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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (47525)	3/18/2004 9:36:29 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Kindergarten country: Swipes at Swissness SIR – Not everybody considers the Swiss as God's gift to humankind; the country has a reputation for being stodgy, excessively conformist and excruciatingly boring. What your survey glosses over is the human cost of attempting to create quasi-perfect, sanitised and tightly regulated societies like those of Switzerland and Singapore (February 14th). Dig below the surface of Alpine placidity and you will encounter covert chauvinism, racism and die-hard xenophobia. Add to this a dour mien, high divorce rate, chronic drug problem, and page after page of shrinks listed in the phone book, and you begin to wonder whether Switzerland's claim to the highest living standard in the world can be justified. Another Swiss trait is an innate and unquestioning tendency to identify with their country's institutions and sacred cows. This explains a surprisingly undemocratic habit in daily life of subordinating the needs and rights of the individual to those of companies, special-interest groups and other members of the establishment. In sum, Switzerland would benefit from an infusion of social enlightenment and culture—most of the latter is currently found in its delicious fruit yoghurt. Ray, Those are the reasons why I prefer the only civilization on the tropics: It's never boring.