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The Little Country that Does
Townhall.com ^ | March 11, 2018 | Gil Gutknecht

Posted on 03/11/2018 6:47:52 AM PDT by Kaslin

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To: Kaslin

But they do speak Austrian in Austria, so says Obama.


21 posted on 03/11/2018 8:53:39 AM PDT by Henry Hnyellar
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To: JeanLM

The film took place in Vienna, but Harry Lime was definitely referring to Switzerland with the cuckoo clock reference.


22 posted on 03/11/2018 8:58:51 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte (Time to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!)
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To: Kaslin

“don’t like it when I sight that life expectancy number.“

Gil needs an editor.

L


23 posted on 03/11/2018 9:00:10 AM PDT by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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To: Sans-Culotte

See Post 20. Cuckoo Clocks come from Germany. But never saw one in a German house. Think they’re strictly for tourists.


24 posted on 03/11/2018 9:05:50 AM PDT by JeanLM (Obama proves melanin is just enough to win elections)
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To: Lurker

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.


25 posted on 03/11/2018 10:08:55 AM PDT by GnuThere
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To: Kaslin

In 1848, my great great grand father and many others religiously persecuted fled Vaud, Switzerland for America


26 posted on 03/11/2018 10:20:23 AM PDT by Thibodeaux (The FISA judge is corrupt)
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To: Kaslin

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.


27 posted on 03/11/2018 10:40:28 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: SandRat

Let’s be honest about the guns. There are a lot of gun suicides in CH. But very little homicides, that is true.


28 posted on 03/11/2018 10:41:34 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Brilliant

A darned lot more expensive than anywhere else we’d traveled that time - France, Italy, Germany.


29 posted on 03/11/2018 6:28:29 PM PDT by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: JeanLM

Has anyone visited ‘the largest cuckoo clock in the world’ in the Black Forest? (don’t, haha).


30 posted on 03/11/2018 6:30:29 PM PDT by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: JeanLM

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


31 posted on 03/11/2018 6:51:36 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: grumpygresh

“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.


32 posted on 03/12/2018 4:30:06 PM PDT by RipSawyer
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To: RipSawyer

“Long list of side effects”=even more big pharma meds to control them-kaching!$$$$


33 posted on 03/12/2018 4:34:52 PM PDT by Califreak (Take Me Back To Constantinople)
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