Meeting the Pakistani-Swiss

Re: # 80
there is another country ireland, out of no where it`s it`s there at the top in terms of gdp per person. irish for centuries used to migrate to us, as the irish say we build america now we run it.

i know of a sialkoti guy he went to dublin and opened an `indian` restuarant he`s millionaire now, talk about the luck of the irish.

...........an interesting country that was being discussed quite a bit, during my trip to europe, is norway.........for seven years, canada was ranked the highest on the hdi index of un.........now it has basically been replaced by norway.........

............norway has very large oil deposits, though it is not a member of opec.......it is still the third largest exporter of oil in the world, after saudi arabia and russia.....apparently, it has even more gigantic coal deposits, which are untapped........in fact, according to some research, norways coal deposits of its seabed could supply the whole world for centuries!...........

however, norway only has a population of 4.5 million.........about the size of lahore(?)......so what does a country that exports so much oil and has such a high level of education, yet such a tiny population do with its oil revenues.........the answer is it sets up the world`s largest pension fund.........

apparently, norway is stashing up its oil money and investing it into a pension fund for future generations.........it is now a $200 billion dollar pension fund.......the fund is getting so huge, that perhaps a stage may be reached where every norwegian could live off it and its interest...........would norwegians, at that point, ever need to work?

..........now that is a concept i believe in.........a country`s whole population getting a free ride........maybe its time to mvoe to norway..........

hamidm2#.....``......... and inspite of romair`s gushing praise of the socialist republic of canada, there is no way i`d move there .......... he is the only professional i know who has moved from the us to canada - i know many who have moved in the opposite direction .........``

........to some extent you are correct........though not completely........i just got a call from Google, a few weeks ago, to move back to my old abode in silicon valley.......however, i am not going..........if however they offer me a job they have advertised for dubai, i will go.........

........very few professionals move from usa to canada........however, a whole group of senior professionals from canada move to the usa.........the number is so high in IT that i rarely see any competent canadian IT executives........Canada has the lowest level of competence in senior IT positions i have ever seen......the only competent ones are indians, pakistanis etc........all canadian borns seem to have moved to usa.......as have many doctors etc....

however, a society`s strength, in my opinion, is not recognized by how well its competent, intelligent and empowered are doing.....in that category there is no comparison to the usa..........but in my opinion, a society`s strength is decided by how well its weak, disenfranchised and incompetent are doing..........

in this category, canada ranks quite a bit higher than the usa......one can feel it......i have seen no real poverty here......no poor ghettos........everyone has access to the harvards of canada..........everyone has free health care, with or without jobs...........a very good social security setup........

based on this, if canada were to open its borders, i think a lot of poor americans would migrate to canada.........though hardly any rich one would........on the other hand, if usa would open its borders completely, a lot of rich canadians would migrate, while hardly any poor canadians would............

no doubt, usa is a great country to live in...........but i am becoming more convinced it is no the best.........like you, i used to consider it the best, when my horizons were limited only to the usa and pakistan.............

i cannot imagine the kind of situation one saw in new orleans, ever occuring in canada.......nor can i ever imagine seeing the kind of inner city violence one sees in usa, occuring in canada................

Wasiq sahib,

What I liked about reading this how your narrative flows, there is little authorial/narrative judgement until the end, but clearly what you describe for some of the Pakistani-Swiss in Ticino is very distressing indeed, especially the danger of intergenerational welfare dependency. Just the brief details that you give, in terms of the women for example, or something that one of the men said, say so much. Thank you for sharing this with us.

I hope your time at the liberal arts college goes well.

--ana

Re: # 66

SR,

..... healthcare is the only area in which the us lags behind the rest of the developed countries - i wouldn`t change much else ........ the only other thing i might change is social security - i would advocate its privatization with people managing their own ira type accounts if it weren`t for the fact that there are a lot of irresponsible fools out there ........... sometimes you have to be your idiot brother`s keeper

......... and inspite of romair`s gushing praise of the socialist republic of canada, there is no way i`d move there .......... he is the only professional i know who has moved from the us to canada - i know many who have moved in the opposite direction ......... every day hundreds of people commute from windsor to detroit to work (mainly nurses and engineers) but i have never heard of an american working in windsor ......... and this inspite of the fact that detroit`s economy is the worst in the country .........

#71

btw, here are the criteria for the THES survey:

Peer
review
score (40%)

Recruiter
review
(10%)

Int`l
faculty
score (5%)

Int`l
students
score (5%)

Faculty /
student
score (20%)

Citations /
faculty
score (20%)

there are several blots in america, but you are focussing on the wrong ones. High school science, math is a bigger issue than university education.

Anybody who has graded and TA`ed knows that a lot of people enter university in US with very poor preparation.

#70
sorry I forgot Oxford and Cambridge, but anyway just 4.

touche!

bongdong, i`m not being arrogant, just pointing out what to us appear as blots on the face of the US which has many great things going for it to.

ah, but those are rankings for RESEARCH. In undergrad education our Unis are the best ;-)

*wink wink*

#61

you know what, I deal with enough arrogant brits at work to put up with another one on the net.

why dont you just look around to see what UT-Austin is all about. A ranking by your own Times Educational Supplement of the top universities of the world places it at 26, outranked by only 2 UK universities: LSE and Imperial College.

#67
The best measure of comprehensive human development is the UN-HDI(Human Development Index)

From the 2005 report UN-HDI ranks:

Country HDI (2003)
1 Norway 0.963
2 Iceland 0.956
3 Australia 0.955
4 Luxembourg 0.949
5 Canada 0.949
6 Sweden 0.949
7 Switzerland 0.947
8 Ireland 0.946
9 Belgium 0.945
10 United States 0.944
11 Japan 0.943
12 Netherlands 0.943
13 Finland 0.941
14 Denmark 0.941
15 United Kingdom 0.939
16 France 0.938
17 Austria 0.936
18 Italy 0.934
19 New Zealand 0.933
20 Germany 0.930

Though I would think that a difference of scores between 0.944 an 0.939 would not be statistically significant (i.e. may not pass a hypothesis test at 90% confidence)

wasiq,

that was a lovely article--very well written. I had never imagined there`d be pakistanis in switzerland also! naive, i know! how many are there there? must be a tiny percentage.

on all the major indicators which matter most to Joe Schmoe, healthcare, education, social security, safety -- the UK and Western Europe in general trump the US.

Re: # 57 hamidm {``.............. it is shameful that the us, the richest country in the world, does not have a universal healthcae system that covers everyone ......... i know a number of honest hardworking people who work 60-80 hours a week but still cannot afford health insurance for their families ............ actually welfare mommas who spends the morning at the nail salon and the afternoon at the welfare office gets better health care than someone who is self-employed and makes fifty thousand a year [let`s make it 120 K] and therefore does not qualify for medicaid ........ it is a crying shame ! ...``}

Wow Hamid shaib... so you are not a complete & shameless neocon cronie after all. That`s just haathi kay daant... you know, kha-nay kay aur, dekhanay kay aur ?

cheers

...SR