11 ms·

It better be, given the cost of living and the salaries here… :-) On a more serious note, although I have no idea how this report was produced, one might note

by HSO 10y ago

It better be, given the cost of living and the salaries here… :-) On a more serious note, although I have no idea how this report was produced, one might note that it was produced by the WEF (a business-friendly Swiss organisation) and that it may well be part of the ongoing political debate in Switzerland on how to implement the referendum result on restricting immigration. I'm not saying it's right, wrong, objective, or not, I honestly have no opinion. Just providing some context.

jahnu 10y ago
Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.
- PetitPrince 10y ago
  Proximity to both ETH and EPFL, two relatively well regarded academic institutions ? Full disclosure: I'm certainly biased since I'm both Swiss and a recent graduate from EPFL.
  - jahnu 10y ago
    Interesting. How many people do they snap up from there though?
  - jsnell 10y ago
    Mostly irrelevant. I would be surprised if more than 10% of the Zurich-based Google engineers are Swiss or products of the Swiss education system.
    - ucaetano 10y ago
      Not at all. Proximity to those universities helps create a high-tech cluster, just as Ames, Stanford and Berkeley created the SF Bay Area's high-tech cluster.
      - jsnell 10y ago
        I'm not sure there is any kind of exceptional software engineering cluster in Zurich compared to other major European cities. But even if there were, it wouldn't matter to Google. There are no major network effects or cross-pollination with the ecosystem. Practically everyone who goes to work at that office is relocating from elsewhere. And if people leave, it's rarely to work at some other company in Zurich, but usually to move to another country. I'm not saying that ETHZ and EPFL aren't great universities. I just don't see any reason to believe they are a major factor in this particular case, directly or indirectly. (Just to give an idea of where my comments are coming from, I worked at Google Zurich for 4 years, and then another 4 doing a Zurich-based startup).
        ucaetano 10y ago
        That's a good point, maybe the cluster is more around physics and chemistry, and not computer science. Thanks for sharing!
    - rakyll 10y ago
      I had a big group of coworkers from EPFL when I was working for Google Switzerland. At some point, I actually questioned whether we have a bias for these schools. EPFL or ETH are definitely not something I'd consider as just "Swiss education system". These schools are what Stanford or Berkeley are in their region, and are highly international.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- HSO 10y ago
  Well, in Google's case, there's ETH Zurich. Just today, I saw in the newspaper (WSJ university rankings[1]) that ETH was rated top of the pops globally in computer science. (On a related note, I remember vaguely that Disney built a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team.[2]) Also, in the good old times (= before the rise of right-wing populism and the referendum) Google could attract good people from all over Europe here because in terms of living standard and salary, it could be considered a step up from almost anywhere else in Europe. Plus the central location and the infrastructure. I think in the grand scheme of things, Zurich/Switzerland has a lot to offer. I've always felt that people who argue against Switzerland only on the basis of the high salaries and cost of living are a bit like people who argue against Apple on the basis of "speeds and feeds". There's a lot more to being business-friendly than being cheap. But yeah, who knows, all this may change now, as indeed the report warns. Openness is a pretty big deal for a small, open economy like Switzerland. ______________ [1] EDIT: Just checked again, it was the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, as reported in the WSJ today. Direct link to table here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/subject-ranking/computer-science#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... [2] EDIT: Got curious from writing this and landed on their homepage. Their first sentence starts with: "Our lab in Zürich is perfectly placed for easy access to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH)…" That kind of drives the point home, doesn't it? ;-) Source: https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/disney-research-zurich/ https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/disney-research...
  - erichocean 10y ago
    > I remember vaguely that Disney has a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team. They do amazing work, actually. Some seriously good CG researches in Zurich.
  - __mp 10y ago
    Disney Research Zürich is super awesome. I did my master thesis there
    - 10y ago
- anonymousDan 10y ago
  Almost certainly proximity to EPFL and ETH.
- guest 10y ago
