Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

[DrZoidberg]

As a resident of Germany (while not being German myself) I think that the Swiss are not that special compared to other developed countries, they simply have been lucky.

1. The fact that they remain neutral spared them the enormous cost of war that most other European countries had to affront, specially during the last century. They didn't lose millions of people due to war, their cities were not bombed, the infrastructure was never damaged.
2. The Swiss banking system, combined with the political neutrality, attracted lots of people during times of uncertainty (or war) to either live there or at least move their money there. It still attracts lots of people, including dubious customers such as third world politicians and oh yeah, for some reason, an organisation solely devoted to fixing soccer matches.
3. Many of the customers of the Swiss banking system simply never came back to claim the deposits, mostly because they died. So the money stayed in Switzerland to the benefit of...guess who? The Swiss. That includes shitlloads of Nazi gold which in turn was made up of stolen jewish assets.
4. The country has almost no natural disasters, other than the occasional avalanche or flooding, meaning there is not need to rebuild infrastructure every few decades or so. Take that Japan.

Look I got nothing against them, but let's not forget all those facts before we call them "special".

Fun fact... Switzerland has almost no natural resources. It's like Japan in that regard. Yes, staying out of the wars saved them a bunch of money. Being surrounded by countries at war meant that their economy effectively tanked during the world wars. It's not like Sweden who made bacon by selling Hitler steel. Sure, they've made a lot of money by being the favourite tax haven for dictators. I'm sure that has helped grease the wheels immeasurably. But I doubt it's the whole story.

I don't think Switzerlands wealth is due to any single factor. It's just down to having a consistently wise and conservative fiscal policies throughout the entire 20'th century. Just building wealth step-by-step and not blowing it on stupidity.