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I remember when I was young (+40 years ago), many Swiss private banks would only hire Swiss people. That rule was due to the French IRS equivalent having their
by IdontRememberIt 7y ago
I remember when I was young (+40 years ago), many Swiss private banks would only hire Swiss people. That rule was due to the French IRS equivalent having their own employees sent to Switzerland and hired by Swiss bank. They were mole transmitting confidential information about French clients. So these private banks had to restore trust and security.
Honestly still today, for some critial jobs, I do not understand companies not hiring local people (whatever nationality) with their friends and whole family (parents, cousins, etc) in the country. The cost of treason is higher (if they need to escape the country).
It is not bullet proof, but it mitigates the risk.
But it looks like banks have a short memory (This guy was a sysadmin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herv%C3%A9_Falciani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herv%C3%A9_Falciani
- sneak 7y agoIt is racist to assume that someone’s place of birth determines their allegiances.
- greggyb 7y agoNo it's not. Some form of prejudice, certainly, but not racism.
- peteradio 7y agoThats a pretty inclusive view on what racism is.
- Dig1t 7y agoIn 2019, anything mildly differing from one's own opinion can be said to be racist.
- IdontRememberIt 7y agoToday, most of the people do not accept to be "offended" by hearing/reading a different opinion. It is so sad... A healthy Socratic debate between people of opposite views is today almost impossible.
- anotherboffin 7y agoI really don't think racist is the term to describe this discrimiation, since you could hardly say Swiss and French are from a different race. edit: clarification
- IdontRememberIt 7y agoIt was a matter of nationality (family bounds, schools you attended, school/univeristy friends, friends, etc), not race. A Swiss being black could have been hired. Switzerland is a small village, so if you break the law, everybody will know it. So locals tend to respect the law (social pressure). Today a company would be bbqed in the news paper for such a heavy policy.
- president 7y agoBy your logic, people from all nations should be able to get top secret government security clearances. Let me know how that works out.
- haditab 7y agoNo. By his logic "birth place" shouldn't be the determining factor. FYI, birth place does not determine nationality.
- Dirlewanger 7y agoWhile that's true, personally I'm ok with birth place being a restriction for some things e.g. in order to run for President in the US, one needs to be born in the US, not merely a citizen. Not sure how it is in other Western countries.
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- djakjxnanjak 7y agoI don’t think that’s true - John McCain was born in Panama. The rule is they have to be a citizen at birth.
- fzeroracer 7y agoThe problem with this logic is that when applied, it can absolutely be racist. For example, in your example what happens to those born in say, Puerto Rico? Are they barred from running for president because they weren't born in the US?
- sidlls 7y agoNaturalized citizens are often more trustworthy than citizens by birth.
- deogeo 7y agoBut is it true? Because speaking as someone living abroad, it's certainly true for me.
- pishpash 7y agoFunny that, I've heard it that it's barbaric to use uninvolved family as blackmail for an individual's liabilities. Guess not when it's suggested by "non-Barbaric" peoples!
- IdontRememberIt 7y agoNot blackmail. Social Pressure.
- duxup 7y agoWhen worked as technical support we had some large banks as customers who insisted everyone who worked their cases be US citizens. We worked with some semi sensitive technical data, but nothing directly banking related. A few banks required drug and credit checks (the credit checks were just dumb). Amusingly they were happy to hire on connected people in less friendly nations when operating overseas. I think the citizen thing was reasonable, credit check maybe not.
- radicalbyte 7y ago> credit checks (the credit checks were just dumb). Credit checks are extremely smart. People who are financially vulnerable are high risk.
- duxup 7y agoI wonder how accurate that is. There's plenty of evidence of folks who are desperate doing desperate things... but also plenty of people doing bad things simply for "more" money. As far as financal status goes I'm not sure how good an indicator this is, for say a support role where you may or may not interact with a bank.
- radicalbyte 7y agoTake the case of this American politician: https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/wsj-kushner-failed-to-disclose-more-than-1-billion-of-debt-on-his-security-clearance-form-E5gngtokPUa-0njyM7kBQg/ https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/wsj-kushn... The guy's family has a massive debt. He was denied security clearance because that debt makes him a big risk. His party somehow push it through (politicians, sigh) and now he has been bailed out by the Saudi regime (iirc he's foreign secretary to Saudi Arabia or something - the top politician responsible for that country). In potentially sensitive or powerful positions it's only prudent to look at how susceptible someone is to being influenced. The news is full of stories of people committing fraud to pay for gambling debts. Treason isn't exactly far off of that..
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- dekhn 7y agohhahah, I remember a meeting with Roche (swiss drug company) where they said their SAP admins had to be swiss citizens. Not German, Not French and definitely not Italian was how he said it.
- IdontRememberIt 7y agoAlso, +20 years ago, in the big Swiss banks, you could go up in the (top) management almost only if you were an officer in the army. Times have changed. hehe
- Simulacra 7y agoEveryone at my firm must be a United States citizen.
- yding 7y agoThe people mentioned in the article are Americans. Also discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and national origin is illegal: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/ethnicdisc https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/ethnicdisc
- Melchizedek 7y agoBut if other "Americans" (maybe even with dual citizenship) of the same ethnicity and background have a propensity to spy on behalf of their country of origin, then it seems reasonable to be extra careful with such individuals.
- kushti 7y agoStill, the discrimination is illegal and violates human rights (also, modern societies do not have a notion of collective responsibility).