irelandswitzerland

For the week that’s in it.

Louis Le Fronde writes:

As global leaders gather in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Conference above is a little comparison graphic between Ireland v Switzerland, reading left to right it makes for interesting reading.

Switzerland, the ‘happiest country in the world’ is smaller than Ireland and until 1900  had a smaller population. Today it has nearly 3.5 million more people. It was a poorer country than Ireland in 1871. In per capita terms, Ireland was among the richest in the world in the 1870s and on the eve of the Great War – the Irish economy lost ground after the 1870s to most of the advanced economies outside the United Kingdom, and Switzerland in particular….

Any excuse.

Davos Elite Fret About Inequality Over Vintage Wine and Canapés (New York Times)

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76 thoughts on “Swiss Éire

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      Master watchmakers.

      What the above stats do not capture is the location that aided Switzerland’s economy in terms of trade and infrastructure. Junior-cert Geography folks….

      1. Vote Rep #1

        No, that is just excuses. No external factors are allowed. The [insert country] are just better than the Irish. It is the basis for the majority of Louis’ posts.

      2. Louis Lefronde

        Wasn’t Ireland on the busiest trading route in the world in 19th and 20th century? The North Atlantic, perhaps you’ll ask the lads in Belfast, Glasgow and Liverpool who were trading with the world’s largest empire…. of which you were part….

        1. ahjayzis

          You really have no idea of Irish history do you?

          Dublin and parts of Ireland did well in the 18th century, Dublin was at one point a larger city than Paris, Catholic Irish didn’t do well though, over 90% of the population, owing to the fact they couldn’t own property, sit in the Irish Parliament, vote, or any of that other good stuff.

          Then came the Act of Union and London became our capital – and home to all our landowners, politicians and merchants while Dublin became a slum city.

          Ireland did generate riches from that trade – it just went to it’s absentee landlords and rentiers in Britain.

    2. Specific Gravity

      Wasn’t that Orson Welles’ rant in the excellent Third Man film? Apparently he was chastened to learn afterwards that the Germans in fact invented cuckoo clocks, not the Swiss.

    3. De Kloot

      They also invented banking secrecy. And that is pretty much the basis for their financial successes today. Banking secrecy. It’s a thing.

  1. edalicious

    Ireland wasn’t really a country in 1871 though, was it? And, on the population, there was this thing called the famine…

    1. edalicious

      I’m curious as to why you’ve taken to ragging on Ireland lately, Louis. Is there something going on in your personal life you’d like to talk about?

        1. Cool_Hand_Lucan

          I think it’s LJG’s alter ego for when he wants to rile up the Broadsheet hoi polloi by besmirching the good name of Ireland all because none of us watch his videos.

      1. Nigel

        So that’s what getting brutally screwed over by a ruthless landed class representing an insatiable imperial power looks like?

      2. Nigel

        I mean, you do get that millions of people starving to death while the national GDP is a jewel in the empire’s crown suggests something so dysfunctional as to constitute actual evil, don’t you?

      3. classter

        It did grow after the Famine but ‘thriving’ is not something visible anywhere in the document you have shared

  2. Nikkeboentje

    If you think rents are high in Dublin, check out Geneva…crazy rents for a tiny apartment. Also foreigners cannot buy residential properties which drives rents up even more.

    1. Kieran NYC

      “Also foreigners cannot buy residential properties which drives rents up even more.”

      Well several BS commenters would like to see the same thing happen in Ireland apparently.

    2. Louis Lefronde

      Switzerland’s constitution places restrictions on 2nd homes which is interesting and provided for under its constitution. Very interesting

  3. AlisonT

    Foreigners have very restricted rights in Switzerland and almost no chance of becoming a citizen as the local population get to vote on your application. It keeps poor people out of their country and is great for statistics.

    1. ReproBertie

      Just last week I saw a news story about a woman who was denied citizenship because she was, according to her neighbours, “an annoying vegan”.

  4. jimmy russell

    much too white
    no refugees
    gun ownership

    how is this allowed in a modern europe? I bet half the country is descended from nazis

    1. scottser

      you’ve got a real thing about nazis jimmy. as in, ‘thou doth protest too much’, eh jimmy? or do you prefer being called by your real name ‘adolf von ausfahrt’???!!!

