destroy hundreds of billions worth
of equipment, and run up the price of oil, gasoline and commodities in general
by devaluing the dollar and destabilizing the middle east - for absolutely
zero real benefit.

------
benkuykendall
Although Switzerland and America may have very different work cultures and
social support policies, that's not the most obvious difference. Consider our
per-capita GDPs (2013, nominal dollars)[1]:

    
    
       Switzerland    84,748
       United States  53,042
    

So even if the US passed new employment laws and embraced work-life balance,
we would still have only 63% of Switzerland's money to spend on each person.
I'm not saying that the US couldn't improve its working conditions, but its
unavoidable that a wealthier nation will have resources to treat its working
class well.

[1]
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=switzerland+vs+united+s...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=switzerland+vs+united+states+per+capita+gdp)

~~~
hga
The picture looks _very_ different if you use purchasing power parity; per
Wikipedia, which cites roughly the same nominal per-capita GDPs, in PPP
dollars:

    
    
      Switzerland     58,731
      United States   54,596
    

If you then factor in the demographics....

~~~
sampo
Just to make comparison even more complicated, I assume in Switzerland you
don't need to pay as much for health insurance, and put as much money aside
for retirement, and people in US do. And I know college fees in Switzerland
are around 1000 to 3000 per year, not 10 000 to 40 000 like in US. So if you
have kids, you don't need to save for their college. (...But then you can only
send them to European universities. If you want to send them to a US
university, you still need to save money for that.)

~~~
letitgo12345
On the other hand you have to pay a lot more in taxes.

~~~
comrade1
Switzerland has considerably lower taxes than the u.s. (I'm an american living
in switzerland)

~~~
refurb
Incomes taxes or all taxes?

~~~
comrade1
Income taxes.

As for sales tax, it's 7% here. Lower than most of Europe, and lower than some
parts of the u.s., but not all parts of the u.s. But the low taxes more than
make up for it. (about 1/2 compared to the u.s., but depends on your income
level)

~~~
hga
There's also a Value Added Tax (VAT), which probably makes comparing the Swiss
and US systems difficult: [https://www.ch.ch/en/vat-rates-
switzerland/](https://www.ch.ch/en/vat-rates-switzerland/)

~~~
comrade1
I was writing about vat. That's basically sales tax. It looks like it's 8%
now.

~~~
hga
Hmmm, OK, although I note a VAT imposes higher compliance costs on an economy,
and is harder to evade. And still, comparing to the US is very difficult,
seeing as we have 50 state wide taxing regimes with much more complexity in
what's taxed how much, many many many more local ones (the small-medium sized
city I live just outside of has at least 3), and it's generally ignored on out
of state mail order purchases.

Hard to compare, but probably not grossly larger in Switzerland.

I wonder how property taxes compare.

Ah, here we go, taxation as a % of GDP:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tax-Revenues-As-GDP-
Perce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tax-Revenues-As-GDP-
Percentage-\(75-05\).JPG) Overall we, the US and Switzerland, track very well.

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland)
which I'm just starting to look at.

------
geff82
Switzerland is the closest to paradise a state can get. Much more libertarian
on the business side than its European neighbours, much more welfare than USA
and most other countries that are business friendly. All that with having the
most democratic system in the world. Did you know that the 4 major political
parties are all in the government together - by mutual agreement? Do you know
that all three months they vote on whatever they think is important? That is
why that country is so stable. All that with a clean superb environment,
beautiful countryside and diversity baked into every citizen (4 official
languages in one country...). Switzerland never seizes to amaze me. Hope to
move there next year (and yes, the salaries are enormous... while rents are
high in absolute money, they are low relative to the salaries paid).

~~~
sltkr
> Did you know that the 4 major political parties are all in the government
> together - by mutual agreement?

It's actually 5 different parties (with only 7 seats in the federal council).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Council#Members_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Council#Members_of_Council)

------
ohsnap
Switzerland is the world's most successful parasite. So it's hard to recreate
their 'success' unless you have lots of host countries to feed from

[https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Switzerland:_A_parasite_feeding_o...](https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Switzerland:_A_parasite_feeding_on_developing_world%3F)

~~~
alkonaut
The nordic countries have similar quality of life. Granted, a bit less
purchasing power and much higher taxes, but even better work/life deal (longer
holidays, more parental leave) etc. And apart from norway it's not oil. And
none is a parasite I think.

~~~
pepon
I guess we all have different definitions of "quality of life". IMHO, the
salary may be very high in the nordic countries, but with the weather the
have, I wouldn't consider that a high quality of life.

~~~
alkonaut
That is true. I specifically meant work/life balance. Where life is considered
life even with 1h daylight and -20C outside (and I agree that might be
stretching it).

~~~
namenotrequired
You don't have to live in the polar circle to enjoy Scandinavian laws...

------
bsaul
Nobody here mentions anying about the very _peculiar_ banking system that let
the swiss economy get a huge chunk of the illegaly made money of the world?

Of course, you can have a very generous social security system and a great
transport infrastructure when you've been financed by crime for decades.

It's probably not the only reason of course, and we surely have many smart
things to learn from this country.

~~~
alkonaut
The discussion, quite correctly, isn't about Switzerland vs. the U.S. but
about northern/Western Europe vs the U.S. since everything in the article
applies pretty generally (sometimes even more) also e.g in the Nordic
countries.

Some outliers (Norway, Switzerland) have weird economies, but others such as
Finland don't.

------
asdfologist
Can someone here elucidate the downsides to living in Switzerland, over the
US, particularly for those in the HN crowd?

