The fact is most people pursue a career and eventually move into other roles like technical architecture, or move into upper management.
People aren't getting fired at 35+ they're just getting on in life and moving down a different path.
There are some that don't. Those that are the bottom of the pile and hence don't get promoted because they're not talented or competent enough. Those ones just sit and whine on Slashdot instead about how it must be ageism.
It's the same in most careers, you don't find anywhere near as many 35+ fast food chain workers but it's not ageism, it's just that no one wants to be flipping burgers all their lives. People want to move on to something else. Software is no different - contrary to the stereotype a lot of developers do get bored of doing it professionally after a while, love of software development doesn't always equate to love of being a professional software developer because the majority of software development jobs are writing entirely uninteresting software.
Earning potential in software isn't as great as in, say, banking, but it's still way up above most professions. I see little to complain about as a 30 something software developer earning way above the national average and a comfortable path into even better paid upper management if I so choose in the next few years. I don't pretend I'm as close to as well off as some of the high earning bankers and the like, but I can't say the profession has done me badly in the slightest. Especially as I still have over 70% of my working life ahead of me to keep growing still.
So you're saying you don't believe in the rule of law and authorities should be able to arbitrarily interfere with people's lives?
Like it or not, the guy broke no laws. He wasn't a UK citizen party to the official secrets act. There is no UK law covering transfer of said documents through an airport. The law doesn't define what he was doing as wrong, which is why they had to abuse anti-terror legislation for a purpose it wasn't intended.
Just like when Brown seized the assets of Icelandic banks using anti-terror legislation even though they quite blatantly weren't terrorist organisations.
I suspect anyone who puts their hand up is lying. There are still various systems using Windows from self-serve tills to ATMs, to railway ticket machines, to airline flight time boards.
If you've never used any of these things in 15 years then you obviously don't step outside, ever.
Sure but I think their cause is a bit pathetic compared to Malala and Snowden's.
The problem is that they're simply seeking better conditions for themselves, and those in their country who agree with them. Snowden and Malala's causes have a much wider, more selfless impact.
You have to ask what's special about a bunch of Belarussian political prisoners compared to say Iranian, Syrian, or any other political prisoners across the globe doing the same thing they are other than the fact Belarus is in Europe.
But even many extremists have disowned the Taliban in question over Malala because they recognise shooting young girls isn't going to win them any causes.
Really it's only a particularly extreme grouping of the Taliban in tribal Pakistan that are pissy with Malala and they have zero reach outside of Pakistan.
I believe she's mostly resident in the UK, the extremists in the UK even aren't going to target young girls, and the handful of extremists that will, in Pakistan, have fuck all chance of getting to her.
The only time she's ever going to be under genuine threat is if she returns to Pakistan, or goes to one of the few states that have equally extreme extremists (i.e. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq).
"No, but it takes a lot more guts to stand up to armed gunmen for what you believe in than run away where they can't get you."
Erm, you know after she was shot she was transported to the UK for surgery and has been making her case entirely from the West right?
She hasn't been back to Pakistan since she was shot so she's arguably under less threat from the Taliban than Snowden is from the CIA, et. al. because the Taliban have zero resources to touch her with in the West, but the CIA could very much harm Snowden in Russia, and that's before you consider he's only allowed to stay in Russia year right now and only protected there whilst the Russians find him useful.
I think a better start would be you explaining what freedoms you feel the Tories have rolled back in the UK and what you mean by "attempting to crush the press" given they're the only party that doesn't want the Levison recommendations implemented, even though that's a bad thing because the British press need regulating so they don't just lie about everything and actually have an obligation to publish the facts and compensate victims if they don't. (Hint: They also rolled back the scope of the DNA database, dropped the ID card scheme, and another of other things). Perhaps you're confusing the talk on Slashdot of things like porn filters with something they've actually done and passed? If so they haven't, and almost certainly wont be able to because there's little support for it, it's mostly just bluster from The Daily Mail above all else.
I also think you need to learn a bit more about what Harper's administration has done, starting with stifling discussion by government scientists.
