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Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

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Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#271

Post by tap-snap-or-nap »

remarkEon wrote: post #34
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…

> 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…

Currently, there exist multinational corporations but not multinational unions. Furthermore, some countries do not permit unions to extend their reach across the same industry effectively. This perspective reflects the view that labor has been engaged in a conflict with capital.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#272

Post by jacobr1 »

bumby wrote: post #211
tclancy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>entitled to change a municpal culture simply because you got older I get what you probably meant, but this is a really strong statement. Our town is struggling with spiraling property taxes and it is forcing long-term residents out. I really feel for older people who've had decades of a social circle, have people to help them with things they can no longer do, etc. You can't move somewhere else and replicate that.

General question related to this: are the spiraling property taxes related to similarly spiraling home values?

Strong correlation, but not exclusively. Plenty of areas regularly vote for bond measures paid by increases in property taxes. So you can get increases of BOTH rate and value.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#273

Post by WaitWaitWha »

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…

The original post I was asking for further details is about borders, not passport.

That said, passports have been around near as long as borders, just did not have the smart chip embedded in them. Letters of recommendations or safe passage to pass a port have been around nearly as long as the notion of sovereign boundaries. It might have been a parchment with a wax seal, a ring, or a stick with a burn-mark, maybe even clay tablet, but the purpose of the "passport" is the same - passage into and across a territory controlled by another group other than the person holding the "passport" - i.e. safe passage.

Your reference last states King Henry the 5th of England had "pass porte" in the early 15th century. The Greek city states had safe-passage documents between each other way before the English. There is a bilingual "letters of recommendation" in Chinese and Tibetan from the 10th century to allow safe passage for a pilgrimage. A thing that allows a non-local to pass safely into and out of a territory. (British Library IOL Tib J 754) https://www.princeton.edu/news/2014/11/17/bringing-ancient-b...

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#274

Post by jacobr1 »

SllX wrote: post #171
xxpor wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when the "healthy community" is close to the central city and has good transit. Metro areas are networks, nothing happens in isolation.

Correct, but municipal corporations are generally[1] legal monopolies on the land within their jurisdiction. San Francisco has no legal jurisdiction over what Daly City or San Mateo County does, let alone Atherton and vice versa. [1] Your State may vary.

Right, and how is that working out for regional transit in the Bay Area? Probably better than most other places in the US ... but as far from functional for most residents in the area. The standard seems to be creating some kind of cross-county or cross-municipal agency with either delegated to independent funding mechanisms. Different states explicitly support or allow this to varying degrees.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#275

Post by bigger_inside »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #178
bigger_inside wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coincide…

I did not read it all as you did. “Coincidence” in welshwelsh’s comment was used to indicate who is deserving of the benefits of living in place X rather than place Y, where it can be reasonably concluded that X is overall better to live in than Y. I disagree with nhchris’s response of > It is their inheritance, their birthright, the fruit of their ancestors' labors. Because there is no natural law that something is…

I didn't read this just materially. There's a language, customs, "ways of thinking" you inherit; also, there is an image, there are power structures and positions you're born into. Sociologists speak of different forms of capital: not just financial capital, also social capital, cultural capital, etc., that can all be "exchanged" for other things later (the relationships of your parents with other people, the ease qith which you can get an education title, etc)

and still: for the person born to "deserve" living with these benefits nebulously assumes the person, and the "deserving", were there first, and THEN you are born and by sheer chance, you got it - or not. Again, when you stop thinking this way, sort of "thinking of an abstract person" first, but rather realize that there are no abstract people, just real ones, this starts to feel weird.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#276

Post by slackdog »

nerdponx wrote: post #258
slackdog wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience has led me to believe that most individuals in favor of corporate DEI initiatives are earnestly and in good faith attempting to put into practice the recommendations of critical race theory and related frameworks. Yes, of course they are. As explained by Chomsky's model of propaganda, corporations hire true believers for these roles because they are the most effective and reliable. > most managers and…

Chomsky's model of propaganda is a useful model, but it's not an iron law. Amazon is a great example of a company where I absolutely would not put it past them to use DEI initiatives to try to defeat labor organizing. But in many other cases these initiatives are actually demanded and sought after by employees. I think in this case the actions of well-meaning people were only appropriated as an oppression tactic afte…

Incidentally, it was while working at Amazon years ago that I first encountered the divisive and paranoia-inspiring form of DEI training which I described above.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#277

Post by tyoma »

bumby wrote: post #243
wyager wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation This completely eliminates the social upside of property taxes compared to other forms of taxes

Couldn’t that social upside be captured through means that don’t force people from their homes? It seems like the use of property tax as a major local finding mechanism has a lot of negative effects, from poor school performance to inflated housing costs.

Its called a tax lien. Basically, if you can’t pay your property taxes, you still get to stay in your home, but the unpaid taxes must be paid (with interest) before the home can sold or otherwise transferred (with some rare exceptions for like death of a spouse, etc.)

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#278

Post by jacobr1 »

lolinder wrote: post #225
indigochill wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple interesting assumptions here: 1. There's such a thing as a true nation 2. That how long a person's family has lived in a region should entitle them to keep others out The first one is bound to wander into circuitous philosophical debate, but I'm curious what the rationale is for the second.

I'm not making the second assumption at all, I explicitly disclaimed any opinion on the merits of particular stances on immigration in countries that are not my own: > I'm not writing this to take a stand on immigration in Europe or anywhere else, but it's important for us in the US to not project our own sensibilities into a completely different context. As for the first assumption, I'll grant you I was making that.…

> I think the existence of a nation state is less up for debate than the existence of a nation.

That seems muddled. A nation-state is a state whose population are dominantly formed out of a single "nation." Generally the nation implies some kind ethnic or ancestral ties (and granted the definition can be fuzzy) - but if concept of a nation is in doubt ... then so in the concept of a nation state. They are necessarily coupled.

I think the key thing is that for a nation state, anything that can significantly impact the composition of the citizenry to change the scope of what the nation means is effectively an existential consideration. The US is explicitly not a nation-state, though americans have mixed opinion on the matter. Europe is comprised of nation states, but may of them these days seem to consider that a bit of an historical embarrassment and want to transition to be some form of multicultural state, especially as part of the multinational confederation of the EU.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#279

Post by stale2002 »

lesuorac wrote: post #261
stale2002 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-...

> Passports are actually rare for a US citizen to have

Its not difficult to get a passport, regardless.

Pointing to how many people choose to leave the US, or get a passport, does not counteract the true fact that getting a passport is easy.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#280

Post by ZainRiz »

mandevil wrote: post #242
tracker1 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... I hate property taxes as a concept. That you can lose your property due to simply living another year is kind of messed up. At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation. My house (according to the city/county) is worth 3x what I bought it at 5 years ago... If it goes up this much again, taxes will likely reach close to the mortgage payment. It's simply not right. I'd be happy to mo…

This- fixing property tax to purchase price- is exactly what California's Prop 13 did, which has ended up gutting California local governments ( https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy... ). It has resulted in lots of people who aren't paying their fair share into the upkeep of their community, and driving CA house prices insane. It's been a giant fiasco, hurting California's growth, and locking…

Is the claim here that the city's spending needs went up much faster than inflation? If so, why?
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