~~~
mercurialshark
I hardly "lived" there, but I found the culture to be lacking a sense of
silliness and in general less personable. It's like what they say about German
comedy, it's no laughing matter.

I still really like Switzerland.

~~~
fla
It's important to note that there are 3 different regions (German, French and
Italian) which all have their own 'sub-culture'.

Behaviors can be quite different ;)

~~~
markvdb
Plus the Romansh area in Graubünden:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language)
.

------
xyz03
I'm Swiss and I have been working in the US for a few years and some
prejudices resonate with me. However, there are also some explanations for
this: Xenophobia: Swiss are probably less xenophobic than other countries I
have experienced (including the US where I was mildly surprised about some
things. Of course you shouldn't tell it loudly at your work-place). About one
third of the population in Switzerland are foreigners and the number has been
strongly increasing in the last few years. I think Swiss are fed up about
"soldiers" (aka expats) and other foreigners that don't want to integrate. I
had some bosses that didn't speak German and also didn't understand that some
things are socially unacceptable. Unlike other countries, there is rarely
violence towards foreigners. Banks: I worked in banking. Other countries do
the same as Switzerland. When you go to a German bank just over the border as
a Swiss until recently, they will tell you that you can hide your money there
and tax authorities in Switzerland won't know. I won't speak of Delaware,
Miami, Singapore, Hong Kong and all these other places. The US is well-know
for having ambiguous policies. Bankers in Miami are specialized in taking
money from Latin America. Prices: Prices are a lot higher for certain things.
You can go shopping in Germany to save money. Some other items, e.g.
electronics, are cheaper except for the US. Expect to pay high prices for
rent, meat, vegetable, other fixed costs (health insurance, electricity etc.).
However, the money left after your fixed costs is a lot more than the average
person in another country. And to revert back to xenophobia, there are
foreigners that somehow are unaware of the prices and accept low offers. Swiss
don't like them very much. Working: I worked in New York (not the US I know).
I worked on a fixed two-year contract, so I couldn't be terminated. My US
colleagues had an at-will contract. I always thought it crazy what my
colleagues were willing to put up with. When they got a better offer, they
just disappeared within a few days. But I had to adapt because I was the
foreigner and the Swiss nowadays also expect you better adapt and integrate
(see xenophobia) or you better leave Switzerland. Although I lived in the US
for some time, I'm a strong supporter of limiting the number of foreigners in
Switzerland. It's not in Switzerland's interest but more in the interest of
employers who try to take advantage of it.

~~~
chrisper
So which country do you prefer?

------
anon4
_60% work time_

Oh man, I've been asking for this at almost every company. "Hey, can I work 4
days a week for 80% of the salary?" "WHAT? NO! Think of all the synergy
collaboration meeting time you'll miss you won't be able to communicate
without being present all of the time what if someone needs to talk to you
during the week you must have the same schedule to maximise the convergence
serendipity" "Oh well... what about work hours?" "We have a flexible system.
We have people coming in as early as 7 and ones arriving as late as 12, both
are fine as long as you do 8 hours"

I didn't have the heart to tell them.

------
colordrops
On the flip side, living in China for nine years made me appreciate many of
the good things in the US.

------
carsongross
"Now that I’m back, I’m angry that my own country isn’t providing more for its
people."

If you want Switzerland in the U.S. there is only one option: break the U.S.
up into distinct, smaller countries that are able to foster a common culture
that can be relied upon to solve the prisoners dilemma inherent in all social
welfare schemes.

A side benefit for our friends abroad: maybe we'll stop bombing the shit out
of the rest of the world.

~~~
myth_buster
The US was like this some years earlier. Those were the prosperous years where
everyone was capable of achieving the American dream. Then the tax cuts for
industries came into effect and the middle class bore the blunt of it and
dwindled. The wealthy are able to avoid this since they can afford to pay an
army of lawyers to channel their wealth through loopholes. A social safety net
is essential for progress. There are quite a few examples of entrepreneurs who
were able to make it because they were not starving to death. Also going
bankrupt due to ailments is ridiculous! The tension brewing up in various
parts of the country is a sign of the inequality and corruptness in the
system. And the solution is not to split the country but to fix the broken
system.

~~~
carsongross
_And the solution is not to split the country but to fix the broken system._

Leaving aside the preposterous rewriting of U.S. history in your comment (the
US was never like modern Switzerland, even when it was significantly more
homogenous), your goal is not possible with the current size and cultural
diversity of the US.

If you want social safety nets, you need a homogeneous culture that stresses
(irrationally) not taking advantage of them, thereby making them sustainable.

I know this is not a happy thought for you. It was not for me, as well, for
quite some time.

~~~
myth_buster
I came from the other end wherein I believed social safety net and welfares
breeds parasitic behavior. But now I've come to believe the benefits of those
programs outweigh the negative aspect where a section may starts taking undue
advantage of it.

In the absence of such safety nets, I think people will go for more safer bets
which make them financially stable as opposed to riskier bets which may bring
innovation but could also endanger their livelihood.

~~~
carsongross
Irrelevant and historically dubious.

Without a strong common culture that solves the prisoners dilemma of social
safety-nets, they will collapse. If you want Switzerland, you need Swiss.

