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Comment by herbst | Hacker News Reader

Simple, Switzerland. All the positive things when you think Europe, without the negative things when you think EU plus all the wealth, quality of life and any other metric you can wish for.

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Switzerland has no oil and depend on its banking sector. If USA crashes then likely all modern supply line will be cut and finance will be something of the past. The current well being of a country does not indicate much how it will survive a global crisis. A farmer in rural Africa would be less affect by the implosion of USA than a trader at Geneve.

What do you think happens when the US goes down? You don't need oil to move within a small country and we self supply on food more or less, many areas are already power independent. Who cares about the banks then?

You may also overestimate the relevance of banking for the countries finances.

Western country are self suplient of food because we have engine and chemical industry, ones this goes down, shortage of food will be quick to come. In part of the world where labour is still mostly manual, it will be more resilient.

Also without bank, a lot of people will find themself without any properties and will likely get more violent. Again, in part of the world where people own real objects and not number in a computer in a datacenter, this won't happend.

I honestly think you have a way to negative outlook and heavily overestimate the US role in the world. But who knows

One of the most expensive European countries to live in and one of the hardest to get a residential permit in.

It's never as simple as that. What it costs more to live here I save on taxes, products aren't generally more expensive, just work hours are. What's a good thing in the end as everyone earns more. Also I am an immigrant and went trough several other immigration processes and honestly it's not hard, pretty straight forward actually, if you either have skills or a little backup money.

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