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Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

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Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#111

Post by RetpolineDrama »

bell-cot wrote: post #41

Wow. Is Bloomberg actually a credible business publication? Barring a serious housing surplus, or similar major economic problems, there are ~no upsides for political leaders who actually work to attract more residents to an area. (Attracting more & higher bidders, for the limited housing stock, is a different story.) Vs. "attracting new business"? That attracts plenty of favorable press, bragging rights, etc. And fo…

> and every dollar worth of residential housing is a money pit.

This can't possibly be true in any of the municipalities I've ever lived in. Property taxes are insane, like fancy private school tuition insane and it's definitely not going into the roads. Actually lets break it down:

Power, water, and sewer are paid for by their consumption. My local utilities actually have the problem that they _make_ too much money.

Roads are paid for by fuel/registration taxes/insane vehicle sales tax.

Schools are paid by property tax, but every public school in every jurisdiction I've ever lived in has been inferior to private while costing me almost as much via property tax.

Then there's Fire and Police, but those costs should be minimal and distributed over the huge number of residents.

Then there's the mail, oh wait that's again funded by usage.

Zoning and code compliance? Again, absolutely minimal costs there. Permits cost $... so again funded by usage!

Central planning for development? _What_ planning? lol.

I know where this is coming from, poorly researched and often-dishonest narrative from "not just bikes" and their ilk. In reality residential communities are huge tax farms. Every watt of power, gallon of water, etc is *paid for* (including a healthy markup). The damn roads don't cost $15k/year.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#112

Post by sgjohnson »

vkou wrote: post #88
boh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really bizarre that state sovereignty is just considered a business practice. No it's not a "modern invention" to "enact" borders. Nor does labor organizing have anything to do with its enforcement. Corporate-centric culture doesn't do well in explaining the world. I'd suggest a less narrow viewpoint.

It's a modern (a 'temporary measure' enacted in WW1) invention to enact a passport-controlled system of travel and residency across the entire world. Border control prior to it was more focused on customs taxes, and in some countries, keeping undesirable races/religions out. We have decided the latter is wrong, so instead of directly banning, say, Chinese or Jewish immigration, we replaced it with quotas on country o…

We can go one step further and also say that the entire system of social welfare is a post-WW2 invention.

Before WW2 the state only helped those who couldn’t help themselves. Now the state just fucks everyone.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#113

Post by someguydave »

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).

That way of thinking collides with the idea that trade and immigration should be unfettered, especially if the benefits accrue to foreigners.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#114

Post by iLoveOncall »

londons_explore wrote: post #107

There are a few countries who compete for residents. For example, The Netherlands has a 30% tax advantage for all immigrants, for 5 years. Thats huuuuuge . [1]: https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/officia...

> From a tax perspective, the salary agreed upon between you and your employer will be reduced by 30%. In return, you receive a 30% allowance as reimbursement for expenses.

This is not at all a 30% tax advantage lol.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#115

Post by NineStarPoint »

dougmwne wrote: post #91
snowwrestler wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having jobs is a major part of attracting new residents unless you are a (sub)tropical paradise. The theory is that for a whole range of lucrative jobs, “everywhere with Internet” can offer residents those jobs through remote work. So a neighborhood doesn’t need to compete to attract a big office building. Personally I think that remains to be seen… we’re clearly still in the hangover from the pandemic. Society mig…

The thing is that Florida and a few other top destinations seem to have a monopoly on attracting remote workers. No state income tax helps a lot, but that’s not going to make Wisconsin a major destination for remote workers. If the place hasn’t already been attracting retirees for years, it’s probably not going to ever get on the remote worker radar.

For me while State Income tax was an interesting part of the decision, ultimately it was easily consumed by the massive difference in house prices (and as such rent) between different locations. Which is probably part of the retiree question as well, but I wouldn’t say most of the places that ended up on my list with a combination of “place I’d want to live” and “reasonable rent prices” were retiree destinations.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#116

Post by [deleted] »

nhchris wrote: post #103
somewhereoutth wrote: post #90

With falling birthrates in developed countries, competing for residents will be exactly what they will be doing. Making a success of large scale immigration will be essential to the future prospects of those nations/communities.

Successful mass immigration will allow them to persist in the systems that are causing those falling birthrates, ensuring their people dwindle towards nothing. Stopping immigration would force them to change to something sustainable.

[deleted]

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#117

Post by remarkEon »

lesuorac wrote: post #101
remarkEon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. I have never heard this explanation. Where is it coming from? It sounds not only wrong but inverted to me. Governments enforce borders to effectively secure their territory and people, and thus its own power. Is the idea that, without the “legal fiction” of borders, we’d have some kind of global autoworkers Union or…

> 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

You can think about it that way if you want, but it’s not how it works in reality and the wiki link contradicts what you’re saying about modern practices.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#118

Post by necovek »

londons_explore wrote: post #107

There are a few countries who compete for residents. For example, The Netherlands has a 30% tax advantage for all immigrants, for 5 years. Thats huuuuuge . [1]: https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/officia...

Not all immigrants:

> Highly skilled migrants...

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#119

Post by londons_explore »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #114
londons_explore wrote: post #107

There are a few countries who compete for residents. For example, The Netherlands has a 30% tax advantage for all immigrants, for 5 years. Thats huuuuuge . [1]: https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/officia...

> From a tax perspective, the salary agreed upon between you and your employer will be reduced by 30%. In return, you receive a 30% allowance as reimbursement for expenses. This is not at all a 30% tax advantage lol.

Imagine you and a local are both are paid €100k. The local gets €60,675.16 after tax.

The immigrant gets €77,281.98 annually after tax.

Thats 27% more money in your bank account for the same work done.

And there is another huge benefit for those moving from the USA... Any income from shares or overseas income are taxed at the USA tax rate rather than the dutch tax rate.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#120

Post by loganmhb »

RetpolineDrama wrote: post #111
bell-cot wrote: post #41

Wow. Is Bloomberg actually a credible business publication? Barring a serious housing surplus, or similar major economic problems, there are ~no upsides for political leaders who actually work to attract more residents to an area. (Attracting more & higher bidders, for the limited housing stock, is a different story.) Vs. "attracting new business"? That attracts plenty of favorable press, bragging rights, etc. And fo…

> and every dollar worth of residential housing is a money pit. This can't possibly be true in any of the municipalities I've ever lived in. Property taxes are insane, like fancy private school tuition insane and it's definitely not going into the roads. Actually lets break it down: Power, water, and sewer are paid for by their consumption. My local utilities actually have the problem that they _make_ too much money.…

The roads might actually cost more than that:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-ma...

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