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    Seldom had such a good laugh...

    posted by  Roger B in Switzerland forum 

    Hi Daniel,

    Well, I almost got to tears from laughing when I read your post. Apart from where you say I was ranting against the Germans (ok, this ain't so wrong either), you're spot on - from the inferiority complex to the fact that our "destiny" is in our own hands.

    I'm not sure whether my English was well enough to transmit the message I wanted to, because my aim was not to blame anything on a particular group of foreigners (for instance the Germans, they just come to mind first). See, I know that our companies profit handsomly, that our health-care system would be on the verge of collapse without them and that it is our companies hiring them in numbers (I think I never said anything different). While certain German attitudes certainly are obstacles to a friction free get along, a certain sense of inferiority certainly is in play (language & behaviour wise) too.

    You're spot on by saying that it is our government and companies we should blame. That is what I was saying all along, that we needed a system akin to Canada's or Australia's, where we are flexible, open but still have control over who's comming and who isn't. That's the sad part about the discussions going on in Switzerland. If I say we need a reform because I can sense unease amongst my fellow countrymen, I'm being labeled a red-meat conservative who happens to dislike foreigners. If I say that as a society, we will only secure our standard of living if we don't forget that we must strive to increase the wealth of our residents per capita, I'm being a stubborn nationalist. If I say that the people's wariness is the result of a remarkable rise in immigration over the last couple of years, I'm a fear-monger. So for being concerned about our own failures (with regard to the system), I'm being lumped together with people that hate the players instead of blaming the game.

    I can understand anyone who wants to work or even settle down here, for it is a place offering great opportunities. Heck, I even acknowledge that in some areas, we've been so lazy that we couldn't do without foreigners (health care being a prime example with the numerus clausus still in place). Neither am I blaming anyone who does so, nor do I despise foreigners. I am neither a xenophobe nor a rascist. What I am concerned about is the fate of my country and its population (be they native or foreign born) for I fear that what has made us successfull and wealthy in the past is overhastedly thrown over board for the sake of extensive growth and access to a common European market. Switzerland has always been battling with labour scarcity, it is what forced us to be innovative, what led to higher wages and productivity. We have always been dependent on foreign labor too, yet the labor market was by and large restricted to the couple of million inhabitants. Now, with the free movement of people, this labor market has increased to a couple of hundred millions. Simply speaking, what was once scarce is now abundant and, following the logic of supply and demand, what is abundant, gets cheaper. Now this might be simplicistic, but the fact remains that 2009 for the first time saw an increase in GDP overall but a decline of GDP per capita. Instead of intensively, we grew extensively, the pie has gotten bigger but the individual slice smaller. For companies a large pool of workers is formidable for it pushes the margin in your favor, whether this is good for the population, for society overall is another question. Companies are quick to claim that they "don't find able Swiss to do certain jobs", while this might be true in health care, engineering and pharma, I kind of suspect this argument to be incomplete otherwise. The inconvenient truth maybe that they "don't find able Swiss to do a certain job, for the price offered". While we might lack doctors, nurses and engineers, I'm not willing to buy that we lack accountants (and I mean A/P, A/R accountant types), waiters and bus drivers as well. True, we can't and shouldn't shut the world out, but heck, do we have to throw the doors completely open then? Instead of just importing people, we should senserily looking for ways to meet demands with our own ressources (i.e. try to do as much intensively) and people. We should reform our educational sector in order to have more doctors, engineers and nurses, because in the end, only this will bring about a sustainable solution.

    The battle I'm constantly in, is to avert that the discussion above, about reforming our system to something more suitable, is drifting into a rant about the quality & character of our foreigners. That is the problem, that some right wingers are lumping together the different topics, creating a smoke screen and offering a "one size fits all" solution. This ain't the way to go. The discussion about Free movement of people needs to be utterly separated from the discussion about refugees. And last but not least, our neutral and political correct way of speaking inhibts us to say certain things the way they are. That needs to stop for otherwise I fear that nativist, xenophobic and outright racist tendencies will take a marked turn for the worse.

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