Perhaps when you know a bit more what you're on about you'll be able to come back and discuss it properly without calling me "delusional" but whilst you've no idea what you're on about then there's little hope of that.
I don't think so, the number of French people living in London now exceeds one million I believe making it the 5th largest French city in the world. I think it's already lost:)
I don't particularly disagree if I'm honest. I don't like the way the US does this. I don't like the way the US fined BAE, a British company over it's Saudi corruption either - it's not their job to take money off of BAE for corruption, that's our decision, it's headquartered here, else we could find plenty of US companies to arbitrarily take money from for corruption. This is a particular facet of US policy I don't like - the hypocrisy, it's fine time if a British company bribes to a get a contract, but when Boeing does exactly that it's all roses? I also don't like the fact that like the Swiss, we haven't defended our companies.
But it was just an example as to the fact that other countries are beginning to take action against the Swiss precisely because they're not being cooperative (which you may view as a good thing depending on the sort of cooperation being asked!) and I think that will only escalate, rightly or wrongly until the Swiss do start giving up money obtained through criminality voluntarily.
I support strong privacy laws, but I also very much dislike tax avoidance, let alone tax evasion, so you can probably understand why I don't have much of an opinion on what option is best - I've simply no idea what compromise is best because all options revolve around one of my opinions being compromised.
I suppose one possibility is that the UK for example hands over a list of people it suspects of being guilty of tax evasion to the Swiss and they confirm whether some individuals have accounts there, the UK then hands over details of the amount of wealth they've declared and paid tax on and the Swiss confirm if that's correct. There's still exchange of arguably private data there but maybe it's the best compromise that could be achieved? It also assumes the Swiss and UK will be honest in information passed and answers given so there's an issue of trust also though.
But anyway, it's not a problem I'm being given to solve, so who cares - I guess the politicians will make a fuck up of it either way. As usual.
I'm pretty sure in a population of 63 million there's still quite a lot of smart people left in the UK.
I think most of the smart ones that have gone have actually gone to places like Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. The current Canadian and Australian administrations make the British look like a bunch of left leaning liberals in comparison and the US even more so. The level of anti-intellectualism in the US and certainly within Harper's regime and to a lesser but still great extent Australia makes the UK look fantastic right now.
Harper's regime is the main reason me and my partner (who is Canadian FWIW) haven't gone to Canada because sadly even the Tories here in the UK are better than his lot, and that really is saying something.
So say you're in America, and I stone you to death for blaspheming Mohammed then go to tribal Pakistan I've not actually committed any crime?
The crime is committed before the money gets to Switzerland dufus. Switzerland is just the place they hide it after it's been obtained illegally.
Re:"We believed we knew better what customers need
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How BlackBerry Blew It
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I think it's the latter.
A lot of talented older programmers on Slashdot seem to have moved on and a lot of those left now are either the ones who never went anywhere in life and are still bitter they can't just write everything in C by themselves and have no interaction with anyone else and fresh graduates or undergraduates who think they know it all because they just got an A in CS101.
Thankfully there are still some people here worth listening to though, so it's not all lost. You just have to dig for them a bit more than you used to I guess:)
"The biggest Swiss company isn't even a bank, it's Nestle. A big chunk of Swiss wealth comes from precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, IT, tourism and specialised financial services which are NOT banking (think industrial insurance etc)."
You're missing the obvious, companies like Nestle have been able to carry out a massive number of high profile takeovers to reach the size they have precisely because they've had access to cheap and easy credit from the Swiss banking system and what funds that credit? You guessed it. That's why banks are such an important focus when looking at a national economy, because it's not just the money they make themselves but the ease with which they allow the entire nation to invest and make money.
I don't pretend the Swiss economy would be useless without it's banks but it's hard to pretend it's banks aren't a key reason for it's wealth. It's a country of about 8 million people yet the 19th largest economy in the world, or 5th based on PPP (which puts it ahead of the US) and this is not it's natural level if you subtract income that belongs to other states (because it's owed to them as tax revenue etc.) and money earned off of that.
Largely because the people doing the looting to those havens have been either the ones in power, or holding enough money to control or at least influence those in power.