    2. Louis Lefronde

      By that logic…if half of Switzerland is populated by Nazis then half of Ireland is descended from Gipsy thieves….?

      Or at least your Politicians, Developers and Banking class are…

    1. Elizabeth Mainwaring

      The Nazis first started stamping “J” in red ink on the passports of German Jews because the Swissies demanded it.

      They wanted to head fleeing Jews off at the pass.

  5. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

    It’s boring there, though. Might be well run and beautiful, but boy is downtown Geneva a snoozefest.

    1. scottser

      i went there inter railing as a lad in 1988. there in a toilet, in a bar in geneva was written ‘keep shamrock rovers at milltown’. it was also the first time i experienced a corona with a slice of lemon in it.

      1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

        It was my first time seeing chocolate with cornflakes in it, so bought it, full of curiosity.
        Got v drunk that night and woke up the next morning to find the beer monkey had eaten it all.
        Sad times.
        Not drunk in Geneva: we drove back to Chamonix so I can’t comment on the nightlife.

        1. scottser

          granted, the most interesting thing at night in geneva is watching the street cleaners scrub the place clean every night.

          1. Rob_G

            Who would that Louis – is this going to be like that time that you said that people from Dublin had a saying about people from Cork not wiping their bottoms , but no such actually existed, and you were just talking out of your hoop?

          2. Nigel

            I mean it’s like praising Mordor’s Gross Domestic Orc Product figures and using them to sneer at the woefully poor recovery after the Dark Lord fell. A thriving Orc production industry just squandered after that mishap with the ring. Tsk. Look at how those tiny hairy-footed drunks in the Shire are doing by comparison!

    2. Spaghetti Hoop

      Really? Glad I know this as I was interested in working there at one point in the future.
      Stayed in rural Switzerland with a bunch of scouts and the police were called when we were singing in the pub after 10pm. They’d never take me…..

      1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

        I dunno, SpagHewp. It has a lot going for it in that it’s very near some interesting places. Hop in a car and within an hour you’re somewhere very different. I thought Annecy was gorgeous. Chamonix was touristy but fun. Through the tunnel and into Italy. And that’s only going in one particular direction.
        And I’d imagine you’d be paid nice money. Nice clean money.

    3. 15p

      yep, and the people are really boring. they act really old, like theyre its a country based on the characters of ‘Cocoon’

  6. Daddy

    Well Louis. You’re not the only Europhile sophisticate here despite what you think.

    It’s not the happiest country in the world by a long shot. It’s divided between native Swiss who mostly live in the rural areas and smaller towns and the Ex-pats who work in finance and never bother learning to speak French or German. Never the twain shall meet. They don’t mix and the ex-pats don’t get involved with local government so referenda tend not to reflect the population as a whole.

    It’s a weird country full of anally retentive types and hidden domestic violence. Its banks facilitate large scale money laundering and the bank accounts of drugs and people trafficking. The Russian mafia use the place to make their assets appear respectable. They also supply the financiers with their drugs and whores. 100,000s of rich use it to avoid tax in their home countries (including many Irish).

    Switzerland is also an Alt-Right heaven. There are almost no Africans and most Asians are in domestic service on poor terms.

    Switzerland is basically a stash for illegal money and corrupt dictators. And all the outward appearance that money gives it is based on that.

    1. Louis Lefronde

      Daddy that sounds like Ireland (off shore money laundering in the IFSC, prostitution rackets etc and by the way the Editor inserted ‘The Happiest People in Europe’ not I.

  7. Zena

    Broadsheet, can you stop giving this deluded and racist nincompoop, a platform to air his offensive views? It’s really getting old now.

  8. ahjayzis

    “Well at least they’re clean unlike a certain portion of the Irish population”

    Can we all club together and this male appendage one-way ticket to Geneva?

    Or maybe BS could maybe refrain from giving his ignorant ass a platform to talk absolute context-less sh1te.

    1. Rob_G

      although they continue to fly in the face of popular opinion by foisting that cadaverous leather fellow on us….

    2. Happy Molloy

      +1

      Does anyone reckon this lad is Mercille and is bitter that he got such a hard time on here with his rubbish articles?

  9. Trouble

    What’s your agenda Louis? Do you want us all to emigrate so you have this country to yourself? If Ireland is so crap why are you here?

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      I oft feel like singing to Louis; ‘If you can’t be in the country you love, love the one you’re in’

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