Governments should compete for residents, not businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#151

Post by mind-blight » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #13

fnordpiglet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a migratory species it is literally inhuman to erect a border. Borders should be jurisdictional boundaries but should be permeable like the states in the US. The rest of the tribalism BS is just that.

Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago. You probably don't want criminals to freely move into your country. You probably want a country that gets funded by taxes (both short term and long term). No country in the world maintains open borders. Everytime there has been mass unorganized migration it has been a humanitarian disaster. Platitudes only work on paper.

Lots of countries maintain open borders. The entire Schengen zone is an open borders agreement.

Also, you're incorrectly conflating mass migration with open borders. You can have open borders without causing a mass migration and vice versa.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#152

Post by paulryanrogers » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #144

It's not one or the other, governments ( US state governments ) compete for both. Companies want to be where the workers are at and workers want to be where the jobs are at. A state needs qualified residents to attract businesses and they also need good jobs to attract residents. The articles says WFH is changing that but I don't see WFH ever being on a wide enough scale to have much influence.

Workers want to be comfortably near jobs. Not so close you breath the fumes. Not so far you commute by plane. Ideally with good schools if you want kids, and other activities besides walking on concrete.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#153

Post by chasd00 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #20

gtop3 wrote: post #14

What are the best strategies to attract remote workers to a location? * Utilities such as roads, water, high speed internet feel like table stakes now. Fiber internet is quickly spreading in rural areas, and I know people with septic tanks and a fiber line. Ten years ago Google Fiber was a major selling point for Kansas City. * Governments have little control over climate, nearby geographic features, time zone, and a…

> * Cost of living only works for so long. We've seen areas in the last decades that have an influx of population and they usually see a corresponding increase in COL. There are approaches governments can take to slow down the growth of COL, but it seems inevitable. This IMO is the big issue though. Governments need to be aware of long-term population trends as stay ahead of them when it comes to planning. I consiste…

yeah get behind on population growth and you'll never get caught up. This happened to Austin, the city just put its head in the sand and wanted to stay a small town forever. Now they're hopelessly behind building out the infrastructure to support a population growing at an ever faster rate.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#154

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #13

fnordpiglet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a migratory species it is literally inhuman to erect a border. Borders should be jurisdictional boundaries but should be permeable like the states in the US. The rest of the tribalism BS is just that.

Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago. You probably don't want criminals to freely move into your country. You probably want a country that gets funded by taxes (both short term and long term). No country in the world maintains open borders. Everytime there has been mass unorganized migration it has been a humanitarian disaster. Platitudes only work on paper.

Countries are equivalent to prisons in your example? I agree, they act that way now.

But what about states in the United States? They were explicitly formed as a set of states - nations - that cooperate under a federation. Free migration wasn’t always the case in the original states but was required in the constitution.

What about the EU? People can move about freely today when in the past they weren’t able to.

Or are you saying there’s something superior about Americans and Europeans and we need to keep everyone else in their prisons?

You quote 12,000 years ago as some sort of transition. Realistically migration was relatively unimpeded until the 1900’s. Citizenship isn’t the same as migration, and in many cultures citizens and denizens were two classes with the denizens migrating relatively unimpeded. Some cultures like ancient China had travel papers but that was reserved for nobles or elites - normal people were too beneath notice to require documentation to travel.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#155

Post by andrekandre » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #52

cyclecount wrote: post #6

This line of thinking comes up often on HN but it ignores the central reason for governments to enact borders, a rather modern invention. Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. A border exists often for workers only, but is mostly a legal fiction that corporations can easily navigate. The most common example for the Americans reading this is NAFTA, which m…

Maybe, but that's not the only reason. Borders are also enforced because you can't have open borders and social welfare programs.

  > you can't have open borders and social welfare programs

this may sound simplistic/naive but cant you just tax those additional people to pay for those welfare?

i guess the assumption is those people wouldnt be working?

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#156

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #80

candiddevmike wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your example is valid because we're not talking about water, we're talking about humans who are choosing to leave their country for a better place. Pursuit of happiness and all that jazz. I guess my opinion is being born in a place like the US shouldn't be some kind of privilege, and instead we should strive for the US to be a bastion for human dignity.

> we're talking about humans who are choosing to leave their country for a better place. What makes the US a better place? What keeps other countries from being a better place?

The constitution and bill of rights and the effective government the founding fathers created that ensures the continuation of those law bodies.

The lack of those blessings from the past is what prevents others. It’s no fault of the people who live here or there today for the situation we are in. If George Washington had accepted a crown when offered we would be just as screwed up.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#157

Post by chasd00 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

abvdasker wrote: post #56

It's worth remembering that New York-based opposition to subsidies for Amazon's construction of "HQ2" in Long Island City was widely vilified and disparaged in mainstream media outlets across the political spectrum. This latest development looks like a pretty strong vindication of those who were outspoken against these tax handouts to Amazon.

The city collects $0 if there's no building no matter what the incentive was. It would be as if AMZ went somewhere else to build. People see "handout" and think AMZ was written a check, but that's not how the incentives work. "handout" is a very misleading term.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#158

Post by bigger_inside » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #147

nhchris wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "coincidence" that Chinese are born in China and Polish in Poland. It is their inheritance, their birthright, the fruit of their ancestors' labors. To tear out all connection to one's history by calling it "coincidence" is, frankly, sickening.

I wonder if someone born in a war torn region with few resources and no organized society would have the same opinion. It is just a statement of fact that the geographic location a person is born is coincidence.

the term "coincidence" is weird. I read it as somehow relying on the idea that first, there is a person (like a soul?), and then, that soul is "coincidentally" put somewhere. Correct me if you think that's strange, but the idea of "coincidence" to me only seems to make sense if the person somehow predates the location of birth. But if that's not the case, as I would guess most of us believe, then there is no coincidence here, "just" a birth that is already positioned - and your nationality, heritage, culture, language are dependent on that birth. And hence, that is the frame in which a person can only develop - after that fact. And THAT is nowhere near coincidence...

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#159

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

nhchris wrote: post #50

FpUser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago" Up until recently ( relatively ) a person could pretty much move to other country without much fuzz.

Because this was so rare that the destination countries didn't see it as a problem. And when it did happen en masse, it was usually war.

That’s not true at all, there were often famines and other natural disasters that made it impossible to live in a region and people just migrated. It happened constantly.

Watching the children in Ethiopia starving to death, I couldn’t help but wonder how we felt forcing people to live in an emergent desert to death by starvation was better if we just wrote a song about it - “We are the world.” If that were true, why couldn’t they just leave?

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#160

Post by chasd00 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

slackdog wrote: post #21

Residents need jobs. Alaska is one of the most beautiful states in the country, but there are relatively few opportunities for work. If there were more jobs, more people would consider moving to Alaska. We got a taste of this effect when remote working became common. A lot of people moved to other states and cities they wouldn't or couldn't live in before when they were expected to live near the office. But of course…

One thing to consider is jobs isn't the only thing that attracts residents. If i could double my salary by moving my family to Alaska I still wouldn't go. It's too cold.