Ultimately though it's a problem that other countries are going to want to solve because by allowing it they're effectively subsidising Switzerland's wealth with tax money (and other proceeds of crime) owed to them.
So sure Switzerland can on one hand say "We're doing nothing wrong under our law" but as this is an international issue, at one extreme, other countries could simply ban all money transfers to Switzerland and bankrupt the country overnight. A less extreme measure given that most countries wouldn't want to see that happen but are still unhappy at their lack of cooperation is to simply tax all transactions in and out of Switzerland to discourage any kind of banking there but how high that tax is depends upon how hard everyone else wants to squeeze.
Of course the alternative is that the Swiss do do something themselves to deal with the problem, whether that's say, allow investigation of accounts whose holders are not Swiss citizens, through to full on transparency of accounts with other governments. Alternatively they could just refuse to allow accounts for non-citizens, or they could put conditions on non-citizens such as forfeiture of all funds to their country of nationality if they are found to be evading tax.
What they can't do is keep getting rich off of money that belongs to other states, do nothing about it, and then complain if other nations take action against Switzerland or it's banks. They can't expect to have a free ride off the back of others and there not be repercussions. Such extremes as action against Switzerland or it's banks may sound unlikely, but it's not far from the truth as to what is happening:
I understand your viewpoint regarding privacy of accounts and not wanting banks to act as police, and sympathise with it because the idea of some average Joe from the tax office or bank fumbling through my bank statements does creep me out a lot, but as you can see there are other ways the problem can be dealt with of varying extremes. The question is, which one? Right now the direction is very much towards that of hitting Swiss banks or transactions directly given that their populace voted to keep banking secrecy either their government suggested a deal to better aid foreign investigations into evasion using Swiss banks. I'd applaud them for that vote if I didn't think they voted for it more to keep themselves an incredibly rich and wealthy state from criminally obtained funds, rather than because they give even the slightest shit about privacy, but maybe I'm just being cynical on that one.
It's worth noting though that it's been calculated that the amount of money being stored in tax havens (not just Switzerland) that was obtained through tax evasion is enough to solve the entire debt problems of Europe and still have a lot of change left over, so as you can see it's not a small problem, and that's why it's being taken so seriously now - it's reached a point where recouping even at least some of it can have a very meaningful effect on improving the world economic situation.
Yep, even Google gets this, despite Larry and Sergey having been in it together and been friends working together with similar visions from the beginning it's still Larry that is now CEO whilst Sergey leads the special projects division and Schmidt is now executive chairman.
I don't pretend to know what the answer is, so your massive jump to the idea that I somehow support totalitarianism is pretty insane and demonstrative of a rather irrational mind. You obviously have a distinctly combative mindset where if someone explains why your analogy is flawed they're obviously a police state loving totalitarian. That screams insecurity.
But it doesn't matter, because none of that changes the fact that Switzerland got rich off of crime and illegally obtained money.
In some ways I can even understand why some kneejerk reactions amongst the Swiss might be who cares, everyone else has a degree of criminality in money making given the level of criminality that isn't dealt with in banking in places like the UK and US but that wasn't really the argument I was having. The argument I was having was simply that Switzerland's wealth is built on top of money that doesn't belong to it, or the people it is holding it for, and given that that was the extent of my point then if you're still arguing against it you're either ignoring reality, or arguing that it doesn't matter in which case you are not a libertarian but an anarchist because you're effectively claiming the rule of law should be ignored.
I don't think that is what you meant though, I think you jumped to an extreme conclusion in response to an argument you imagined we were having, but that we actually weren't.
For starters, the Swiss banks are using the illegally obtained money to make more money through investments. When you buy a hard drive it's a product you take home and not something Western Digital et. al. retain access to to take your data and make more money off the illegal stuff by say, selling it on. If they did do that however then yes I'd say that would make them pretty fucking unscrupulous.
If Nigel Farage gets anywhere near power I think the rest of Europe will have to worry about being invaded by Britain's smartest and most productive people as they all flock away from the anti-intellectual failed state that Britain would become.