~~~
myth_buster
The "prisoners dilemma" arises from politicians & the people in power playing
society for their benefits. Homogeneity is not a necessary condition.

~~~
carsongross
Historically incorrect. Thanks for playing, kid.

------
valleyhut
I had a similar experience to the author. Despite earning tons of money in the
Bay Area, life quality here just doesn't compare to Europe.

~~~
nnoitra
Can you tell us more about that?

------
pluckytree
Interesting read but I think the author makes a false conclusion that taxes on
wealth is better than taxes on income. If the US income-based tax system
really _were_ progressive in practice, then you could compare apples to
apples. A wealth-based system could be just as non-progressive if there were
similar ways around paying your fair share like there is in the US.

Given systems that are equally difficult to circumvent, the type of taxes that
would be most beneficial are those that don’t punish earning income and saving
and investing money. Things like sales taxes, consumption taxes, and
transaction taxes discourage consumption and also discourage financial system
manipulation by the super-wealthy.

But I think the Swiss succeed despite this because they have a much more
compassionate view towards their fellow citizens and are willing to pay higher
taxes if it’s used for things that genuinely make people lives better rather
than line the pockets of big business and cronies. Also, US workers have a
terrible work ethic and an adversarial relationship with their employers. If
you feel you should get more out an employer than you give them, you’re not
really understanding how the system works. If you provide high productivity
and there is mutual interest in the company succeeding, then taking time off
or working a normal work schedule is not anything an employer would need to
argue about. A company has to make money in order to hire people. They aren’t
a public service. If you’re not productive, then you are probably going to
have to work longer hours so that the company can succeed enough to keep your
job.

And in general, Americans are greedy. It’s what brought people here as a young
country and it’s in our DNA. What works in Switzerland probably can’t really
work here. But what actually could work is to use economic incentives to try
to encourage a healthier economy. Instead, we waste our time thinking that
taxing the rich more is the solution to everything. Sure, they should pay more
than lower income people do, but it’s a multi-layered problem.

~~~
bmelton
> But I think the Swiss succeed despite this because they have a much more
> compassionate view towards their fellow citizens

From what I've heard, that is predominately only true so long as their fellow
citizens are sufficiently "like them".

~~~
seunosewa
It's a human thing, not a Swiss thing. Which is why homogenous countries have
more sane political systems.

------
dola
> Switzerland immediately taxes dividends at a maximum of 35 percent [...]

This is not quite true. They do impose a 35% tax on all dividends and interest
of bank accounts (if the amount is over 200 Swiss Francs) but you get that
back when filing your tax return. However you will have to pay income tax on
dividends and interest. The goal is to ensure people don't commit tax evasion
by not declaring some of their wealth. [1]

[1]: [https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-
compilation/19650189/...](https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-
compilation/19650189/index.html) (in German)

------
andresmanz
Living in Switzerland ruined me for America, too. Depending on where you grow
up, it's like being put in a box full of old, silly stuff, whirring through a
giant universe of interesting things. Breaking out of it can be very hard.

------
Havoc
Thanks to the way my industry is structured a bunch of my peers went overseas
for a couple of months to various countries. I paid careful attention to the
feedback & reached the same conclusion - USA is very far down on my list of
countries I'd like to work in. Something about their work/life balance culture
doesn't sit right with me. Its not that I mind hard work - I've done my fair
share of 20 hour work days...but there is a dissonance there that I just can't
quite place.

------
aramadia
Article taken down to DMCA. Heres a mirror link:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150801183904/https://ukiahcomm...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150801183904/https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/living-
in-switzerland-ruined-me-for-america-and-its-lousy-work-culture/)

------
mmaunder
How about no commute because you're working remotely from anywhere in the
world, awesome pay, the best health care coverage, dental,options (even with a
great base pay package), 401k, relaxed work culture and a company that goes
out of it's way to spoil the team. Our company and team are all US based.
Sounds like the author picked a nasty US company for her article.

~~~
Veratyr
And you're picking an unusually great company.

I think her point is more that the benefits she's talking about are average
for the Swiss, they're to be expected wherever you work by default and they're
not just for tech industry workers.

In the US, they're something so unusual that you feel lucky for having them,
even if you work in the tech industry.

~~~
mmaunder
And my point is that hers is very one-sided and there's some serious selection
bias going on. Living in Switzerland can actually suck. It's expensive - about
2+ times the rest of Europe and there is some serious xenophobia. Benefits in
the US are not unusual and are pretty darn good by world standards. But hey,
everyone loves a grass-is-greener post.

~~~
Veratyr
I'm sure it _can_ suck but compared to the US I think it's far better for the
majority of citizens.

I'm saying this not as a European or an American with a particular bias either
way but as an Australian who's been in both countries and frequently interacts
with their citizens. I'm also someone who's worked in "low" positions (cooked
fries at McDonald's) as well as someone who's worked in "high" positions
(Software Engineer at a rather large company) and the conditions I've noticed
in the US are just straight out bad.

I got more vacation time as a McDonald's fry cook than I do as an engineer at
one of the world's largest tech companies (20 days McDonald's, 15 in US tech).
And that company is one that's celebrated for being one of the "best" places
to work in the US for its revolutionary benefits. The majority of those
benefits are statutory back home or in the more affluent European countries.

Just have a look at some of the numbers:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_empl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_leave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_leave)

\- [http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/](http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/)
(adjust by work life balance and watch it fall even further)

The US has no statutory parental leave, vacation time, very limited sick leave
and a minimum wage that in many cases leaves full time workers living paycheck
to paycheck. Switzerland by comparison has 4 weeks statutory leave, 14 weeks
at 80% pay maternal leave, 3 weeks sick leave and while it has no government
mandated minimum wage, most of the population are covered by union agreements
giving them a minimum of $15k/year PPP adjusted
([http://www.therichest.com/business/the-top-10-countries-
with...](http://www.therichest.com/business/the-top-10-countries-with-the-
highest-minimum-wages/?view=all)), one of the highest in the world.

Sure there are some people who have it better in the US than Switzerland but
the people right at the bottom get a lot more benefits from Switzerland than
they do from America.

