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Comment by Inthenameofmine | Hacker News Reader

While I definitely don't agree with this sentiment

> I'd love for the EU and the US to become more Anti-immigrant (thankfully it's rising)

I definitely agree with everything else you just said. I'm a Swiss citizen, Swiss born and raised, US educated, but my parents are not from Switzerland, and my name is not Swiss. I look as European as anybody else.

I couldn't even get a data entry job in Switzerland dammit. The US companies where asking for relocation, and if remote only at a 3-4x lower salary. I can't stand the US car culture (I'm a walkable city guy) so relocation was not an option for me.

Ended up doing a startup in my parent's home country. Fully bootstrapped, great revenue, great quality of life. 10-15% income tax.

With global health insurance, superb quality of life, walkable cities, cheap everything, no discrimination against you... Why would anybody want to move to the EU or US nowadays?

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Hmm. There are many reasons why you might not want to relocate to the US, but car culture should not be one of them. Depending on the city, it is entirely possible (nay, often preferable) to live without a car.

See https://www.walkscore.com/ and try typing in various cities or zip codes.

I've been to every major US city. Compared to European or most Asian cities they are simply not walkable.

Notable semi-exceptions might be Downtown SF, Manhattan, and Vancouver in Canada. But all of them have serious drawbacks when it comes to public transportation and rent prices.

correct me if I am wrong, but if I understood correctly:

- your parents are non-swiss and non-european, but came here, got you citizenship and adter growing up here you moved to US for university and stayed away - is that right?

You shouldn't be surprised what they asked from you - relocation. There are specific laws who companies can employ here, and noone is going to break the law just because you would like to set things up your way. If they allowed that, in couple of years Suisse in many ways would be gone as we know it. As you well know, it's a tiny job market with high salaries. they need to keep people spending their earned cash here. Your citizenship doesn't make any difference, it's not xenophobia or anything, just simple laws that people and companies here follow.

- taxes you mention are possible here too, it's super safe here even compared to rest of Europe (US is simply uncomparable) etc. If you are happy where you are, great for you! All you describe is from my view valid about Switzerland too.

The Swiss example I gave was for staying in Switzerland. I couldn't get a decently paying job in Switzerland as a European (SEE), Swiss citizen, living in Switzerland. At that point I wasn't discussing remote jobs at all. I kid you now, at one point one of the HR people told me jokingly in an interview "I thought you people do nly do Football" WTF??

The problem is that Swiss companies certainly hire you if you have a foreign background (as long as you can do the job), but they will think twice about it, and they expect you to accept a considerably lower salary as a "foreigner" too.

When everybody in the industry talks about "talent shortage" what they really mean is "talent shortage at a lower price point". They get to the lower price point by exploiting immigrants or as in my case people they consider foreigners.

> I thought you people do nly do Football

That got a chuckle out of me. Gotta blame Shaqiri, Xhaka, etc for being so good :)

What is your home country? As a digital nomad I am always on the lookout for great quality-of-living : cost-of-living ratios!

Any South Eastern Europe coast city does it really. I personally like nature and silence every now and then so I stay at Albanian Riviera Villages May-July and Mid-September-October.

If you know the young scene and make friends quickly, as a digital nomad Prishtina, Split, Belgrade are also awesome. Try Istanbul if you really like a lively city.

Sounds wonderful to be honest. Where is your company incorporated in? Would love to contact you but there's no info on your HN profile.

Just updated my profile if anybody is interested. We hire globally and remotely.

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