Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism • Hacker News Board

Re: Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism

#51

Post by FuckButtons » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #23

postingpals wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a distrust in government misusing taxes, i wonder why the solution is to have less taxes, as opposed to fixing the government? I'm not being snarky I'm just genuinely curious why that is the knee jerk reaction.

Who’s to say that cutting taxes isn’t the best route to fixing the government. When institutions are systematically overfunded they tend to grow fat and entitled. Ironically they end up doing less with more. Trimming the budget enforces discipline and builds institutional knowledge around how to operate lean and execute efficiently.

This doesn’t happen with business so why do you think it works with government? Do cash strapped companies routinely outperform their well funded competition? No, generally they get acquired or go under.

Re: Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism

#52

Post by zepto » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #17

zepto wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing the government isn’t a ‘solution’. It’s a generally unsolved problem.

It's a problem that is solved much better in many other similarly-wealthy countries (see Norway, Switzerland) or pretty much all the other first world countries. It does not have to be perfect, it only has to be better.

The problem is not solved by answering the question ‘does any country appear to have a better government?’.

The problem is solved by answering the question: ‘what mechanism will transform our current government to a better one?’

That is unsolved.

Re: Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism

#53

Post by 0max » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #27

MagnumOpus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem that is solved much better in many other similarly-wealthy countries (see Norway, Switzerland) or pretty much all the other first world countries. It does not have to be perfect, it only has to be better.

Most of those countries have very homogenous populations. You also don’t hear about the bad stuff because unliked the United States they don’t have their dirty laundry being broadcast across every available medium 24/7/365.

How about Singapore?

Re: Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism

#54

Post by ericmay » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

0max wrote: post #53

ericmay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those countries have very homogenous populations. You also don’t hear about the bad stuff because unliked the United States they don’t have their dirty laundry being broadcast across every available medium 24/7/365.

How about Singapore?

It's a small city state that's 74% Chinese [1]. Not very multi-cultural in the western sense. Take a look at France for example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore

-edit-

You can also be multi-cultural in the "look at my skin color sense" but not multi-cultural in your beliefs. And of course for the purposes of this discussion it's a matter of degrees. Locally there may be extremes, but when you compare different geographies that might highlight actual extremes. I'm willing to bet, for example, that the United States is far more diverse both in opinion and nationality than Singapore. Iceland? Less so.

Re: Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism

#55

Post by redis_mlc » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #2

> Importantly, Utah’s success also shows up in health data. Utah’s cumulative case fatality rate—arguably the most important measure of pandemic success—measures 0.63 percent (compared to the national rate of 2.87 percent) and ranks lowest in the nation (as of this writing in October 2020). What in the world is this saying? That somehow Utahns are less likely to die once they have contracted the virus and that this h…

> Utah currently has a raging pandemic with a test positivity rate of 22%

That's awesome, because herd immunity is 40% - 60%.

So half way there.

> This doesn’t look like much to brag about.

You have no clue what you're talking about. Corona is a highly-contagious disease that is not preventable.

There's a mass delusion in the US regarding fixation on various corona statistics, illustrated by your ignorant comment.

We're all getting corona.