~~~
mmaunder
And I think that's where we differ. Your focus is on the people 'right at the
bottom', as is the focus of many who engage in this kind of debate. I tend to
look at the whole picture: Those at the bottom, working class salarymen and
women in the middle, innovators at the top, middle-class employees who want to
become entrepreneurs and job creators and those at the bottom who want to do
the same.

I'm a South African immigrant to the United States. I've lived in the UK and
worked there for 5 years. I've also lived in France for a year, spent 8 months
in Brazil and have family there, lived in the US for over a decade and been an
employee, startup founder and now executive. I've traveled extensively. My
first real job was scraping a harbor crane boom down to the metal and painting
it while covered in metal dust, paint and solvent - and for a wage that makes
minimum wage in the USA look like a kings ransom.

So I have been at the bottom, I've been a low level techie in a laser printer
repair company, I've been a top tier developer and I've starved while starting
a company. I've also created a company that creates jobs for others and that
is continuing to do so.

I think you and I and the rest of the readers see that click-baity blog post
for what it is. At least I hope you do. It's a sample of one and is rather
opinionated.

The Swiss have their issues too - I've already mentioned xenophobia - add to
that harboring tax evaders, banning the building of mosques (minaret
controversy), banning asylum seekers from entering public places in certain
towns, and a long complicated history of putting money before morals. But the
Swiss and their country are not what I take issue with.

My issue is that I'm tired of the constant whining drum beat that the USA is
so bloody awful and we should look at place X, Y or Z as a shining light of
how amazing things could be.

I'm 41 and I've been around the World and around the block a few times. Trust
me when I tell you that the difference between developing countries and the
USA is staggering in terms of personal security, quality of life, healthcare
(Yup. Just look at the number of CT/PET scan machines and speed of diagnosis
of fast moving diseases like cancer) and opportunity. What this means is that
the USA is doing a hell of a lot better at creating an awesome quality of life
than most of the rest of the World. So cherry picking a prosperous country and
suggesting that the USA is a disaster is absurd.

Sure, you want cake instead of bread, but both do a really great job of
feeding you and most of your brethren around the World have neither. So lets
cut the debate, enjoy your bread, open a bakery, employ your brothers and
sisters and then do it all over again.

This country really is the land of the free because we get to publicly and
loudly speak our minds and explore new ideas without persecution. [I grew up
under horrible censorship during Apartheid]. It's the land of the brave
because it's filled with innovators who go broke multiple times (like I did)
before they earn the privilege of creating jobs, paying more tax and creating
useful things. And believe it or not, many of the 1% that are so hated by such
a small but very vocal minority in the USA take huge risks with their own
money to help fund other entrepreneurs who want to bet everything on creating
a business. And those investors do it with incredible empathy and generosity
in my experience.

So I say again: I'm tired of these vitriolic attacks on this country, the so
called 'one percent' and on businesses who are run by real human beings. Damn
right we're far from perfect and there is a lot we can improve upon. But
framing this country as a disaster and using that as a departure point for
discussing how to improve things is getting really old.

------
cmarschner
Fwiw, this article contains a graphic summarizing vacation days in different
EU and non-EU countries. Surprisingly, Portugal and Austria lead the pack:
[http://m.welt.de/wirtschaft/article144702793/Der-Mann-der-
se...](http://m.welt.de/wirtschaft/article144702793/Der-Mann-der-sechs-Monate-
im-Jahr-Urlaub-macht.html) There's another graphic where people were asked how
much vacation they prefer. Not surprisingly, many want more than what they
have... The article, by the way, is about an American who works for only six
months per year. That's all possible unless you want to get some financial
security (sickness, age, family) or if you are lucky and have a nicely paid
seasonal job. I do know examples of people like that - the operators of a
sailing/surf school/café, for example, who only work between March and
September, but then often 12 hour days.

------
lordnacho
I live in Switzerland, and have lived in two other countries. Also have lots
of connections in the US. Here's my take:

1) You have work-life balance, but it is forced on you. Especially women. If
you go out around noon, you will see loads of school kids walking home to get
their lunch. Full time childcare is CHF30K at my local nursery. School is
free, but lunch will cost you extra. And the nursery has holidays, btw. So if
you're working you need to either find someone to take the kid, or you have to
spend your holiday when the nursery is on holiday. When it comes to school,
the kids will probably have more holiday than you, so I don't know wtf people
do. Relatives seem to play a big part, especially grandparents.

2) Stuff is expensive here. Everyday stuff just costs a silly amount compared
to across the border in Germany or France. Local builders cost a fortune to
hire, again compared to across the border. And they're not even local, just
foreign guys getting arbed by the local cartel.