  "Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example." The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like, Swiss is well known for it around Europe. That it hasn't been dealt with is not strange since we live in the age of hidden plutocracy (trading outposts and the like exist in many countries for the rich to circumvent the law - this should put Brexit in a new light for some). Things are slowly changing for the better as people start to realise what is the real problem within society (or rather outside society), but seing as what happened to the "Panama" leak where the concentraded information wasn't released and basically ICIJ sat on it for a year or so (the initial estimates during that time dwindles from over $62T to less than $30T, the official cause was accounting for the same money several times).
  - tonfa 10y ago
    > The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like Source? Switzerland is famous for its private banking sector and it used to be easy to hide assets for individuals (with FACTA and tax data sharing, I don't think it's as popular now, or at least the minimum amount required is way higher since banks don't want the risk). Unlike Ireland, I'm not aware of Switzerland being commonly used to reduce corporate tax (at least in IT).
    - a3camero 10y ago
      Here's a well-known Canadian Supreme Court case about transfer pricing that highlights the role of a Swiss subsidiary in a scheme to dramatically reduce taxes on income earned from selling pharmaceuticals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc
      - jomamaxx 10y ago
        Transfer pricing is not 'tax evasion' - it's 'tax avoidance'. To be clear, 'tax evasion' is illegal. Most companies do what they can to avoid paying taxes, which is rational in some ways, but they usually don't do anything illegal. It's important that we don't mix the two :)
- ucaetano 10y ago
  Taxes and payroll taxes are much lower in Switzerland than in France, for example, so an employee might cost the same to the company in both countries, but have much more net income in Switzerland. Most people don't see payroll taxes, only income taxes. Having a large percentage of foreigners and English-speakers also contributes to that, as well as the clustering effect (IBM Research has a lab in Zurich since 1956).
  - erispoe 10y ago
    The median income in Switzerland is PPP$35,083 and PPP$24,233 in France. The main difference is in healthcare, which in Switzerland is entirely private, post-payroll, and can easily amount to $500/month, whereas in France it's part public (payroll) part private. And the private part is usually paid on payroll too. Health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland, so it really is not disposable income, even if you have provider choice.
    - tibbe 10y ago
      Health insurance starts at around CHF 280/month for a 35 year old currently: https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/grundversicherung/krankenversicherung-auslaender/praemien/result?inputGuid=5782b179-2ccf-40bd-bc6a-99b4778f9b97 https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/grundversicherung/krank... You can reduce that if you opt for less choice (e.g. you can only use particular doctors) to around CHF 235/month.
    - ucaetano 10y ago
      The healthcare wouldn't even account for half of the difference. And you're not taking in account the payroll taxes. France has a combined payroll taxes of almost 40%, while Switzerland is <15%. So not only Swiss workers make more money, but they also cost less than French workers. Source: OECD, http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor-oecd http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - 10y ago
- victornomad 10y ago
  They give tax benefits to companies under certain conditions, similar to what happens in Dublin. It doesnt have to do anything with the ETH or EPFL. As far as I know most of the people working at G Zurich are not swiss. Regarding your first question... Its not the same to work in the field and sell tomatoes to sell ponzi tiered insurances or do business holding the money of the biggest "rich families" from europe.
- davidw 10y ago
  > Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example Have you seen where Google HQ is located in the US? Same story. And it's not about tax avoidance: California is not a low-tax state.
- Annatar 10y ago
  I'd love to know what the incentives are for them. ETH Zürich is among the top ten computer science schools in the world, that's what. Zürich was and is a glamorous place to live, au pair with New York, Tokyo or Milano, and after the "Brexit", Zürich is the new London now. Financial industry is withdrawing from the island and going home. Those things create incentives and an upward spiral for Zürich. And also bear in mind that Confoederatio Helvetica has some of the lowest taxes in the world; it's every American republican's wet dream in terms of that.
  - mike_hearn 10y ago
