Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ajays 5351 days ago
If you open a bank account in the US (and many other parts of the world), you have to show identification. Why not the same in Switzerland? The Swiss can ask for ID when opening an account; if the account holder is a Swiss citizen, give her/him all the privacy you want. If s/he's not, then reveal the accounts when that country's government asks.

Alternately, the Swiss can tell each country how much money their citizens have in Switzerland (in aggregate).
1 comments
jacques_chester 5351 days ago
Again, why should the Swiss do another country's homework? Enforcing someone else's laws is not their job. They will honour judgements or warrants issued from the benches of most countries, but they're hardly going to just give up secrecy because somebody somewhere is annoyed at them.

Neutrality requires secrecy. If you favour one group with disclosure and not another group, you're no longer strictly neutral. You have to treat everyone identically or it no longer works. That means that you are the refuge of scoundrels and a bulwark of liberty. The Swiss have decided entirely reasonably that that's what they want.

link
ubernostrum 5351 days ago
Well, the way I'd phrase it is that the Swiss have realized that a sense of morals shouldn't get in the way of making a lot of money.
link
jacques_chester 5351 days ago
You're putting the cart before the horse.

The Swiss desire peace. In their history they've suffered from some stunning little civil wars. In order to obtain and retain peace, they have amongst other things decided on a policy of strict neutrality. They can in part uphold this because of their geopolitical position in Europe -- an almost perfect natural fortress. It is easy to defend and they can keep themselves in food and water more or less indefinitely.

As a consequence of neutrality and defensibility, their country has natural competitive advantages in banking. Complaining about the Swiss being good at banking is like complaining about the USA being good at farming. In both cases natural features and political history have pretty much made certain outcomes more or less inevitable.

link