{"id":30971,"date":"2026-09-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/?p=30971"},"modified":"2026-09-13T10:28:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:28:50","slug":"150-years-a-green-sofa-a-man-from-zurich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/150-years-a-green-sofa-a-man-from-zurich\/","title":{"rendered":"150 years, a green sofa, and a man from Zurich with a Schnitzelbangg"},"content":{"rendered":"
Peter Kappeler, CEO of Pax, welcomed his guests to the anniversary celebration at the company's headquarters in Basel.<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pax celebrated its 150th anniversary at Aschenplatz with a cozy, informal gathering instead of a gala, a member of the cantonal government as a guest from the neighborhood, and a director from Avenir Suisse who turned the topic of retirement planning into a cabaret act.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A Sofa Instead of a Gala”: That was the motto Pax CEO Peter Kappeler used to welcome his guests to the anniversary celebration at the company\u2019s headquarters in Basel. At the center of the festivities was indeed a sofa: the iconic green piece, a symbol of what people know from home, which has been traveling across Switzerland since the beginning of the year, accompanied employees on a trip to Laax, and most recently was on display at the sales partner celebration at the Attisholzareal. Just in time for the \u201cOpen House,\u201d it returned to Aschenplatz to offer the people of Basel an unusual living-room experience for three weeks, right where Pax has been at home for 150 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Neighbor with a Historical Perspective<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the head of the health department, of all people, delivered the laudatory speech is no coincidence, but rather a sign of good neighborly relations: State Councilor Dr. Lukas Engelberger, head of Basel\u2019s Department of Health and president of the GDK, lives directly across from Pax in a property provided to him by – of all people – another insurance executive, Thomas Sch\u00f6nb\u00e4chler, CEO of the Civil Servants\u2019 Insurance Fund of the Canton of Zurich. Engelberger took the opportunity to delve into Basel\u2019s city history: Malzgasse, where both the Department of Health and Pax have offices, owes its name to the \u201cMalenzey,\u201d the medieval leper colony to which the sick were once banished to the outskirts of the city out of fear of contagion. This stands in stark contrast to today\u2019s approach, which treats the sick and the elderly with greater dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Engelberger drew a simple division of labor from this: The canton ensures that people live as long and healthy a life as possible, while Pax provides the financial security for this: \u201cAll in all, it doesn\u2019t work all that badly,\u201d he remarked dryly. At the same time, he placed the anniversary in a political context: Pax was founded in 1876, shortly after the total revision of the Federal Constitution of 1874, which introduced direct democracy and the legislative referendum, while Basel-Stadt did not adapt its old patrician council system to the new federal reality until 1875. Engelberger saw the cooperative idea, whereby one is both owner and customer, as emblematic of what continues to shape the insurance industry in Basel to this day: an industry that has long been more significant to the economy than traditional banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zurich native who <\/strong>turned retirement planning <\/strong>into a cabaret stage<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The humorous part of the evening was handled, of all people, by a Zurich native: J\u00fcrg M\u00fcller, director of the think tank Avenir Suisse, and, through his think tank, a funding partner of the very organization that had invited him, spoke humorously about the three-pillar system, a task he himself compared to asking an undertaker to \u201cdo something cheerful, but stay on topic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M\u00fcller began by citing statistics from the 1920s through the 1940s, which showed that at that time, one-third of Basel\u2019s men and two-thirds of single women over the age of 65 were living on public assistance. The contrast with today: According to current figures, over 75 percent of retirees are satisfied or very satisfied with their financial situation, more so than the working population, only 60 percent of whom say the same. His analogy: Today, people sit in the shade of three trees, the second pillar, which emerged as a pension fund system as early as the 19th century; the AHV (Old Age and Survivors\u2019 Insurance) established in 1948; and the three-pillar model enshrined in the constitution in 1972. It was only the order of the trees that politicians, in hindsight, adjusted to suit their purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As entertaining as the retrospective was, M\u00fcller took a serious tone when discussing demographics: Since the turn of the millennium, life expectancy in Switzerland has increased by about two months each year, while the ratio of working people to AHV pensioners has fallen from six to one to just under three to one today, with a trend toward a further decline to 2.5. By 2040, the AHV faces the threat of an annual deficit of around three billion Swiss francs, while the most recent reform will generate just 600 million in additional revenue. His conclusion, citing countries such as Denmark (retirement age 68, expected to rise to 69 starting in 2035), Sweden (67), and Germany (65): There is no way around raising the retirement age. Just two additional years would restore the demographic balance of the 1970s. He calculated that this is certainly reasonable; after all, today\u2019s twenty-year-olds work an average of only about 20 hours per week over their entire lifetime, half as much as a twenty-year-old in 1930.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M\u00fcller wrapped things up with a self-deprecating four-line Basler Schnitzelbangg poem in the Zurich dialect, a small gamble that he himself described as a calculated risk, but which was met with spontaneous applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Kappeler thanked both speakers for combining warmth and humor in a topic that is often marked by bitter disputes in the Swiss pension debate, and then invited the guests to explore the \u201cinteractive exhibition\u201d on Pax\u2019s history within the building itself, including a game of foosball in the \u201cred-and-blue time capsule\u201d and the knowledge that FC Basel had fired its coach (Stephan Lichtsteiner) just under an hour earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Binci Heeb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pax is hosting its \u201cOpen House\u201d through September 25<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See also: Pax Donates Emergency Aid to Mark Its 150th Anniversary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pax celebrated its 150th anniversary at Aschenplatz with a cozy, informal gathering instead of a gala, a member of the cantonal government as a guest from the neighborhood, and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100,5134],"tags":[14977,14976,14980,14981,14985,14978,7389,14982,6421,14979,14984,14983],"class_list":["post-30971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current","category-general","tag-150-years","tag-anniversary","tag-avenir-suisse","tag-director-of-health-services","tag-fc-basel","tag-green-sofa","tag-pax-en","tag-playful","tag-retirement-age-en","tag-schnitzelbangg","tag-self-deprecating-humor","tag-spontaneous-applause","ownarticle"],"acf":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"Peter Kappeler, CEO of Pax, welcomed his guests to the anniversary celebration at the company's headquarters in Basel.","source_text":"","source_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30971"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31034,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30971\/revisions\/31034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}