Last night, I had a discussion with Scott Davis, a neighbor who lives just up the road from me. His son Ian went to school with my eldest daughter Dee, and we exchanged information about the two “kids.” Ian married a women from Switzerland, who is fluent in English, French, and German, and at home she speaks French to her little children so that they will be bilingual. Both Scott and I agreed that this was a terrific thing to do, that nobody regrets being able to speak more than one language.

However, when I think of Switzerland, I quite naturally think of chocolate, and I mentioned this to Scott.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “They practically serve it at every meal. But you know what? The obesity rates in Switzerland are much lower than they are in the U.S.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

“Well, when my wife and I went to visit our daughter-in-law’s family, we noticed that the Swiss walk everywhere, for fun and to get to places. Their portion sizes are much smaller, and their meals are leisurely. They don’t eat on the run.”

To sum up: The Swiss exercise more, eat less, and have more relaxed meal times. Sounds like a winning combination to me. The only thing I would add is that some countries make this healthy lifestyle easier for its citizens than other counties do. For example, it is my understanding that Switzerland has good public transportation and less sprawl. As a result, people don’t use cars as much and walk more.

Also, the Swiss government has mandated that all employees get 4 paid weeks of vacation a year. In the United States, the number of mandated paid vacation weeks is zero. Employers are not required to give their employees any paid vacation or holidays at all, and indeed I have worked in several jobs where I have had neither vacation time nor sick time. I know all too well that old, stressed overworked/underpaid feeling, and it is not a good one.

Let’s just say that it’s easier to have relaxed meals when you have a more relaxed schedule, with plenty of paid vacation time and some paid holidays thrown in to boot.

Now, this does not mean I think that individuals aren’t responsible for healthy and unhealthy habits. Quite the reverse—we are responsible for what we eat and how much we are exercise. But I also believe that we are societal beings as well as individuals, and some countries are better at promoting healthier, more relaxed societies than others are.

These countries, like Switzerland, usually have a high standard of living. They are not fringe countries where people are scrapping to survive for basic necessities.

And need I mention that Switzerland has universal health care for its citizens? No, but I’ll do so anyway.

So my question is, why don’t we do it more like the Swiss, when the benefits are so obvious?

Last night, I watched the first two parts of the excellent Frontline‘s four-part series on the financial crisis. No one does it like Frontline, where they tirelessly lay out the facts and put them together in a way that is comprehensible and enlightening. Last night was no exception even for someone like me, who is not exactly clever when it comes to money and math.

Frontline traced the origins of the crisis to a meeting in Florida in the early 1990s where young financial “geniuses” got together to figure out how financial institutions could avoid risk and make more money. From there, the law of unintended consequences, combined with greed and stupidity, kicked in, and some very powerful people came mighty close to wrecking the world’s economy and causing a world-wide depression.

It is beyond the scope of this post (and perhaps this writer) to lay out exactly how the financial crisis happened. I would encourage readers to watch this special and learn for themselves. I’m even seriously considering buying this documentary so that I can watch it and learn at my own slow pace.

But I do have a couple of thoughts. First, the people and firms responsible for this misery have not paid restitution. Just the reverse. They are as rich and as powerful as ever, and they continue to stack the deck, via laws and regulations, in their favor. In my opinion, all the financial institutions involved should have been forced to pay a financial crisis tax, large enough to do some good, to in turn help states deal with the shortfalls that came as a result of this crisis. I also think the individuals leading these firms needed to make restitution, not by going to jail, but instead by paying hefty—and I mean hefty—fines that could also go to alleviating some of the harm they caused. Hours and hours of community service would also have been appropriate. None of this will happen, but it should have, and it galls me that it hasn’t.

Second, and almost as galling, is that we are all part of this horrible system. There is no way we can opt out. Even the most avid, green back-to-lander is somewhat dependent on the money that comes from Wall Street. It might not be directly, although it is the rare family that will not rely on pensions or benefits funded from investments. But the dependence on Wall Street is there all the same.

For example, let’s say we have Joe and Josephine, alternative farmers, who grow, make, and barter pretty much everything they need. Such people are rare, but they do exist. (Often in a farming family, one person works outside the home to bring in a steady income and health insurance, and the other person tends the farm.) To continue with our mythical couple: The money Joe and Josephine need for operating expenses comes from the products they sell, and it really seems as though Joe and Josephine should be able to thumb their noses at Wall Street and the rest of the world. Yet, Joe and Josephine are still a part of the system because they are dependent on the rest of us, whose jobs, at various levels, depend on the financial system. Without us to buy their products, there would be no Farmers Joe and Josephine.

Perhaps I’m being cynical. Maybe by buying local and second hand, by reusing and recycling, we can at least slow down the system and do some good. I don’t know. What I do know is that it is both frustrating and scary that the shadowy men and women of the financial world should have so much power to ruin so many lives, not just in our country but also around the world.

I wish the Occupy Movement the best of luck. They are going up against formidable and dangerous opponents.