It is a lot of historic reputation. But I actually know 3 (!) Swiss numbered account systems personally (don't ask). They used to be anonymous a long time ago. They are not these days. The identity of the account holders has to be verified carefully in each case and has to be given to the government. The reputation of the Swiss banks refers to a situation that does not exist anymore and has not existed for quite a while.

Indeed. But they have to win this first. So far they convinced 2% of the voters to sign and they had 18 months for that. In the end, the Swiss voters are usually pretty pragmatic.

CS has gone out of business due to management incompetence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The largest Swiss bank is rank 23: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And the 2nd largest Swiss bank is rank 97.

Funny how that goes when hallucinations collide with actual facts ...

You think half a person of teaching personnel per student is too much? Well, being one of these, I can assure you it is money well spent. In fact, every CHF spent on the universities returns 4 CHF in profits. These are current numbers, just updated. You think that somehow is a problem?

Yeah, probably.

Not more than in other parts of the world. Probably less. And yes, I actually know that. For example, the fabled "anonymous Swiss bank accounts" have been history for a long time.

And not in a good way. Looks like a rather large number of people seriously do not know what they are doing.

When all compete but the products are still crap. Market failure does not get more spectacular than this.

Indeed. It still means "unusable for anything requiring accuracy". Which is quite a few things. Well, I guess this will not deliver the business model that finally turns a profit either. If that ever happens.

And you will never be able to. That would require a scaling up that is not feasible. Or an entirely different technology.

Indeed. Well, at least the crash will be spectacular. I am hoping for no more AI hypes for a long, long time.

You say the words, but you do not mean them.

USAID was horrifically corrupt

The cuts to USAID are projected to cause 14 million extra deaths - a large minority of those children - by 2030. And USAID engendered massive goodwill among its recipients

But no, by all means kill a couple million people per year and worsen living conditions (creating more migration) in order to save $23 per person, that's clearly Very Smart(TM).

And I don't know how to inform you of this, but the year is now 2025 and the Cold War and the politics therein ended nearly four decades ago. And USAID was not created "to smuggle CIA officers" (though CIA offers used every means available to them to do their work, certainly), it was created as a counterbalance to the USSR's use of similar soft power to turn the Third World to *its* side.

They can go back at any point if they don't think the conditions and salaries offered are worth the job. What matters is that they remain free to leave, with no "catches" keeping them there (inability to get return transport, inability to communicate with the outside world, misinformation, etc etc). Again, there's a debate to have over what conditions should be mandated by regulation, but the key point is that the salary offered - like happens illegally today en masse - is lower than US standards but higher than what they can get at home.

What on Earth are you talking about? Nobody is trying to make other countries poor and dangerous. People come to the US from these countries because even jobs that are tough and underpaid by US standards are vastly better than what is available at home. Creating a formal system just eliminates the worst aspects of it: the lawlessness, the sneaking across the border in often dangerous conditions (swimming across rivers, traveling through deserts), "coyotes" smuggling people in terrible conditions, and so forth. The current US system is the dumbest way you could possibly handle it: people wanting to work, US employers wanting them, the US economy benefitting from it... but still making it illegal, chaotic, dangerous, and unregulated for those involved.