3) Sure, you get 80% of salary, for two years, up to a max insured salary of
CHF10500, not bad. But you pay for that, too. Or your employer does, so you
are paying too. It's about 20%, according to my accountant. And when you do go
on unemployment, there's a guy who treats you with much suspicion handling
your case. And they still have the same circus of sending you on mandatory
courses of zero benefit that they have in other countries.

4) Tax is reasonable. I should say you don't get to keep 95% of the salary.
There's a good 10% or so that's a sort of forced saving that goes into a
pension pot. It's your money though. And wealth tax isn't crazy, just a
fraction of a percent most places, progressive so most people won't feel it.

5) Vacation is very different between the US and Europe. I've never been in
need of more due to being self-employed most of my life. But if I were to move
to the US as an employee, that would be one of my big marks against.

6) Sure public transport is good. But if you live outside of the big towns
it's useful to drive. And there's plenty of parking, too. Road taxes are
sensible, and car insurance is cheap.

7) I went with my wife to a birthing course for first-timers. The other
couples we met told me it was standard for paternity leave to be 2 days. And
14 weeks is on the low side in Europe, especially compared to Scandinavia. I
can't imagine what it's like in the US if she thinks Switzerland is good for
parental leave. On the plus side, the birth experience is amazing. You can get
a single room (or just upgrade if you got cheap insurance, costs a couple
grand) and the father can stay there as well, for a week. Well, that's when we
got bored. Until then it was basically like a hotel where they bring you 3
meals a day and clean the baby for you.

\- Other things to note: The job market feels rigid. There's almost no
unemployment, but as a foreigner with a foreign degree and a foreign accent,
it feels like employers are not keen to take a chance on you. The education
system seems to be a sort of silo, where every degree course has certain jobs
they send people into. In Angloland any degree will suffice for most jobs,
which is liberating. As an employer, it's hard to get people to change jobs. I
chatted with the CTO of a startup the other day, and he found far fewer good
developers here than Scandinavia, and many people didn't want to take the
chance. Going around the Zurich startup scene, you get the feeling the startup
guys are a whole other world, separate in ethos and outlook from the rest of
society.

\- There's a social awkwardness quite unlike any other society I've lived in
or known people from. Hard to describe, but people behave in strange ways
here. There's a lady across the street who comes to stare at us from her
window when we park the car. Instead of asking someone in person to move an
impractically parked car you get a note saying police will be called (she
could see us the whole time). It's generally harder to strike up a
conversation with people here (the USA is the best for this btw).

\- People don't seem to be afraid of treating foreigners differently to
everyone else. The other day my wife's car stopped working at a light and a
bus driver got out and told her this doesn't happen in Switzerland. Also hard
not to feel targeted when doing one home renovation causes two lawsuits from
guys who are clearly just chancing.

~~~
KTamasEnty
RE: car parking story, I see you have not been to Sweden before, we have
mastered the art of passive-aggressive notes here.

~~~
lordnacho
I'm not surprised. The Germanic countries have the weirdest people in terms of
social awkwardness. And I grew up in one.

------
fla
I think average wage is a bad metric.

I can't find any source ATM but I think the median salary is around $75k.

------
TYPE_FASTER
I think there are variations in American culture that are not covered here.
For example, when somebody asks "what do you do" in Boulder, Colorado, they
might be asking which outdoor sport do you do when you're not working. When
somebody asks the same question in a city like Boston or NYC, they're asking
about your job.

I'm not judging here, that's not to say Boulderites are slackers or East
Coasters only care about work, just saying that I think the comparisons made
in this article don't apply to the whole country.

------
toephu2
The author claims she was double taxed by the Swiss and American governments.
I doubt that she actually paid the U.S. taxes, as up to 100K earned abroad is
exempt. It's called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion,
[http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-
Taxpayers/Forei...](http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-
Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion)

~~~
refurb
There are plenty of errors in her article. Like when she used Romney as an
example of low taxes for the rich. She conviently failed to mention it was
because he gave a HUGE chunk of it to charity.

~~~
toephu2
technically she was right though about his tax rate, it was low because most
of his income came from long term cap gains investments

------
itaysk
While I agree with the her general message, I don't see how "The Swiss work
hard, but they have a strong work-life balance." is demonstrated in the
article. Judging by the article you work half as much as an American an earn
the more, which sound amazing, but hard? I doubt the "produce" of an average
worker in Switzerland is more then or even equal to that of an American. (PS I
am not an American)

------
chrisper
I am currently studying in the US on a visa. I WAS considering trying the H1B
route. However, the longer I am here the more I see what the "real" America is
like. Due to my European citizenship I can work in most (if not all) European
countries without the hassle I'd have here (visa application). Yes, the pay
might be lower, and yes I might not be in the start up mecca, but I never
cared about start ups.