I'm well aware of that, I'm aware for example that Jews were persecuted in the UK in the middle ages because they banked for the Christians who were forbidden to do it, but then produced so much wealth as a result they became an ever bigger target for taxation to the point they were used as a scapegoat and persecuted and almost wiped out (most Brits aren't taught about this shameful part of our history where we did what the Nazis did long before they did it).
But ultimately it's still the case that much of Switzerland's wealth comes from criminal activity which in this day and age is the largest use for secret banking.
There are better ways of handling the situation though, the Swiss could just as well set up an asylum type system whereby people can make a claim that they're hiding funds because of say religious or racial persecution and have the Swiss authorities make a decision based upon that. That balance between protected the persecuted and avoiding helping criminals and the subsequent burden of proof from one to the other needs to change over time as the most likely scenario of persecution or criminal activity also changes. In the war it probably made sense to assume persecution, but post war it makes more sense to assume criminal activity.
The danger is of course if the Swiss don't sort it out, that they become a target for blanket transaction taxes (which is why most tax havens are now making deals to do something about the problem) but I believe in Switzerland the measure recently failed the popular vote. Let's be frank, that's not because the Swiss by and large give a shit about any potential persecution or injustice, it's because the Swiss know full well they're wealthy off the backs of crime from the industry and that any crack down on criminal proceeds means they're going to have to work harder for their nation to maintain the same level of wealth and no populace is going to voluntarily except that, until something harsher comes along - like a financial transaction tax on transfers into Swiss banks.
"a well trained national guard and a good army (or reputedly so)"
I think it's probably more reputed than anything. Is there any reason to think a military that's pretty much never had any combat experience whatsoever is going to be able to even come close to a battle hardened military like the French, British, Americans, or Russians?
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The fact is most people pursue a career and eventually move into other roles like technical architecture, or move into upper management.
People aren't getting fired at 35+ they're just getting on in life and moving down a different path.
There are some that don't. Those that are the bottom of the pile and hence don't get promoted because they're not talented or competent enough. Those ones just sit and whine on Slashdot instead about how it must be ageism.
It's the same in most careers, you don't find anywhere near as many 35+ fast food chain workers but it's not ageism, it's just that no one wants to be flipping burgers all their lives. People want to move on to something else. Software is no different - contrary to the stereotype a lot of developers do get bored of doing it professionally after a while, love of software development doesn't always equate to love of being a professional software developer because the majority of software development jobs are writing entirely uninteresting software.
Earning potential in software isn't as great as in, say, banking, but it's still way up above most professions. I see little to complain about as a 30 something software developer earning way above the national average and a comfortable path into even better paid upper management if I so choose in the next few years. I don't pretend I'm as close to as well off as some of the high earning bankers and the like, but I can't say the profession has done me badly in the slightest. Especially as I still have over 70% of my working life ahead of me to keep growing still.
So you're saying you don't believe in the rule of law and authorities should be able to arbitrarily interfere with people's lives?
Like it or not, the guy broke no laws. He wasn't a UK citizen party to the official secrets act. There is no UK law covering transfer of said documents through an airport. The law doesn't define what he was doing as wrong, which is why they had to abuse anti-terror legislation for a purpose it wasn't intended.
Just like when Brown seized the assets of Icelandic banks using anti-terror legislation even though they quite blatantly weren't terrorist organisations.
I suspect anyone who puts their hand up is lying. There are still various systems using Windows from self-serve tills to ATMs, to railway ticket machines, to airline flight time boards.
If you've never used any of these things in 15 years then you obviously don't step outside, ever.
Well it was an abuse of power. Using terrorism laws on someone quite blatantly not a terrorist is abuse of power.
Even the guy who wrote the fucking law said so.
Well he has exposed a number of EU countries given that the UK and France are in the EU.
Sure but I think their cause is a bit pathetic compared to Malala and Snowden's.
The problem is that they're simply seeking better conditions for themselves, and those in their country who agree with them. Snowden and Malala's causes have a much wider, more selfless impact.
You have to ask what's special about a bunch of Belarussian political prisoners compared to say Iranian, Syrian, or any other political prisoners across the globe doing the same thing they are other than the fact Belarus is in Europe.