    Heh. Political bias much? I'm a Brit who lives in Zürich. I would not describe Zürich as being anywhere near as glamorous as New York nor as being the "new London". It's a lovely city to live in, but it's tiny - the entire population of Switzerland is smaller than the population of London and that reflects in the variety of things to do, things to see, services available and so on. My brother lives in London Zone 1 and I am often envious of the fantastic things that city has to offer. The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed, and the financial industry is certainly not moving to Switzerland - which is also not in the EU! Moreover, the Swiss voted against freedom of movement as well in 2014 and the implementation deadline is in February. The Swiss Parliament are busy demonstrating exactly how compatible the EU and democracy are (not at all) by attempting to push through local hiring preference laws when the referendum, which is constitutionally binding, stated explicitly that it was a vote on imposing quotas. The SVP is not happy and a fight is looming. Quite possibly the Swiss will chicken out given how evenly divided society is on the topic of immigration, but if attitudes have hardened since 2014 or if the SVP is able to turn this into a fight on the topic of democracy itself, Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed. I don't actually want the Swiss to impose immigration quotas on people like me, that can only make life more complicated, but Swiss direct democracy is an admirable thing and I am 100% convinced it's a part of the reason Switzerland is so successful. Watching the EU systematically tell voters in the most successful European countries to bend the knee is not impressing me one bit.
    - Annatar 10y ago
kowdermeister 10y ago
Is it easy to get a job in Switzerland as developer + EU citizen? Is it likely to change because of immigration regulations?
- hiou 10y ago
  Yes
  - chrisper 10y ago
    Yes to which part?
- Annatar 10y ago
  No, unless you're in a medical profession or German, or both. Try applying for a job in Switzerland and you will get so much pre-canned refusal correspondence that your head will spin. The country is overcrowded and the Swiss are not thrilled about having foreigners in their country, unless they absolutely have no choice, and even then they secretly hate it. As far as they're concerned, if you're very rich you're welcome to buy property or drop your money into Switzerland, and you're very welcome to come visit as a tourist, but everyone should stay where they come from, no-matter-what.
  - misja111 10y ago
    I don't know about other area's, but as a developer it is well doable to get a job in Switzerland. What you're saying about the Swiss hating foreigners is definitely not true, I would even say the opposite. But the competition for IT jobs is a bit more tough than in some other countries in the EU. I don't know why that is, maybe it's because of the outflow of the ETH or maybe it's just that Swiss jobs are so popular with foreigners.
pjc50 10y ago
Well, remember that this is effectively Schwab scoring how well a country agrees with them on policy. There's quite a bit of depth to it, but it's not 'directly' measuring competitiveness. It's more like racing form vs. race results. I also wonder if the very high value of the Swiss Franc artificially inflates the number, but I wasn't able to figure this out from a cursory reading.
ohthehugemanate 10y ago
The cost of living should be considered along with their income tax rate. It varies from canton (province) to canton, but hovers around 10%. That's a great deal compared to most any other European country. In neighboring Germany for instance, if you earn €55k, your tax rate is about 44% (including solidarity surcharge). In Zurich it's about 11% (canton plus federal tax). The top rates are 47% and 16%, respectively. So it's not much surprise that people want to live there, despite the high cost of living.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  In Belgium about half of your salary goes to taxes.
  - truth_sentinell 10y ago
    Is it worth it?
    - jedmeyers 10y ago
      People holding government jobs and on welfare would say "yes, definitely".
      - truth_sentinell 10y ago
        So you don't benefit at all from other people's taxes?
      - kartan 10y ago
        Government jobs like the people that takes care of mental illness, policemen trained to act in a thoughtful way, teachers, etc. I'm happy to live in a country with high taxes and a good level of services for every one. To be in San Francisco, for example, was a sad experience. There was so much money and good people, but still you could see so much homeless people in the streets.
    - roel_v 10y ago
fulafel 10y ago
> I have no idea how this report was produced Also it's based on a survey responses from corporate executives. A mean name for it might be "the country popularity contest as judged by corporate fat cats". Though the survey questions do obviously direct it towards objective pastures. Hah! The example question presented in the PR material is "In your country, to what extent is intellectual property protected?" - a poster child of where corporate executives might have a diametrically opposite view from the real makers re. what's good for the country's competitiveness.