------
mattfrommars
It's nice living in Switzerland but the OP is like works in some ad agency and
earning like 120k? How do I get a job in Swiss if I'm not from the Europe but
a third world country? Yeah Swiss life is great if coming from the US or
something. Swiss are asking for American works, they don't give a shit to
skilled labour from third world country.

~~~
comrade1
$120K is pretty average in Switzerland.

As for getting a job here, I know a handful of people from 'third-world'
countries here although the term doesn't mean as much these days (India,
China, and Brazil) and they all have MDs or PHDs.

The only other way is as a refugee, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Switzerland does give a small benefit to Americans and Canadians - we get our
C permit after just five years. But that's all as far as the benefits go. The
system is quiet rule based.

------
cletus
Ok, I have some perspective on this.

I'm Australian, lived there most of my life. I've also lived in London (3
years), Cologne (9 months), Zurich (almost 1 year) and now New York (coming up
on 5 years).

There's a lot of good things about Switzerland but there's one part of this
post I think is misleading: taxes.

The poster mentions the low rate of federal tax on the average wage. This is
only part of the story. I forget all the specifics but you had to pay:

\- federal tax

\- cantonal tax

\- tax for what part of the canton you lived in (I forget what this one is
called)

\- 3-6 mandatory insurances covering health, retirement, unemployment and so
on

Now I still think it works out rather well but don't be under any illusions it
ends at 5% federal. It does not.

In a way it's good because the other way to do this is just to tax you at a
higher rate and decide what to do with the money after the tax. The Swiss
system is definitely more transparent. You also have choice. You can choose
health insurance with a higher deductible to have lower costs. Swiss law
mandates the minimum coverage required.

Switzerland is also very expensive for day to day expenses. I seem to recall
seeing steak in Migros for 60+ CHF/kg. This was 10 years ago however.

I do remember reading about a supermarket chain in Germany that opened a store
just across the border from Basel (about an hour from Zurich) and it had the
highest turnover of any of their stores because all the Swiss went there to
shop. There were limits on imports of various products like meat into
Switzerland.

It's true that the public transportation in Switzerland is simply amazing. If
you live in a city there's really no reason to own a car. I can't speak for
more rural lifestyles.

Culturally however I think the German side of Switzerland (I have no
experience with the French or Italian sides) was difficult for expats.
Honestly I found Swiss Germans to be _incredibly_ rude and insular.

Now bear in mind I've lived in Germany (Cologne). Cologne I consider to be one
of the friendliest places I've ever been. Like I'd be at the train station and
someone would arrive and ask "Wie spaet ist es?" (what time is it?). I'd reply
and they'd know immediately I was a foreigner (Auslander) and strike up a
conversation. This happened _routinely_.

So whatever experiences you may have about German culture from Germany (and
even Germany is a very different place in the Northwest vs the more
conservative South vs the old East vs Berlin), Swiss Germans are something
else.

Housing is interesting. They have (or had at least when I was there) low
interest rates (~3.5%) but owning a house then deemed you with the income that
house would get if you rented it out but that was offset by the interest you
paid. So no one paid off their mortgages.

Also, Switzerland punitively taxes capital gains on real estate. The idea I
think is to not create a speculative market in real estate as they consider
that bad. So there weren't the huge swings in property values you might see in
the US or Australia. That's probably good.

Still there are criticisms. Like the richest areas have the lowest taxes. This
could apply in Zurich (the Gold Coast I think it was called along the east
bank of Lake Zurich) or some even stayed out of the canton and, say, lived in
Zug, choosing to commute each day (it's about 30-45 minutes to central
Zurich).

The details may have changed but when I was there when you got a work permit
(a B residence permit) it was basically a work visa. After 3 years it
automatically converted to a C permit, which was essentially a residence
permit, and you could stay as long as you kept renewing it.

This is in stark contrast to the US system with H1B lotteries and the
gruelling torture that is the green card process.

One other thing worth noting was that unless you married someone Swiss it's
almost impossible to get Swiss citizenship. I seem to recall reading about
families that have lived there for 3 generations since the 1920s and were
still residents.

You'll note that after being there 10 years the poster still said they had a
residence permit. That won't change.

I'm a little surprised they got residence permits at all actually. One
consequence of the tighter integration into Europe (it's much easier to get a
work permit as an EU citizen now than it was 15 years ago) is that it became
more difficult for non-EU citizens to get one. I'd be curious to know what her
husband does/did.

As for the US, I live in New York and as others have said to me New York isn't
the US. Not really. I like it here and I'm probably going to stay. As much as
I like Switzerland (and everywhere you go really is a postcard) I'm not sure I
could live there permanently.

I'd be wary of saying the Swiss way of doing things is better because, to me,
the Swiss system probably isn't sustainable in the general case.

Switzerland prospered as a center of banking and of being ostensibly neutral
(eg being spared the horrors of WW2). It's a bit like Monaco. I hear Monaco is
amazing but Monaco is a haven for the wealthy that essentially cherrypicks its
residents. Switzerland isn't quite that but it's similar.

In Geneva for example you have many workers who live in France and commute
every day (there's a special work permit for this).

~~~
vitobcn
I am not American nor Swiss but have lived for multiple years in both
countries and can echo your sentiment.

> The poster mentions the low rate of federal tax on the average wage. This is
> only part of the story.

In my experience, when considering EVERYTHING (e.g. remaining net monthly
salary) the overall tax rate in the US (California) and Switzerland ended up
being similar and around 30%. However, in the surrounding countries from the
Eurozone, tax rates for similar income brackets tend to be significantly
higher.

To be honest, I did like living in Switzerland, but my feeling is that a lot
of the benefits they enjoy arise from arbitrage situations with neighboring
countries. Taking your example from shopping at Marktkauf [1] (right across
the German border in Basel), people living in Switzerland massively go there
for multiple reasons:

    
    
       1) prices are generally much cheaper, and on top of it 
       2) being from outside the EU you can get the 18% tax rate back, so essentially you can shop tax free and bring it over the border for no fees up to 300 chf/day.
    

