Switzerland 'rejects world's highest minimum wage'

[DFW]

4. It's not like Switzerland will suffer horribly from this

I have a small office there with one employee. When I recruited him 30 years ago and his salary went over $50,000 after a year or so, he screamed bloody murder when his tax rate went "all the way up" to 25%, and that was with all education and health care already provided. THIRTY YEARS AGO.

He makes way more now, of course. He just turned 67, but he's still good at what he does, and if he's still in, I'm still happy to have him. Yeah, everything costs ridiculous amounts of money in Switzerland, but that's the exchange rate. The first time I was there as a college kid, the dollar was worth 4.3 Francs. Now it's worth 0.88 francs. That means that even if there were ZERO inflation, whatever cost you 100 Francs in 1970 cost you $23.26, where today it would cost $113.64

The Swiss in general take care of their own. Of course, in a country with about 5 million Swiss and over a million foreigners, the Swiss are sensitive to floods of foreigners looking to cash in on a welfare system that was designed to support the unemployed Swiss, of which there aren't many. The predictable right wing backlash is already starting, as the system can't support all the unemployed Romanians. Wealthy foreigners who are non-residents are also being asked to take their money elsewhere as a reaction to Switzerland's (former!) status as a major tax haven.