by HSO 10y ago

jahnu 10y ago

Is the cost of living proportional to competitiveness? Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example. I'd love to know what the incentives are for them.

PetitPrince 10y ago
Proximity to both ETH and EPFL, two relatively well regarded academic institutions ? Full disclosure: I'm certainly biased since I'm both Swiss and a recent graduate from EPFL.
- jahnu 10y ago
  Interesting. How many people do they snap up from there though?
- jsnell 10y ago
  Mostly irrelevant. I would be surprised if more than 10% of the Zurich-based Google engineers are Swiss or products of the Swiss education system.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    Not at all. Proximity to those universities helps create a high-tech cluster, just as Ames, Stanford and Berkeley created the SF Bay Area's high-tech cluster.
    - jsnell 10y ago
      I'm not sure there is any kind of exceptional software engineering cluster in Zurich compared to other major European cities. But even if there were, it wouldn't matter to Google. There are no major network effects or cross-pollination with the ecosystem. Practically everyone who goes to work at that office is relocating from elsewhere. And if people leave, it's rarely to work at some other company in Zurich, but usually to move to another country. I'm not saying that ETHZ and EPFL aren't great universities. I just don't see any reason to believe they are a major factor in this particular case, directly or indirectly. (Just to give an idea of where my comments are coming from, I worked at Google Zurich for 4 years, and then another 4 doing a Zurich-based startup).
      - ucaetano 10y ago
        That's a good point, maybe the cluster is more around physics and chemistry, and not computer science. Thanks for sharing!
  - rakyll 10y ago
    I had a big group of coworkers from EPFL when I was working for Google Switzerland. At some point, I actually questioned whether we have a bias for these schools. EPFL or ETH are definitely not something I'd consider as just "Swiss education system". These schools are what Stanford or Berkeley are in their region, and are highly international.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
HSO 10y ago
Well, in Google's case, there's ETH Zurich. Just today, I saw in the newspaper (WSJ university rankings[1]) that ETH was rated top of the pops globally in computer science. (On a related note, I remember vaguely that Disney built a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team.[2]) Also, in the good old times (= before the rise of right-wing populism and the referendum) Google could attract good people from all over Europe here because in terms of living standard and salary, it could be considered a step up from almost anywhere else in Europe. Plus the central location and the infrastructure. I think in the grand scheme of things, Zurich/Switzerland has a lot to offer. I've always felt that people who argue against Switzerland only on the basis of the high salaries and cost of living are a bit like people who argue against Apple on the basis of "speeds and feeds". There's a lot more to being business-friendly than being cheap. But yeah, who knows, all this may change now, as indeed the report warns. Openness is a pretty big deal for a small, open economy like Switzerland. ______________ [1] EDIT: Just checked again, it was the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, as reported in the WSJ today. Direct link to table here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/subject-ranking/computer-science#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... [2] EDIT: Got curious from writing this and landed on their homepage. Their first sentence starts with: "Our lab in Zürich is perfectly placed for easy access to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH)…" That kind of drives the point home, doesn't it? ;-) Source: https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/disney-research-zurich/ https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/disney-research...
- erichocean 10y ago
  > I remember vaguely that Disney has a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team. They do amazing work, actually. Some seriously good CG researches in Zurich.
- __mp 10y ago
  Disney Research Zürich is super awesome. I did my master thesis there
  - 10y ago
anonymousDan 10y ago
Almost certainly proximity to EPFL and ETH.
guest 10y ago
"Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example." The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like, Swiss is well known for it around Europe. That it hasn't been dealt with is not strange since we live in the age of hidden plutocracy (trading outposts and the like exist in many countries for the rich to circumvent the law - this should put Brexit in a new light for some). Things are slowly changing for the better as people start to realise what is the real problem within society (or rather outside society), but seing as what happened to the "Panama" leak where the concentraded information wasn't released and basically ICIJ sat on it for a year or so (the initial estimates during that time dwindles from over $62T to less than $30T, the official cause was accounting for the same money several times).
- tonfa 10y ago
  > The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like Source? Switzerland is famous for its private banking sector and it used to be easy to hide assets for individuals (with FACTA and tax data sharing, I don't think it's as popular now, or at least the minimum amount required is way higher since banks don't want the risk). Unlike Ireland, I'm not aware of Switzerland being commonly used to reduce corporate tax (at least in IT).
