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Where to Live In The World (Was: Leaving Switzerland)
Hello TPM Community,
the excellent (and quite accurate in my opinion) Expat Insider 2023 is out.
It is a survey among expats about their experience in said country.
Here is the full report in PDF format.
Switzerland
From my experience being born and having lived there for about 4 decades, I can say the report is very accurate:
Finance: you earn more than in most places but more expensive than most places. Still have more disposable income comparatively speaking than other european countries. Like everywhere else in Europe the cost of living have increased so the difference between income and living costs used to be larger 20-30 years ago (higher disposable income).
Social: quite lonely as they said.
Environment: safe, organized, beautiful, clean. 100%.
Leisure: 100% true: "boring" (more than Amsterdam) if you like city activities and nightlife. Outstanding if you like the outdoors.
Transportation: to me, the Swiss trains are unmatched both in comfort and punctuality. Again, this comes with a price and probably one of the most expensive in the World per km travelled. Still, Switzerland has the highest density of railroads in the World. So you can get mostly from anywhere to everywhere in Switzerland by train. Buses are as comfortable and reliable and are frequent.
The image quality I uploaded was quite good. I don't know why it appears blurry.
And of course one major advantage of Switzerland that both local and foreigners appreciate: the political stability.
Switzerland is in my opinion the most democratic country in the World. I won't go into details about the systems and the rights though.
So major advantages along with disadvantages as usual.
Quote from John Freeman on November 9, 2023, 10:08 amAnd of course one major advantage of Switzerland that both local and foreigners appreciate: the political stability.
Switzerland is in my opinion the most democratic country in the World. I won't go into details about the systems and the rights though.
So major advantages along with disadvantages as usual.
Hey John, I personally think this is a non-factor.
Unless one were to move to a war-thorn country, it doesn't matter.
Italy for example is politically very unstable, but for non-politicians it's not a major difference in their daily lives.
In my opinion, a good way to simplify decisions is to only focus on the top 1-2 priorities and maybe potential major drawbacks, if any. All the rest is likely just confusion.
Hello Lucio,
Thank you, I think you have a good point: got me thinking.
Off-topic
I'll put an off-topic as I'm going on a tangent a bit here.
I thought about this in the past. Some more context before. Basically there are 2 rights that are unique to my knowledge: Initiative and Referendum. The population can propose any law or cancel any law that just got voted by the parliament. This is done through collecting 100'000 or 50'000 signatures respectively. If the signatures are collected, then the law gets a national vote. And if the majority passes then it gets written in the constitution. I simplified it a bit but that's the gist of it.
There are approximately 1-3 initiatives per year and 90% of them are rejected by the population at the national vote level. In my opinion they are often either: poorly written (arbitrary numeric thresholds, etc.), too partisan/too ideologic/not pragmatic enough, trying to solve too many problems at once or not solving the problem in a satisfactory manner (in my opinion).
Many times, the government/parliament rejects the initiative and proposes a "counter-project". They propose a law that is similar in spirit but different in writing and specifics. So it's a way for the government/parliament to take into account the desires of the population in an indirect manner (in a "Alright, we got it you want that" kind of way).
All this context to say that as a citizen it gives us the impression to have an influence on the fate of the country which we have.
I say "it gives us the impression" because factually speaking we have as single individuals little influence. Of course that's the same for democracy everywhere.
All that to say that probably in Switzerland we over-estimate the importance of semi-direct democracy. Yes, the country is stable and well-run but other countries are as well and they don't have semi-direct democracy. That's for my bias. All that to say that I agree: I'm not that sure it's such a big factor as a citizen. Since there are also biases that influence people. They vote but they get influenced by media, etc. anyway. So they can vote against their interests (it happens and has happened of course) despite having a system giving them unique voting powers.
So this is a topic that we could explore in another topic: how much influence do we have as single individuals in a democracy. Because I think there is the same phenomenon elsewhere. However, it's easier to see it in other countries (the flaws, corruptions, etc.) than in ours, hence this self-analysis above.
/Off-topic
As a choice for a country to move to, I agree with you. Most of the times political stability has little effect except in the case you described. The factors that are most important are the ones influenced by political decisions rather than stability: taxes, bureaucracy, safety, etc. So laws and culture above political stability.
Thank you also for your advice of 1-2 priorities. It's helping me to think and decide.