Similarly, there's a tonne of P.O. box services in the same town allowing you
to buy stuff from EU Amazon sites at lower prices and ship it to the P.O. box
address in Germany, pick it up and take it over the border.

In general, probably Switzerland has opened up in the last few years, but it
still feels like a very traditional (even old-fashioned) country deeply rooted
in its own ways of doing things, in spite of a very large foreign population,
e.g. around 23% of its population (from [2] and [3]) are foreign residents,
who live there but have NO right to vote.

[1]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marktkauf/@47.5901807,7.59...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marktkauf/@47.5901807,7.5920321,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xd8076ee8f0965e6)

[2]:
[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL)

[3]:
[http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/01/07/bla...](http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/01/07/blank/key/01/01.html)

------
mariusmg
Oh, poor you....You should come work in Romania (where i am ) and see how it
is.

------
aalhour
Can anyone explain if this holds true for international companies, say for
example Facebook, Google or Amazon? Are the Swiss offices, if any, this
different than the States offices?

------
hippich
What surprised me - average salary of $90k+. Does someone have any insight
what this country produce to be able to pull of such pretty significant wages?

~~~
hippich
It also appears that this $90k+ is less than GDP per capita -
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:CHE:NOR:DEU&hl=en&dl=en)
which is really weird.

------
hrshtr
I had the same feeling when I moved from India to US. May be its Swiss time,
and I dont have to pay big portion of my income to US.

------
zak_mc_kracken
tl;dr: America sucks for work when you don't have a college degree.

Too bad OP doesn't realize that this applies outside of America too.

------
guelo
The reason American's benefits are so stingy is because of racism. White
people do not want any benefits going to blacks.

------
loblollyboy
How is all of that sustainable? Are us Americans just being massively lied to?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Not necessarily. The United States just harbors an enormous amount of path
dependence.

------
ausjke
Size matters. Switzerland shall be compared to Singapore etc instead of US.

------
TravisJamison
This was just painful to read about how little the author understands about
basic economics and the privileges afforded to that ONE tiny nation.

~~~
amag
Yeah, only it's mostly true for the rest of EU as well which means that
similar privileges are enjoyed by some 400M people, not so tiny nation now,
eh?

------
zobzu
i pay 45% tax in the usa. time to move ;)

~~~
chrisper
Moving won't help you if you are a US citizen.

~~~
zobzu
im not, thats part of why i pay 45%.

------
rebootthesystem
As is always the case, these comparisons are almost always ideologically
biased nonsense.

What I am saying is that you can't compare two countries with such dissimilar
profiles without examining and making sense of a lot of data. And you
certainly can't conclude that one has a great work culture and the other does
not.

Just a few data points...

    
    
        Population
        US 320,000,000
        CH   8,000,000
        
        Employment among 15 to 65 year old population:
        US  67%
        CH  80%
    
        Tourism (arrivals):
        US 60,000,000
        CH  8,600,000 (yes, more people visit than live there)
    
        Employment
        US 123 million
        CH 4.2 million
    
        Number of businesses
        US  18,200,000
        CH     160,000
    
        Number of billionaires
        US  615
        CH   29
    
        Foreign aid (given to other countries)
        US  30,154,000,000 (it's actually double this number if grants and loans included)
        CH   2,295,000,000
    
        GDP
        US 18,125,000,000,000
        CH    688,000,000,000
    
        Tax revenue:
        US  3,001,721,000 
        CH    217,900,000 
    
        Deficit/Surplus
        US -648,805,000
        CH    3,400,000
    
        National Debt
        US  18,540,448,667,000  (58,437 per capita; 106% of GDP)
        CH   1,610,897,000,000  (154,063 per capita; 229% of GDP)
    
    

It's interesting to see that the debt to gdp ratio is CH is astronomically
high. Three times that of the US with a GDP that is 26 TIMES smaller. While
the budget is balanced right now it seems that a huge amount of debt has been
piled-up, perhaps to support the standard of living? This is conjecture on my
part, I don't know.

Clearly in the US we can do a lot better. And we do this by voting the right
people into office. We are at a point where fiscal responsibility isn't an
interesting concept but rather a requirement for survival. What we have been
doing is not sustainable in the long term, not even close. So, tax and spend
needs to go out the window. And no, we can't fix it by taxing the rich.

The differences are huge and, while it might feels good to write a blog post
trashing the US, the reality is that nobody --blog post writers and people
posting comments on HN-- ever seems to want to take a few hours to throw
numbers up on a spreadsheet, build some economic models and try to understand
the underlying data. That's where the truth lies. Not in how we feel. That's
all bullshit. Everybody feels great just before a tsunami. Yet, the earthquake
that triggers it has been building-up underground for years, for decades or
centuries. What matters are the numbers. Most everything else is complete
nonsense.

I'd like someone to explain the impact of a per-capita debt of over $150K and
229% of GDP on the People's Republic of Switzerland. A house of cards looks
great until the reality that is happens to be a house of cards has to be
confronted.

Don't argue with me with feelings or ideology. Put numbers up on a spreadsheet
and figure it first.

