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Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

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Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#261

Post by lesuorac »

stale2002 wrote: post #163
lesuorac wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments enforce borders to effectively secure their territory and people Only if by "secure" you mean prevent your population from leaving [1]. The whole origin of border control was to prevent people from leaving. The easy way to think about it is you can't leave a country without a passport but you can enter a country without a visa (exceptions apply). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport#History

> Only if by "secure" you mean prevent your population from leaving Did you think about this statement for even 1 second? It should be clearly and immediately obvious that it is easier to leave places like the US than it is to enter it. This is obviously the case. You cannot with a straight face claim that actually it is easier to enter the US than leave. Clearly, leaving is easier.

There are 4x [1] the amount of people that annually enter the US than have passports issued [2].

It is in fact, 4x easier to enter the US than to leave. Passports are actually rare for a US citizen to have, you just live in a bubble.

[1]: https://www.trade.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/Fact%20She... [2]: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-...

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#262

Post by golemiprague »

subsubzero wrote: post #39
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…

This line of thinking trends very recently. Corporations are not everything despite what they and the media have you believe. Countries are defined by territory either hard won from conflict(war) or based on shared cultural leanings. Having citizenship is a privilege for many and in some countries it requires mandatory enlistment in the armed forces(Israel, South Korea).

[dead]

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#263

Post by hintymad »

ikiris wrote: post #214
hintymad wrote: post #189

How does Bay Area fit in the narrative? From my personal point of view, Bay Area, where I live, offers very little to its residents: public schools have super low standards and low teaching qualities. Many of the schools use seemingly run-down portables while public schools in other states, such as WA, have amazing buildings and facilities. More than 1/3 of the families in the Bay Area choose private schools, the hig…

... so why do you live there? You choose it same as everyone else that's there now. Sounds like they compete well enough for you?

My life is good, thanks to the booming tech industry. And as other comments said, the weather is great for me. Indeed, mediterranean weather is a godsend. There was a reason that Greeks and Romans had leisure to come up with foundations of modern civilization.

I was not complaining about the life. I was just wondering how the government's behavior fits the narrative of competing for residents vs business. Of course, I'm angry about the quality of education in California or the corruption in government in general, but that's not the point of my questions.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#264

Post by hintymad »

ghaff wrote: post #257
slg wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Great weather. 4 hours away from skiing. 1 hour away from the beach. Why not move to Los Angeles, better weather, closer to skiing, and closer to the beach? Seems to me that there is still something the government is doing to keep you in the Bay Area.

I probably disagree on the weather but I don't really like heat. There are also a lot of local natural areas for hiking and so forth. But, really, they're different. Take money out of the picture and tell me I needed to live in either SoCal or NoCal and I'd definitely pick the latter. (And there's better skiing than both.)

Plus, LA is too dry, and the commute is even worse than in Bay Area.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#265

Post by ashwagary »

908B64B197 wrote: post #184
ashwagary wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most shortages seem to be due to economic sanctions and trade embargoes. I wonder how much fleeing rates would dwindle if they were lifted.

> Most shortages seem to be due to economic sanctions and trade embargoes. Not really. Cuba is free to trade with any country that's not the USA (and is even free to trade with the USA except for certain entities or commodities). Decades of corruption, incompetence, brain drain and failed government made the local economy unable to compete.

>Not really.

A country of 11m people loses an estimated $3+ billion per year from various UN condemned restrictions.

Are you saying that causes no shortages? That's not a trivial sum of money (~$300 per capita).

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#266

Post by kilgnad »

mcguire wrote: post #220
kilgnad wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that the taglines enforce a theme even when the circumstances change. Your healthy community is experiencing homelessness and a housing affordability problem along with every "themed" community around you. Does it make sense to stick with the original theme? No. It doesn't. The problem here is that by owning property you buy into that theme. Any divergence from that theme is harmful to what y…

As AlgorithmicTime (now dead) wrote, American home ownership rates peaked in 2004 at 69%, fell to 64% in 2016, and are back up to 66%. ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rat... ) In California, it's about 56%. You gave to get San Francisco proper to get a minority and then it's still 38% ( https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocou... )

You have to look at age and location. If you characterize the whole US you're including people who are much older and people who live away from very urban areas.

Among older people and in small towns and villages the housing problems, are of course, much milder.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#267

Post by hintymad »

gnopgnip wrote: post #223
hintymad wrote: post #189

How does Bay Area fit in the narrative? From my personal point of view, Bay Area, where I live, offers very little to its residents: public schools have super low standards and low teaching qualities. Many of the schools use seemingly run-down portables while public schools in other states, such as WA, have amazing buildings and facilities. More than 1/3 of the families in the Bay Area choose private schools, the hig…

>California also has the higher tax for income and business than most of the other states. Is this a bad thing? It is true that California has high marginal rates, but for most people that isn't what matters. The progressive rates are more favorable, and from a policy perspective this creates more economic opportunity. For instance a married couple making $125k a year(bay area median) would have $4300 less in take ho…

> Six of the top ten school districts in the state are in the bay area.

