Posted on 03/11/2018 6:47:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
I have long believed that success leaves clues. It makes sense to pay attention to those clues in order to duplicate that success.
When most of us think about Switzerland, we think of great cheese, fine chocolate, and excellent time pieces. They are also famous for their neutrality. Maybe we Americans should take a closer look. They do a number of things right and we might learn something from them.
Yes, they make excellent cheese, chocolate and watches. They produce some pretty good wine as well. But, did you know that they spend 30% less than we do on healthcare and they have a life expectancy about four years longer? Now, some of my Doctor friends don’t like it when I sight that life expectancy number. They say it has more to do with other societal and cultural factors. Maybe. But four years is not statistically insignificant. Curiously, the average stay in a hospital is two days longer and yet it costs less? Interesting, they don’t have what we would describe as socialized medicine. Everyone is required to buy health insurance from a long list of private companies and plans. Even though they are home to several large pharmaceutical companies including Roche and Novartis, they have a clever way of negotiating prices with the drug companies and they pay less than we do…for the same drugs. It is otherwise essentially a market based system.
Many of us confuse their famous neutrality for military weakness. Au contre! They believe in a strong national defense. The Swiss have mandatory military conscription for all young men and they are armed to the teeth. For their population, they have one of the largest standing armies in the world. Their reputation for loyalty and bravery are among the reasons that the Pope is still protected by the Swiss Guard to this day. After their time in the service, most Swiss take their semi-automatic weapons home with them. They keep them oiled and ready to defend their Alpine republic. By the way, the large number of guns in the hands of civilians has not driven the murder rate anywhere near that of say, Chicago. In fact the Swiss enjoy a pretty low crime rate.They keep an impressive arsenal of sophisticated military hardware hidden in mountain caves. These include modern jet fighters positioned along straight sections of highways that double as landing strips. Just because they stay out of other peoples’ foreign affairs, it doesn’t mean you can mess with the Swiss.
Their neutrality was not the only reason that Hitler never invaded Switzerland in his grand plan for a greater German empire. He and his generals understood that the price of a Swiss invasion would be very high. One of the holidays celebrated in Geneva is called the Escalade. They commemorate the defeat of a foreign power who cavalierly attempted a conquest. Back in 1602 the French Duke of Savoy launched an invasion of Geneva. Swiss housewives poured large pots of boiling soup over the city walls on the invaders. They were quickly driven back across the border. The Duke was never foolish enough to try that again.
The Escalade Holiday ends around the kitchen table. After supper the family discusses the blessings of liberty. The patriarch then announces loudly, “ La mort aux ennemis de la Republique!-Death to the enemies of the Republic!” He then smashes his fist down on a large milk chocolate pot (commemorating the soup pots) that is filled with marzipan candies. The whole family then enjoy the broken chocolate and the candies. It’s like Independence Day, Swiss style. Quite tasty too.
The Swiss are not totally immune to leftist thinking, but they largely ignore much of the nonsense advanced by their larger neighbors. When the European Union proposed a common currency, the Swiss politely said no thanks. The warnings that they would become economically isolated are echoed today by the anti-Brexit baboons. They stuck with the Swiss Franc and it remains the world’s gold standard. You may remember that when the Obama administration sent pallets of cash to the Iranian mullahs, the plane made a stop in Geneva. It wasn’t just to refuel. U.S. federal law prohibited wire transfers to the Iranian regime without approval from Congress, so it had to be cash. The Iranians didn’t want our dirty greenbacks, so we had to convert them into mostly Swiss Francs. We got our hostages back, they got their tribute in good-as-gold Swiss Francs.
The Swiss were not eager to take large numbers of refugees. They wound up accepting some who were on their way from Italy to Germany... and stayed. Muslims aren’t unwelcome in Switzerland. But in a national plebiscite a few years ago, voters rejected their ability to build minarets. The Swiss expect newcomers to assimilate or move on. Switzerland has four official languages, but one common culture. The Swiss take citizenship seriously. While they allow some immigration, it takes twelve years before an immigrant can even apply for citizenship and local citizens retain the right to vote up or down on final approval. They can turn you down for any reason including not being a hard worker. And they do. Amazingly, the Swiss have been able to milk all those cows, make mountains of chocolate and pick those grapes without a large influx of illegal labor.