In the end, we are all bailing water in one way or the other. And a lot of
what's going on points very solidly at China, in more ways than one.

~~~
jsnell
> I'd like someone to explain the impact of a per-capita debt of over $150K
> and 229% of GDP on the People's Republic of Switzerland.

The explanation is simply that you're using the wrong data. Kind of
embarrassing for someone who is complaining about how nobody else understands
the importance of numbers and spreadsheets.

The number you've marked as "national debt" is actually "external debt", which
is a totally irrelevant statistic. It's the amount of debt owed to entities in
different countries by business, invididuals and the the government. It's
particularly meaningless because it's only looking at debts rather than both
debts and credits. Switzerland is in fact a net international creditor.

The number you should be using is the government debt. Unfortunately it's
going to be pretty bad for your incredibly insulting "People's Republic of
Switzerland" narrative. That'd be 34% of GDP for CH, 102% for USA.

~~~
rebootthesystem
The statistics came from a European government website where they listed US
and European nation government debt. Since the US number was right I had no
reason to doubt the veracity of the other numbers.

The greater point here isn't the accuracy of numbers I quickly pulled out of a
few websites. I simply wanted to point out that saying "I lived in <insert
country> for <years> and <this other country> is lousy" is nonsense without
engaging a serious study of the numbers.

I wasn't about to spend a whole day writing a research paper because, well, I
am not the one making the claim that Switzerland's shit don't stink.

Is the US perfect? Nope. We are as fucked as can be. And, at the same time, we
still remain the land of opportunity and the place from where vast amounts of
innovation continue to come from. A simply comparison of the tech startup
ecosystem alone shows there are huge differences that need to be evaluated and
accounted for.

In other words, if the utopia of Switzerland is so remarkably better than the
crap we have here in the US, why is it that Silicon Valley hasn't migrated to
Switzerland or that most of the major science and tech companies aren't
founded and based out of Switzerland?

To me Switzerland is an aberration. Either it is a house of cards or it is the
luckiest 8 million people on the planet. Time will tell.

------
justwannasing
She works almost seven days a week and blames the US for that? Never in my
life have I worked seven days in a week, and I own my own business! (Granted,
I did when we started up for a few months.)

And then she claims her $30,000 salary, at seven days a week, turns out to be
the equivalent of minimum wage? On which planet? At $7.25 an hour, times 56
hours (7 days at 8 hours per day) times 52 weeks (though she got 10 days off)
equals $21,112.

This article is of ill repute.

------
curiousjorge
Reminds me of a local recruiter from a while back who wouldn't stop calling,
emailing and then resorted to sending messages on twitter (creeped me out)
asking if I was interested in a 1~3 month contract with a fairly esoteric
stack with no overtime pay and a generous minimum wage, no lunch, 4 hour
commute. I told him no and he asked if I knew anyone else that would be
interested.

------
comrade1
Happy Swiss National Day Switzerland!

You've been a democracy since 1292(?). Good luck and hopefully you'll be
independent and free for another 800 years.

~~~
bbu
Nope, about 160years.

------
notNow
From now on, we should call it "The Swiss Dream" and let go of any
preconceptions that America is the land of opportunity and the proof is in the
pudding by the much higher average annual income earned by the Swiss over
their US peers despite the longer hours they put in and the jobs that enslaved
them for eternity.

------
NAFV_P
Yesterday I finished a job in Cheltenham, England. The post was 50 weeks long.
The commute to and back from work came to around two and a half to three
hours. Often I would feel physically sick on the bus due to insufficient rest.
I would go to work even though I felt unwell. This includes dealing with a
trapped ulnar nerve which means my arm and shoulder ache all day, and is
aggravated by using a laptop.

I pushed myself too hard, but this can occur when you are expected to work
till you drop dead from exhaustion. This is what my first supervisor expected
of me, because she thought I was a low life piece of shit. I had hardly any
experience in insurance, especially claims which a lot of people in the
building considered to be the sharp end of the business. Administration on a
new claim was estimated on average to take around 90 minutes, it took me a day
and a half. I was furnished with written procedure notes (about 40 pages
worth), a laptop with no mouse and told to get on with it. I didn't consider
this to be unfair, because this is the attitude I have experienced in most of
my jobs. I had been in my new role for two days when I was given this task.
All the thanks I got was a casual remark from my supervisor "Well, that's our
Christmas bonus gone isn't it."

I was often shouted at in the office. Being an open plan space this behaviour
was witnessed by about 80 other people. If my queries were not understood at
first, the response I would get is "WHAT?!". When the day ended and the office
was mostly empty, my supervisor's behaviour became very hostile.

The experience was incredibly stressful. My ulnar nerve issue worsened, so now
it feels like I have a knife stuck in my little finger. Also I became so
nervous about making a mistake (because my mistakes were over emphasised) that
I worked at a rate about 4 times slower than my colleagues. Trust in my proof
reading ability was lost, so I would check every single lexicon in a letter of
correspondence and rereading my work nearly a dozen times. Some people would
recognise this as OCD. I was considered incapable of performing my role, a bit
offensive I might add.

I have a suspicion that I was treated like this partially because I am
genetically male. My hope is to get a new job in the company's call center,
and occasionally I would dress as a woman (or most of the time). I would like
to see how I am treated by my ex supervisor/torturer while wearing a skirt,
and how someone who is quite religious reacts to someone slowly coming out as
transgender. I recently referred to her as a "fucking bitch" in a conversation
with one of my other work colleagues. I regret that a lot, because (s)he isn't
a real woman, and I'm more of a woman than she'll ever be.

