How so? What kind of productive capacity does Switzerland have? Their have cheese, watches and cuckoo's clocks. And the finance industry obviously, but only because of their secrecy towards the tax agencies of other countries, which is going to go away in the next decade or so. So what kind of logical reasoning can lead to the conclusion that a country whose only asset is a bunch of mountains where people can ski is going to fare so much better than a country that has everything it needs to be self-sufficient (arable land, oil and other resources, 2 coasts, the most advanced technology in the world, a huge work force), plus a government that actually supports rather than just pays lip service to capitalism, the only system proven to lead to economic prosperity?
(I'm not an American and I won't say that all that the US does is great and fine but come on, if you're going to make outrageous statements you'll have to at least back them up a little, especially on a site where (I hope) people pride themselves on their rationality).
I am American and it's not outrageous, just not (yet) conventional wisdom. Switzerland has banking and stability. That will soon come at a premium. It has self-sustaining energy and perfect transportation systems. This will all be very valuable in the near future.
Sure the US has arable land. It has oil. The problem is, it doesn't have enough oil. (You probably weren't around in the 1970's, but there was a big crisis as America switched to depending foreign oil and OPEC took advantage.) It's been a net importer ever since. Two coasts? Really? Greece has more. It's not going to help them. The most advanced technology? That's China.
In fact, China and oil are the big elephants in the room. I can happily write more about why, if you're interested.
a government that actually supports rather than just pays lip service to capitalism, the only system proven to lead to economic prosperity
Sweden is doing much better than America by every account and it's Socialist.
I don't quite know where to begin, so I'll have to default to a point-by-point approach I'm afraid, sorry about that.
- How can banking 'soon come at a premium'? Like I said, the only appealing quality of Swiss banking is its secrecy, and that is going away fast. How are Swiss banks going to be of any use to anyone that is not Swiss without their bank secret? It's a closed country, hard to reach, with no natural or other resources.
- Yes it's stable, but how is it any more stable than any other Western country? Besides like I already said it's very closed (the stability and closedness are intertwined, of course) - its internal stability has little value to anyone but the Swiss themselves.
- No the US doesn't have enough oil for its own use - my point is that at least it has some. I was contrasting it with Switzerland which has nothing (no offense to Swiss readers, I love hiking in your mountains so thanks for that ;) )
- You coastline argument is a red herring. A country that is basically a bunch of islands with irregular coastlines will of course have more coasts (but Greece has only a bit more than the US). Amount of kilometers of coastline is just a proxy for how much exploitable sea area that represents, and how much access it provides to the rest of the world for trade purposes, and the US crushes Greece on both accounts.
- Advanced technology: to paraphrase Charles Babbage (badly), "I'm unable to comprehend the level of confusion that could lead to such statements". Despite the sensationalist reporting and the high growth rates of China (and the rest of Asia) over the last 2 decades, China is still effectively a third world country. Its R&D capacity is below Western level and production capacity is highly concentrated in low-tech mass manufacturing like steel, clothing and electronics assembly. If you are serious in claiming that the Chinese have overtaken the West in technological development you'll have to come with proof of such claims, considering that all measures that would reasonably be used for such statements (GDP, R&D budgets, production in high-tech sectors, origin and ownership of leaders in the field, ...) solidly point to the US as world leader (with the EU as a second).
- I'm not sure what you're comparing by. GDP and consumption power are lower in Sweden, unemployment roughly equal, debt (as a ratio to GDP) is only a little bit below the US, and to get out of the near-bankruptcy state that Sweden was in in the early 2000's they had to significantly raise taxes yet cut in benefits. Not sure where you're going with this but Scandinavia being so much better is not a closed case as you try to make it seem.
(I'm not an American and I won't say that all that the US does is great and fine but come on, if you're going to make outrageous statements you'll have to at least back them up a little, especially on a site where (I hope) people pride themselves on their rationality).