Switzerland: a role model for everyone?

Only One Country Meets EU Criteria. It Is Not In EU

[...] Does any European country meet fully the EU’s criteria for membership? No, even Germany does not. By now, you have probably guessed that the list is likely to be as short as an amputated poodle’s tail is. “No one” would be an answer that sounds well. True it is not. But that allegation, too, would be wrong. Switzerland is the one country that meets the criteria.

The problem with this exception is that the only country in the center of the EU that surrounds it and that is stubbornly a non-member, is Switzerland. Could one say that the situation is a surprise? Not necessarily. Is it proper to state that her finances are sound although she is not a member? Hardly. The best fitting explanation is that Switzerland is OK because she is, regardless of being maligned, cajoled, pushed and extorted, not part of the EU. [...]

If a "European" model of government is going to be used by anyone, wouldn't it make sense to use a model that works well in real life? Switzerland may not be perfect (what country is?), but it's fiscally solvent, and it was smart enough not to join the EU. They're doing something right.


Also see: What can the Swiss teach us?

     

What can the Swiss teach us?

Plenty, apparently:

Learning from what works
Low taxes and financial privacy laws should be emulated

[...] In many ways, Switzerland seems unlikely to be such a long-term global success story. It is a small country with religious and language differences; nevertheless, the Swiss have managed to live peaceably together for a long time. It has few natural resources, yet it has managed to have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. It has a world-class health care system, which is privately run. Health care insurance is subsidized, and everyone has access regardless of income, but there is no "public option."

Switzerland is not perfect, but it is clean, prosperous, well-managed, pleasant, humane and very free. In the more than three decades I have been coming to Switzerland, I have been convinced that the United States and the rest of the world can learn from many things the Swiss have done. The Swiss are practical rather than ideological, but they do revere liberty. They protect private property and free markets and restrain themselves from rampant deficit spending. The Swiss maintain a sound currency, which has been rising against the euro, dollar and pound. Capital, goods and services, with few exceptions, move freely into and out of the country.

Long ago, the Swiss understood that most things government needs to do and constructively does are at the local level. So, unlike in most modern nation-states, local government has the bulk of the resources and activities, while the central government remains relatively small and less important in the daily lives of the people. In the U.S., roughly two-thirds of government is at the federal level, and one third is at the state and local level. Switzerland is just the opposite, with roughly two-thirds of government being at the state (canton) and local level. Both the United States and Switzerland are federal republics. If one reads the Federalist Papers and the other works of the American Founding Fathers, it is clear they envisioned a nation that operates much more like Switzerland than one with the large central government the U.S. now has.

The maximum marginal tax rate at the federal level in Switzerland is about 11.5 percent, while in the U.S., it will be more than 40 percent as a result of Obamacare and the planned expiration of the George W. Bush tax-rate cuts at the end of this year. In Switzerland, maximum income tax rates in the cantons range from 10.9 percent in Zug to about 30 percent in places like Geneva. In the U.S., state and local income tax rates range from zero in places like Texas and Florida to roughly 12 percent in New York City and California. Thus, the overall maximum income tax rate in Switzerland ranges from roughly 20 percent to 40 percent, depending on location, while in the U.S., the maximum rate ranges from 40 percent to 51 percent.

Switzerland also does not impose a capital gains tax, and most cantons allow large deductions for interest and dividends. On the negative side, Switzerland imposes a value-added tax (VAT) and a very small wealth tax. On the positive side, the average combined federal-canton corporate tax rate is 21.3 percent (and may be as low as 11.8 percent in some places) while in the U.S., the average combined federal-state rate is more than 40 percent. [...]

There is a right way and a wrong way to tax people. The right way does not sink the ship. No country is perfect, but we can always learn from what works.


Also see: The Swiss, and their Guns

     

The Swiss, and their Guns

I got a link to this in my email recently. The email was titled "Why nobody invades Switzerland":



In school, I had learned that nobody invaded Switzerland, because it was surrounded by mountains. But I'm sure that being heavily armed and well-trained in the use of their guns also had something to do with it.
     

Switzerland Sucks up to Iran for Cheap Gas

Shame on You, Switzerland   (by Tiberge at the Brussels Journal)

An article from AJM (Alain-Jean Mairet) reveals the collaboration of Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey with Iran. When I first saw the photo above I had trouble grasping who or what that was on the left. But it is indeed Mme Calmy-Rey, looking like a mummy with tissue paper on her head and concluding a deal with the president of Iran to purchase cheap Iranian gas.

The American Embassy in Bern has expressed “disappointment” over the deal and has told the Swiss authorities that this type of agreement sends a “false message”, at the very moment when Tehran “continues to defy the Security Council resolutions ordering the suspension of programs for the enrichment of uranium.” [...]

What incredibly bad timing. See the full article for more information and a link to more photos of Calmy-Rey allowing herself to be shamelessly exploited by the Iranian media. She is a Swiss Socialist with a history of Islamophilia. I always wonder about women like her with their half-assed attempts at dhimmitude.


I mean really, who does she think she's kidding? As a foreign representative she could have chosen not to cover her head at all, and the Iranians would have accepted that. Just having her there giving them publicity lends them credibility they are desperate for.


But she chose to cover her head as an appeasement gesture by a non-muslim. But if she really wanted to comply, she would have to do much more. Look how she is dressed: her scarf is transparent, her hair is showing, she is wearing a tight fitting pants-suit with high heels. By the standards of the Iranian government, she is a WHORE. Iran has strict dress codes for women, that they enforce via police action, increasingly with violence.

If she were an Iranian woman, she could be arrested and beaten and thrown in jail. Of course as a diplomat she takes no such risk. She just makes it easier for the misogynists that brutalize women to continue doing so by lending them legitimacy.


Related Links:

Iranian Fashion Police at work... literally

Women's rights in Iran; the right to be a penguin