The other day I was having lunch with one of my coworkers and our discussion went in the direction of the economic crisis and all the related junk. While it’s very hard to feel any crisis at all when you are in Switzerland given that the country is like a big bubble, it does exist here as well. After all, UBS did lose over 20 billion dollars in the past year.

In anyway, during out conversation my co-worker cracked me up with a joke that if Switzerland ever starts suffering, it will quickly find a solution to the crisis by building another tunnel and boosting its economy. At first I thought it was hilariously absurd, but when I came home that day I looked up some info regarding Swiss tunnels, which made my mind wonder. Here some interesting facts:

Wikipedia lists 39 longest tunnels in the world that are currently in use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_by_length). Out of these 39 tunnels, 7 are located in Switzerland, which is around 18% by quantity or over 16% by length. Moreover, the largest railway tunnel in the world – Gotthard Base Tunnel – is currently under construction in what country? You guessed right – Switzerland! This massive 54km baby is costing the cheese country a pretty penny of almost 12 billion CHF, which around 4% of the country’s GDP. Make your our own conclusions.