  - a3camero 10y ago
    Here's a well-known Canadian Supreme Court case about transfer pricing that highlights the role of a Swiss subsidiary in a scheme to dramatically reduce taxes on income earned from selling pharmaceuticals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      Transfer pricing is not 'tax evasion' - it's 'tax avoidance'. To be clear, 'tax evasion' is illegal. Most companies do what they can to avoid paying taxes, which is rational in some ways, but they usually don't do anything illegal. It's important that we don't mix the two :)
ucaetano 10y ago
Taxes and payroll taxes are much lower in Switzerland than in France, for example, so an employee might cost the same to the company in both countries, but have much more net income in Switzerland. Most people don't see payroll taxes, only income taxes. Having a large percentage of foreigners and English-speakers also contributes to that, as well as the clustering effect (IBM Research has a lab in Zurich since 1956).
- erispoe 10y ago
  The median income in Switzerland is PPP$35,083 and PPP$24,233 in France. The main difference is in healthcare, which in Switzerland is entirely private, post-payroll, and can easily amount to $500/month, whereas in France it's part public (payroll) part private. And the private part is usually paid on payroll too. Health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland, so it really is not disposable income, even if you have provider choice.
  - tibbe 10y ago
    Health insurance starts at around CHF 280/month for a 35 year old currently: https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/grundversicherung/krankenversicherung-auslaender/praemien/result?inputGuid=5782b179-2ccf-40bd-bc6a-99b4778f9b97 https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/grundversicherung/krank... You can reduce that if you opt for less choice (e.g. you can only use particular doctors) to around CHF 235/month.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    The healthcare wouldn't even account for half of the difference. And you're not taking in account the payroll taxes. France has a combined payroll taxes of almost 40%, while Switzerland is <15%. So not only Swiss workers make more money, but they also cost less than French workers. Source: OECD, http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor-oecd http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - 10y ago
victornomad 10y ago
They give tax benefits to companies under certain conditions, similar to what happens in Dublin. It doesnt have to do anything with the ETH or EPFL. As far as I know most of the people working at G Zurich are not swiss. Regarding your first question... Its not the same to work in the field and sell tomatoes to sell ponzi tiered insurances or do business holding the money of the biggest "rich families" from europe.
davidw 10y ago
> Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example Have you seen where Google HQ is located in the US? Same story. And it's not about tax avoidance: California is not a low-tax state.
Annatar 10y ago
I'd love to know what the incentives are for them. ETH Zürich is among the top ten computer science schools in the world, that's what. Zürich was and is a glamorous place to live, au pair with New York, Tokyo or Milano, and after the "Brexit", Zürich is the new London now. Financial industry is withdrawing from the island and going home. Those things create incentives and an upward spiral for Zürich. And also bear in mind that Confoederatio Helvetica has some of the lowest taxes in the world; it's every American republican's wet dream in terms of that.
- mike_hearn 10y ago
  Heh. Political bias much? I'm a Brit who lives in Zürich. I would not describe Zürich as being anywhere near as glamorous as New York nor as being the "new London". It's a lovely city to live in, but it's tiny - the entire population of Switzerland is smaller than the population of London and that reflects in the variety of things to do, things to see, services available and so on. My brother lives in London Zone 1 and I am often envious of the fantastic things that city has to offer. The Brexit vote was three months ago. So far nothing has changed, and the financial industry is certainly not moving to Switzerland - which is also not in the EU! Moreover, the Swiss voted against freedom of movement as well in 2014 and the implementation deadline is in February. The Swiss Parliament are busy demonstrating exactly how compatible the EU and democracy are (not at all) by attempting to push through local hiring preference laws when the referendum, which is constitutionally binding, stated explicitly that it was a vote on imposing quotas. The SVP is not happy and a fight is looming. Quite possibly the Swiss will chicken out given how evenly divided society is on the topic of immigration, but if attitudes have hardened since 2014 or if the SVP is able to turn this into a fight on the topic of democracy itself, Switzerland may find itself on the same side as the UK very quickly indeed. I don't actually want the Swiss to impose immigration quotas on people like me, that can only make life more complicated, but Swiss direct democracy is an admirable thing and I am 100% convinced it's a part of the reason Switzerland is so successful. Watching the EU systematically tell voters in the most successful European countries to bend the knee is not impressing me one bit.
  - Annatar 10y ago