This is because the majority of the parents in the tech industry in Bay Area are tiger parents or 24x7 helicopter parents. I kid you not, in a lunch with random tech workers there you will find 9 out of 10 are PhDs from elite universities. The parents themselves are overachievers, and they push their kids really hard. They know every EC, every competition, every course track. They send their kids to tough tutoring schools like AOPS and Think Academy, if they don't get multiple private tutors for their kids. They certainly compete for those elite summer camps. In addition, people with less means, such as manicurists and housekeepers, would pool their resources to find private tutors for their kids in their big families. On the other hand, teachers in Cupertino school district ask parents to grade homework (WTF!). The physics teacher of the kids of NASA's director ask questions like "which one is heavier, a pound or a kilogram" in grade 8 physics exams (WTF!). In the meantime, some school districts try to forbid students from taking algebra 2 or geometry in grade 9 in the name of equity. This makes me especially sad, as brilliant kids who can't afford tutoring will be deprived the rights to be properly challenged, all in the name of so-called equity. But I digressed.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#268

Post by colonCapitalDee »

mikem170 wrote: post #222
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This line of thinking comes up often on HN but it ignores the central reason for governments to enact borders, a rather modern invention . Would you be kind and provide some scholarly proof for the rather modern invention ? It might not have been called "border" and have the gate with digital IDs to pass by but well defined (for their time) territories existed for thousands of years as evidenced by territory dispute…

Not the parent you replied to, but the modern passport as we know it goes back only about 100 years. > Migration was generally speaking, unhindered and each emigrant could decide on the time of his departure, his arrival or his return, to suit his own convenience. But World War I brought harsh restrictions on freedom of movement. [0] > The concept of a worldwide passport standard is relatively new, created in the aft…

I'm not convinced. Passports might be a modern invention (and really that isn't surprising, a global identification system requires sophisticated bureaucracy and cheap, accessible transportation), but that doesn't mean that people used to be able to move freely across borders. Modern technology makes immigration accessible to the masses in a way that simply wasn't the case in the pre-modern world.

A few things you would have to consider before immigrating in the pre-modern world:

- Where are you going? There's no internet, books are rare, and maps are inaccurate (and often plain wrong)

- How will you get there? Transportation is expensive and unreliable

- How will you preserve wealth? A global financial system accessible to normal folks does not exist yet

- What will you do to support yourself? Pre-modern communication infrastructure makes scoping out foreign labor markets difficult

- How will you learn the language? You'll have to find someone to teach it to you, instructional material will be limited

- Who will you leave behind? Any family members that don't come with you will likely never be seen or heard from again

- What if people decide you're not welcome? Well-enforced protections against discrimination do not exist yet

People did immigrate, so obviously immigration was not impossible. Not all of these questions apply to every situation (people migrating to an adjacent country would not have to deal with many of these concerns). But immigration was far harder than it is today, and fraught with risk. Pre-modern borders were, by virtue of being pre-modern, effectively closed.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#269

Post by tap-snap-or-nap »

nhchris wrote: post #77
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether something is disturbing or not doesn't say much about whether it's a good idea, just that it is different from the conventional. Around the world, governments act like abusive parents. If people could migrate freely (creating a competition for residents), much more people would live without the abuse of authoritarian governments.

Governments don't come from the geography, but the people. Living in a small country myself, a place such as China, India, Indonesia, or Nigeria could send (and they would gladly come) enough people to outvote us on any issue 3x over, without even noticing they're missing anyone. We would simply cease to exist first as a sovereign people, and soon after as a distinct people at all, without any territory to call our o…

Initially, immigration served as a means to address specific shortages, but nowadays it appears to be utilized as a strategy to reduce wages. Unfortunately, the political discourse surrounding immigration has become increasingly hostile. This suggests that politicians may be prioritizing corporate interests and a select few economic beneficiaries over the well-being of the general public.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#270

Post by Symbiote »

dougmwne wrote: post #215
thex10 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is pretty silly because governments do compete for residents. I agree, but I also think many places compete poorly. I recently moved to a fast-growing (read: developer-friendly) region of the USA that often claims to be a "top place to live". And I might just leave, for many reasons: * The water tastes terrible. But I bought a filter so whatever... * The schools are bad. But I can try to lottery into the magne…

Yeah, I think you’ve got it. Poor competitors lose the competition. Sounds like you are better off somewhere else, especially if you want public transit.

It sounds like they have no option other than public transport until the 3 month wait for the DMV appointment is done.
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