But even many extremists have disowned the Taliban in question over Malala because they recognise shooting young girls isn't going to win them any causes.
Really it's only a particularly extreme grouping of the Taliban in tribal Pakistan that are pissy with Malala and they have zero reach outside of Pakistan.
I believe she's mostly resident in the UK, the extremists in the UK even aren't going to target young girls, and the handful of extremists that will, in Pakistan, have fuck all chance of getting to her.
The only time she's ever going to be under genuine threat is if she returns to Pakistan, or goes to one of the few states that have equally extreme extremists (i.e. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq).
"No, but it takes a lot more guts to stand up to armed gunmen for what you believe in than run away where they can't get you."
Erm, you know after she was shot she was transported to the UK for surgery and has been making her case entirely from the West right?
She hasn't been back to Pakistan since she was shot so she's arguably under less threat from the Taliban than Snowden is from the CIA, et. al. because the Taliban have zero resources to touch her with in the West, but the CIA could very much harm Snowden in Russia, and that's before you consider he's only allowed to stay in Russia year right now and only protected there whilst the Russians find him useful.
So in other words, to put that in normal software development parlance, it was a victim of scope creep?
I think a better start would be you explaining what freedoms you feel the Tories have rolled back in the UK and what you mean by "attempting to crush the press" given they're the only party that doesn't want the Levison recommendations implemented, even though that's a bad thing because the British press need regulating so they don't just lie about everything and actually have an obligation to publish the facts and compensate victims if they don't. (Hint: They also rolled back the scope of the DNA database, dropped the ID card scheme, and another of other things). Perhaps you're confusing the talk on Slashdot of things like porn filters with something they've actually done and passed? If so they haven't, and almost certainly wont be able to because there's little support for it, it's mostly just bluster from The Daily Mail above all else.
I also think you need to learn a bit more about what Harper's administration has done, starting with stifling discussion by government scientists.
Perhaps when you know a bit more what you're on about you'll be able to come back and discuss it properly without calling me "delusional" but whilst you've no idea what you're on about then there's little hope of that.
I don't think so, the number of French people living in London now exceeds one million I believe making it the 5th largest French city in the world. I think it's already lost :)
I don't particularly disagree if I'm honest. I don't like the way the US does this. I don't like the way the US fined BAE, a British company over it's Saudi corruption either - it's not their job to take money off of BAE for corruption, that's our decision, it's headquartered here, else we could find plenty of US companies to arbitrarily take money from for corruption. This is a particular facet of US policy I don't like - the hypocrisy, it's fine time if a British company bribes to a get a contract, but when Boeing does exactly that it's all roses? I also don't like the fact that like the Swiss, we haven't defended our companies.
But it was just an example as to the fact that other countries are beginning to take action against the Swiss precisely because they're not being cooperative (which you may view as a good thing depending on the sort of cooperation being asked!) and I think that will only escalate, rightly or wrongly until the Swiss do start giving up money obtained through criminality voluntarily.
I support strong privacy laws, but I also very much dislike tax avoidance, let alone tax evasion, so you can probably understand why I don't have much of an opinion on what option is best - I've simply no idea what compromise is best because all options revolve around one of my opinions being compromised.
I suppose one possibility is that the UK for example hands over a list of people it suspects of being guilty of tax evasion to the Swiss and they confirm whether some individuals have accounts there, the UK then hands over details of the amount of wealth they've declared and paid tax on and the Swiss confirm if that's correct. There's still exchange of arguably private data there but maybe it's the best compromise that could be achieved? It also assumes the Swiss and UK will be honest in information passed and answers given so there's an issue of trust also though.
But anyway, it's not a problem I'm being given to solve, so who cares - I guess the politicians will make a fuck up of it either way. As usual.
I'm pretty sure in a population of 63 million there's still quite a lot of smart people left in the UK.
I think most of the smart ones that have gone have actually gone to places like Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. The current Canadian and Australian administrations make the British look like a bunch of left leaning liberals in comparison and the US even more so. The level of anti-intellectualism in the US and certainly within Harper's regime and to a lesser but still great extent Australia makes the UK look fantastic right now.
