You don't think that your assessment might be slightly simplistic and totally naïve? How about a nation that guarded it's wealth, invested heavily in civil engineering projects and nurtured a high-tech industrial base making quality products that no one else could? With only 3% of registered Swiss companies being banks or investment related concerns (with regards to numbers of employees), that leaves a rather staggering "can't deny the 97% majority" number of people employed in small and medium sized businesses that have understood the international marketplace and carved their own business niches.
This as opposed to a bunch of European nations that historically chose to carve up the planet, create empires and then ship home all the good stuff. But then you're English and so you think that you must be right because that's what they taught you in history.
yes I'm being simplistic, as it seems some people just don't get it.
97% of the working population here probably don't work directly for these companies, that could well be true, but we ALL benefit from them, from there tax, which gives everyone else lower taxs, from there employees spending there money here, from the cheap food and goods they produce etc
to the loans the banks gave the small business etc to set up
everything is intrinsically linked, to think its not is naive.
sorry, just re-read your post, ok so 97% of companies are small companies, but the 3% that are multinationals employ a damn sight more people, just adding together the amount of people the big few banks employ here is a fair chunk of the working population of switzerland.
Not so sure about people not getting it. It's an often repeated fallacy on this forum that CH got rich because of dirty money and it seems you just repeated it. So you don't know your history. I won't elaborate, everyone can have a quick read over Switzerland's economic history and the relative size of the Swiss banking sector and the share of foreign as opposed to domestic funds. So while yes, everyone profits from the commodity/banking sector it simply isn't true that this is what made Switzerland rich in the first place.
it's not only the goverments, but also companies like the present one based in wealthy Baar which are at the root of the problem. Childs wouldn't have to work for (of course outsourced) Glencore mines in Congo if Glencore would pay their parents a decent salary (and "decent salary" in Congo may represent 1/1000th of what an average Glencore HQ employee gets in Baar).
The Mine currently has over a 1000 squatters on it and is not currently operated by Glencore at the moment... So how is it child Labour from Glencore's side. ??
How do you know what the average Glencore employee earns ? How do I find that out ??
Hope you don't own any pension funds otherwise the moral dilema of the funds making profit and taking Dividends from companies like Glencore, for your benefit, must be tearing you apart
I'm neither a pro or anti capitalist - however - there was an article on the Browser a while back which looked at the real cost of multinationals. For example a mining company says they have delivered 2bn USD to the local economy around the mine. However, if you include the cost of people relocating, increased cost of living, re-balancing the eco-system etc - the mining company actually cost the local economy 1bn USD.
(I can't find the article now to reference)
On the lighter side, here is a picture of the Panorama team
Others said it before but I much rather have large multinationals which are held somewhat (a bit..) accountable to the public than small local or Chinese firms which aren't.
I can't remember the last time a Glencore manager has shot protesting miners:
Well, have you been to Baar? I'd need a lot more than that to be convinced to live around there. It's full of nothing at all except the giant ever present throbbing centre of the commodity universe, an entitiy so large it saps your ethics and rewards you for staying schtumm. Probably.
Crikey, I think the lady doth protest too much.
Don't be like that gva! Shorrick Mk2 makes a living selling bullets to those responsible parents who delete their mistakes of passion. How's a man to live in Switzerland if namby pamby yella limp wrists go around telling him otherwise?
So all bets are off when it comes to ethical investment? Oooooookaaaaaaay...
Unfortunatley i missed the program. I was busy falling in love with Rachel Khoo in Paris on BBC2.
I do know alot of people who work at Glencore (middle management and a couple of big-wigs)......some of the stories i have been told would make amusing reading on here..........but i think i will stay out of it.