Posted on 06/19/2013 7:03:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
At the European Resource Bank conference earlier this month, Pierre Bessard from Switzerland’s Institut Liberal spoke on a panel investigating “The Link between the Weight of the State and Economic prosperity.”
His presentation included two slides that definitely are worth sharing.
The first slide, which is based on research from the Boston Consulting Group, looks at which jurisdictions have the most households with more than $1 million of wealth.
Switzerland is the easy winner, and you probably won’t be surprised to seeHong Kong and Singapore also do very well.
Gee, I wonder if the fact that Switzerland (#4), Hong Kong (#1), and Singapore (#2) score highly on the Economic Freedom of the World index has any connection with their comparative prosperity?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course.
Most sensible people already understand that countries with free markets and small government out-perform nations with big welfare states and lots of intervention.
Speaking of which, let’s look at Pierre’s slide that compares Swiss public finances with the dismal numbers from Eurozone nations.
The most impressive part of this data is the way Switzerland has maintained a much smaller burden of government spending.
One reason for this superior outcome is the Swiss “Debt Brake,” a voter-imposed spending cap that basically prevents politicians from increasing spending faster than inflation plus population.
Now let’s compare Switzerland and France, which is what I did last Saturday at the Free Market Road Show conference in Paris.
As part of my remarks, I asked the audience whether they thought that their government, which consumes 57 percent of GDP, gives them better services than Germany’s government, which consumes 45 percent of GDP.
They said no.
I then asked if they got better government than citizens of Canada, where government consumes 41 percent of GDP.
They said no.
And I concluded by asking them whether they got better government than the people of Switzerland, where government is only 34 percent of economic output (I used OECD data for my comparisons, which is why my numbers are not identical to Pierre’s numbers).
Once again, they said no.
The fundamental question, then, is why French politicians impose such a heavyburden of government spending – with a very high cost to the economy – when citizens don’t get better services?
Or maybe the real question is why French voters elect politicians that pursue such senseless policies?
But to be fair, we should ask why American voters elected Bush and Obama, both of whom have made America more like France?
Switzerland is a better role model for everything...except maybe cuisine.
I’m not a huge fan of Switzerland, who have made their national identity into helping scoundrels worldwide to hide their stolen wealth. Arafat, Mugabe, Goering, Rich and thousands like them.
Neither
So, there is NO COUNTRY in the world we can use as a role model? How about the good old US of A?
Certainly an understandable position. I figured you have to pick one of the two though.
At least the French did join in WW2. Switzerland never does anything. While I’m against nation building, you can’t just sit out of everything.
I’ve been to Switzerland. It’s pretty........pretty boring................
Ahh but do they have the right to carry? Or do they just keep them at home?
After the last few years we’ve had here, who couldn’t do with a little boring?
Switzerland is the perfect example of “Nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”.........
They are kept in a neighborhood armory, IIRC.......
How are the people?
Did you go to multiple Cantons?
The Swiss are also famously isolationist, and they do now sign on to the vast majority of nonsense of treaty treacle that comes from the UN.
The neo-cons in the US would never allow the US to be isolationist. To them, there cannot be a moment or situation in which we should not meddle.
One thing I noticed when I got off the plane, the cops all carried Uzis, I think, and people in the airport were getting their tourist pictures of themselves standing next to them..........
The people were very nice and friendly, most helpful in directions and stuff like that. I was only in Zurich, though........
Most everybody speaks multiple languages. French, German, English and Italian are common, so you can usually find someone who speaks your tongue........
It’s a different form of German though...right?
It is one of the best times of my life, much like living in Disneyland for a young country boy.
I have great respect for the Swiss. They are a clean, conservative, hard working, law abiding people. Their country is beautiful & they work hard to keep it that way.
I admire their national neutrality & prior respect for the privacy of those who invest there. I am saddened that they have ended that privacy, giving in to world corruptocracy & the nanny state taxation thieves.
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