Harper's regime is the main reason me and my partner (who is Canadian FWIW) haven't gone to Canada because sadly even the Tories here in the UK are better than his lot, and that really is saying something.
So say you're in America, and I stone you to death for blaspheming Mohammed then go to tribal Pakistan I've not actually committed any crime?
The crime is committed before the money gets to Switzerland dufus. Switzerland is just the place they hide it after it's been obtained illegally.
I think it's the latter.
A lot of talented older programmers on Slashdot seem to have moved on and a lot of those left now are either the ones who never went anywhere in life and are still bitter they can't just write everything in C by themselves and have no interaction with anyone else and fresh graduates or undergraduates who think they know it all because they just got an A in CS101.
Thankfully there are still some people here worth listening to though, so it's not all lost. You just have to dig for them a bit more than you used to I guess :)
I doubt reliably is the word. I've used cellphone triangulation by turning GPS off and it's a bit shit.
Just Googled it and it looks like cell tower triangulation is accurate to about 3/4 of a mile which isn't exactly very good.
It's better than nothing but not even close to GPS.
No I'm not American.
See my post here for a fuller explanation of why something has to give:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4284105&cid=45002843
"The biggest Swiss company isn't even a bank, it's Nestle. A big chunk of Swiss wealth comes from precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, IT, tourism and specialised financial services which are NOT banking (think industrial insurance etc)."
You're missing the obvious, companies like Nestle have been able to carry out a massive number of high profile takeovers to reach the size they have precisely because they've had access to cheap and easy credit from the Swiss banking system and what funds that credit? You guessed it. That's why banks are such an important focus when looking at a national economy, because it's not just the money they make themselves but the ease with which they allow the entire nation to invest and make money.
I don't pretend the Swiss economy would be useless without it's banks but it's hard to pretend it's banks aren't a key reason for it's wealth. It's a country of about 8 million people yet the 19th largest economy in the world, or 5th based on PPP (which puts it ahead of the US) and this is not it's natural level if you subtract income that belongs to other states (because it's owed to them as tax revenue etc.) and money earned off of that.
Largely because the people doing the looting to those havens have been either the ones in power, or holding enough money to control or at least influence those in power.
Ultimately though it's a problem that other countries are going to want to solve because by allowing it they're effectively subsidising Switzerland's wealth with tax money (and other proceeds of crime) owed to them.
So sure Switzerland can on one hand say "We're doing nothing wrong under our law" but as this is an international issue, at one extreme, other countries could simply ban all money transfers to Switzerland and bankrupt the country overnight. A less extreme measure given that most countries wouldn't want to see that happen but are still unhappy at their lack of cooperation is to simply tax all transactions in and out of Switzerland to discourage any kind of banking there but how high that tax is depends upon how hard everyone else wants to squeeze.
Of course the alternative is that the Swiss do do something themselves to deal with the problem, whether that's say, allow investigation of accounts whose holders are not Swiss citizens, through to full on transparency of accounts with other governments. Alternatively they could just refuse to allow accounts for non-citizens, or they could put conditions on non-citizens such as forfeiture of all funds to their country of nationality if they are found to be evading tax.
What they can't do is keep getting rich off of money that belongs to other states, do nothing about it, and then complain if other nations take action against Switzerland or it's banks. They can't expect to have a free ride off the back of others and there not be repercussions. Such extremes as action against Switzerland or it's banks may sound unlikely, but it's not far from the truth as to what is happening:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9779615/Switzerlands-oldest-bank-Wegelin-to-close-after-pleading-guilty-to-aiding-US-tax-evasion.html
I understand your viewpoint regarding privacy of accounts and not wanting banks to act as police, and sympathise with it because the idea of some average Joe from the tax office or bank fumbling through my bank statements does creep me out a lot, but as you can see there are other ways the problem can be dealt with of varying extremes. The question is, which one? Right now the direction is very much towards that of hitting Swiss banks or transactions directly given that their populace voted to keep banking secrecy either their government suggested a deal to better aid foreign investigations into evasion using Swiss banks. I'd applaud them for that vote if I didn't think they voted for it more to keep themselves an incredibly rich and wealthy state from criminally obtained funds, rather than because they give even the slightest shit about privacy, but maybe I'm just being cynical on that one.
