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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 di

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 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  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.

jsnell 11y ago

> 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 11y ago
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.