kowdermeister 10y ago

Is it easy to get a job in Switzerland as developer + EU citizen? Is it likely to change because of immigration regulations?

hiou 10y ago
Yes
- chrisper 10y ago
  Yes to which part?
Annatar 10y ago
No, unless you're in a medical profession or German, or both. Try applying for a job in Switzerland and you will get so much pre-canned refusal correspondence that your head will spin. The country is overcrowded and the Swiss are not thrilled about having foreigners in their country, unless they absolutely have no choice, and even then they secretly hate it. As far as they're concerned, if you're very rich you're welcome to buy property or drop your money into Switzerland, and you're very welcome to come visit as a tourist, but everyone should stay where they come from, no-matter-what.
- misja111 10y ago
  I don't know about other area's, but as a developer it is well doable to get a job in Switzerland. What you're saying about the Swiss hating foreigners is definitely not true, I would even say the opposite. But the competition for IT jobs is a bit more tough than in some other countries in the EU. I don't know why that is, maybe it's because of the outflow of the ETH or maybe it's just that Swiss jobs are so popular with foreigners.

pjc50 10y ago

Well, remember that this is effectively Schwab scoring how well a country agrees with them on policy. There's quite a bit of depth to it, but it's not 'directly' measuring competitiveness. It's more like racing form vs. race results. I also wonder if the very high value of the Swiss Franc artificially inflates the number, but I wasn't able to figure this out from a cursory reading.

ohthehugemanate 10y ago

The cost of living should be considered along with their income tax rate. It varies from canton (province) to canton, but hovers around 10%. That's a great deal compared to most any other European country. In neighboring Germany for instance, if you earn €55k, your tax rate is about 44% (including solidarity surcharge). In Zurich it's about 11% (canton plus federal tax). The top rates are 47% and 16%, respectively. So it's not much surprise that people want to live there, despite the high cost of living.

ekianjo 10y ago
In Belgium about half of your salary goes to taxes.
- truth_sentinell 10y ago
  Is it worth it?
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    People holding government jobs and on welfare would say "yes, definitely".
    - truth_sentinell 10y ago
      So you don't benefit at all from other people's taxes?
    - kartan 10y ago
      Government jobs like the people that takes care of mental illness, policemen trained to act in a thoughtful way, teachers, etc. I'm happy to live in a country with high taxes and a good level of services for every one. To be in San Francisco, for example, was a sad experience. There was so much money and good people, but still you could see so much homeless people in the streets.
  - roel_v 10y ago

fulafel 10y ago

> I have no idea how this report was produced Also it's based on a survey responses from corporate executives. A mean name for it might be "the country popularity contest as judged by corporate fat cats". Though the survey questions do obviously direct it towards objective pastures. Hah! The example question presented in the PR material is "In your country, to what extent is intellectual property protected?" - a poster child of where corporate executives might have a diametrically opposite view from the real makers re. what's good for the country's competitiveness.