The Swiss are multilingual. They have a strong work ethic. They enjoy a very high standard of living, a low crime rate and clean, neat cities. As mentioned, they have privatized, affordable health care for all. The Swiss have a small, efficient central government that balances its budget. They stay out of other peoples’ business and do a very good job of managing their own.
If indeed success leaves clues, we could learn a lot from this little landlocked nation. The Swiss have somehow figured out how to maintain their liberty, their culture and do so many things right. I doubt they would mind if we copied a few of their successes.
But they do speak Austrian in Austria, so says Obama.
The film took place in Vienna, but Harry Lime was definitely referring to Switzerland with the cuckoo clock reference.
“don’t like it when I sight that life expectancy number.“
Gil needs an editor.
L
See Post 20. Cuckoo Clocks come from Germany. But never saw one in a German house. Think they’re strictly for tourists.
No kidding.
Also, it’s easy to brag about having lower healthcare costs in a country that has a work ethic instead of a large welfare class that doesn’t pay taxes and eats 100% processed food that is free to them. No incentive here to be healthy.
In 1848, my great great grand father and many others religiously persecuted fled Vaud, Switzerland for America
This article is completely true. The Swiss are doing some of the things we think we are alone to do, and doing it better. While hygiene is better here, and while you can’t sue doctors, access to their (slightly poorer, less advanced) health care system is cheaper and easier. They have 3 levels of insurance. Ward care, semi private, and private. Most seniors on fixed incomes have ward care. It is the same care but the patients are in one large ward (think WWII movies). Most middle class workers have semi private, as I did when I was there, and I experienced two hospitalizations, brain surgery and C section. Not bad at all.
We think we are Federal but there is little comparison. Each Swiss canton is quite individual in everything, from holidays to cantonal religion to all kinds of laws. The country is run by a group of 7 (I think) Bundesrsat and they choose one each year to act as President for official meetings etc.
Their Air Force (which my Swiss husband was a part of) is amazing and other countries forces often come to train there.
Every male is in the military until his late 40s I think. They report for 2 years at 18, and then a month every year and then every few years. There are obligatory numbers of hours you must have yearly on the shooting range.
I worked in Human Resources and the work ethic is so huge. Every worker gets 13 months’ salaries. That extra month is given out in November so the worker can use it for Christmas or taxes. Every worker gets 4 to 6 weeks paid vacation so everyone travels a lot. Every worker can miss up to 2 years due to medical issues and get paid. And they never misuse that! They come in sick instead! I had to tell people to go home with their fevers and coughs and stop bringing illnesses to the office.
There is no workman’s comp. All accidents are paid for by the employer regardless of how the injury occurred. It doesn’t matter if the broken leg or hurt back happened on the job or on the ski slopes. They present the bill to the employer and we pay. Easy peasy, no more detectives and cottage industry workman’s comp lawyers.
I prefer the idea of the free United States and our amazing forthright, earnest, brave, open people. But my second country is pretty awesome as well.
Let’s be honest about the guns. There are a lot of gun suicides in CH. But very little homicides, that is true.
A darned lot more expensive than anywhere else we’d traveled that time - France, Italy, Germany.
Has anyone visited ‘the largest cuckoo clock in the world’ in the Black Forest? (don’t, haha).
Harry Lime: Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
“This is Orson Welles (1993) quotes Welles: “When the picture came out, the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they’ve never made any cuckoo clocks”,[27] as the clocks are native to the German Black Forest. Writer John McPhee pointed out that when the Borgias flourished in Italy, Switzerland had “the most powerful and feared military force in Europe” and was not the peacefully neutral country it would later become”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man#.22Swiss_cuckoo_clock.22_speech
“Most of US healthcare is profit driven by big pharma and large hospital corporations.”
An astute observation and becoming more true every day, witness the moving targets on blood sugar, blood pressure etc. and the constant raving about high cholesterol. The main purpose of allopathic medicine is to create fortunes for pharmaceutical companies. People spend huge amounts for medicines that might have some slight possibility of doing some good and expose themselves to long list of side effects which in some cases include at least some possibility of death caused by the very medicine that is supposed to help them.
“Long list of side effects”=even more big pharma meds to control them-kaching!$$$$
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