It's worth noting though that it's been calculated that the amount of money being stored in tax havens (not just Switzerland) that was obtained through tax evasion is enough to solve the entire debt problems of Europe and still have a lot of change left over, so as you can see it's not a small problem, and that's why it's being taken so seriously now - it's reached a point where recouping even at least some of it can have a very meaningful effect on improving the world economic situation.
Yep, even Google gets this, despite Larry and Sergey having been in it together and been friends working together with similar visions from the beginning it's still Larry that is now CEO whilst Sergey leads the special projects division and Schmidt is now executive chairman.
I don't pretend to know what the answer is, so your massive jump to the idea that I somehow support totalitarianism is pretty insane and demonstrative of a rather irrational mind. You obviously have a distinctly combative mindset where if someone explains why your analogy is flawed they're obviously a police state loving totalitarian. That screams insecurity.
But it doesn't matter, because none of that changes the fact that Switzerland got rich off of crime and illegally obtained money.
In some ways I can even understand why some kneejerk reactions amongst the Swiss might be who cares, everyone else has a degree of criminality in money making given the level of criminality that isn't dealt with in banking in places like the UK and US but that wasn't really the argument I was having. The argument I was having was simply that Switzerland's wealth is built on top of money that doesn't belong to it, or the people it is holding it for, and given that that was the extent of my point then if you're still arguing against it you're either ignoring reality, or arguing that it doesn't matter in which case you are not a libertarian but an anarchist because you're effectively claiming the rule of law should be ignored.
I don't think that is what you meant though, I think you jumped to an extreme conclusion in response to an argument you imagined we were having, but that we actually weren't.
No, it's really not.
For starters, the Swiss banks are using the illegally obtained money to make more money through investments. When you buy a hard drive it's a product you take home and not something Western Digital et. al. retain access to to take your data and make more money off the illegal stuff by say, selling it on. If they did do that however then yes I'd say that would make them pretty fucking unscrupulous.
If Nigel Farage gets anywhere near power I think the rest of Europe will have to worry about being invaded by Britain's smartest and most productive people as they all flock away from the anti-intellectual failed state that Britain would become.
I'm well aware of that, I'm aware for example that Jews were persecuted in the UK in the middle ages because they banked for the Christians who were forbidden to do it, but then produced so much wealth as a result they became an ever bigger target for taxation to the point they were used as a scapegoat and persecuted and almost wiped out (most Brits aren't taught about this shameful part of our history where we did what the Nazis did long before they did it).
But ultimately it's still the case that much of Switzerland's wealth comes from criminal activity which in this day and age is the largest use for secret banking.
There are better ways of handling the situation though, the Swiss could just as well set up an asylum type system whereby people can make a claim that they're hiding funds because of say religious or racial persecution and have the Swiss authorities make a decision based upon that. That balance between protected the persecuted and avoiding helping criminals and the subsequent burden of proof from one to the other needs to change over time as the most likely scenario of persecution or criminal activity also changes. In the war it probably made sense to assume persecution, but post war it makes more sense to assume criminal activity.
The danger is of course if the Swiss don't sort it out, that they become a target for blanket transaction taxes (which is why most tax havens are now making deals to do something about the problem) but I believe in Switzerland the measure recently failed the popular vote. Let's be frank, that's not because the Swiss by and large give a shit about any potential persecution or injustice, it's because the Swiss know full well they're wealthy off the backs of crime from the industry and that any crack down on criminal proceeds means they're going to have to work harder for their nation to maintain the same level of wealth and no populace is going to voluntarily except that, until something harsher comes along - like a financial transaction tax on transfers into Swiss banks.
"a well trained national guard and a good army (or reputedly so)"
I think it's probably more reputed than anything. Is there any reason to think a military that's pretty much never had any combat experience whatsoever is going to be able to even come close to a battle hardened military like the French, British, Americans, or Russians?