The Phileas Club 115 – Special: Guns, Banks and Chocolate in Switzerland

 

On this episode we talk about:

  • Switzerland! Guns, identities, administration, banks, cow horns and more!

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Comments

  1. Matthias Keller says:

    An interesting episode about our Swiss neighbors.
    I had to smile when you talked about the topic of how the Swiss are perceived and how they see themselves. A friend of mine from Switzerland always describes the Swiss as the “even more anal Germans”. But then again he is living in the German-speaking part of the country… Nevertheless, I guess that fits the theme of this Polandball comic strip pretty well 😉 https://imgur.com/Eheu90I

    One bit of anecdotal evidence on Patrick’s question about the cliché of people driving money across the border: It might not be as common nowadays with all the controls and countermeasures in place. But not too long ago the police was very interested in pulling over expensive cars around here, especially if they had older, rich looking couples sitting in them for exactly this reason. A little trip in the car to Switzerland, getting something to eat, deposit some money and then drive back before dark. But I guess that has died down after we had a huge wave of people getting fined when German authorities got their hands on a CD with confidential data a few years ago.

    • Yeah I can imagine it was very common before proper tracking was possible…

    • StephSinalco says:

      Oh my God, this meme is so accurate, you can’t even imagine 😀 While reading it, I had an epiphany : aren’t we, French-speaking Swiss, the Germans of Switzerland ? Considered strict by the rest of the world, but unreliable by the Switzerdütsch… It seems at least we have the same opinions on our common “neighbors” 😉

      Regarding the cliché, I’m pretty sure it died some years ago. In fact, for years now, banks must perform a big series of controls before onboarding a new client or accepting any (substantial) amount of money : background checks, risk profile, origin of the money, etc. In addition to that, it’s now impossible in many banks to withdraw cash over 20 or 30 thousands CHF. I’m not saying things are perfect, but it became way more complex to hide your money in Switzerland, especially since the AEOI (https://www.efd.admin.ch/efd/en/home/themen/wirtschaft–waehrung–finanzplatz/finanzmarktpolitik/automatic-exchange-of-information–aeoi-.html)

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