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

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#381

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

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…

Don't really buy it. Unchecked govt spending is different than inflation, which could be accounted for in the baseline property tax rate(s). Having property taxes triple in the course of 5 years is NOT okay in any way, shape or form. This has happened to me since buying/mortgage 5 years ago.

As it stands, for one-off spend and in general there are other means of taxation that can be utilized. It doesn't need to be property taxes.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#382

Post by rayiner » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

random314 wrote: post #378

rayiner wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. It’s totally fine to not get along with other people—and certainly to not want to share a democratic polity with them—based on cultural differences. There’s no reason why people who escaped west to get away from elites should we to to share a polity with foreign elites who think the “common people” need to be carefully managed. Conversely, there’s no reason why folks who believe in rigid social hierarchy a…

> Incorrect. It’s totally fine to not get along with other people—and certainly to not want to share a democratic polity with them—based on cultural differences. I like how Republicans act as master and judge and issue the judgement "incorrect" and go on to adopt a blatantly racist stance under the currently fashionable republican sound bite of "unacceptable cultural differences", while immediately switching to the d…

Who said anything about republicans? I’m an immigrant from a country that exists because it split off from another country due to cultural differences (even though nearly everyone in the story was a “brown” Muslim). It would be hypocritical as hell for me to complain that Trump voters in Wisconsin feel the same way.

Nearly all the people immigrating to the US come from countries that believe the same thing as republicans: one cultural group has no moral obligation to invite another cultural group over the border to share democratic governance of their country with them. Indians believe that, Chinese people believe that. Japanese people, Koreans, everyone in the Middle East. Mexicans would flip out if mass immigration from Guatemala was flipping elections in their country.

Ironically, the liberal American view of this reduces to the assertion that a handful of mostly European descended people in the developed world are correct about the nature of nationhood while everyone else is wrong.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#383

Post by rayiner » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #379

rayiner wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moral obligation to allow equal participation of different groups who are already here follows from the concept of democracy. But that does not imply anything about how people within a country should view prospective immigrants. That the founders embraced certain principles because they were dealing with a union that already included disparate groups. They never confronted, much less addressed, the prospect of im…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Ac...

Ironically, the INS Act of 1965 was sold to the public with a lie: https://www.history.com/news/immigration-act-1965-changes

> The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants,” lead supporter Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the Senate during debate. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#384

Post by rayiner » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

kevviiinn wrote: post #339

rayiner wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that people and cultures are different (which almost everyone outside America believes) then it follows that a region reflects the people who developed it. Countries are, of course, not just land, but they are built of infrastructure, governments, institutions, culture, customs, rules, norms, and values. If Iowa is polite, flat, and egalitarian it’s because Iowans made it that way. By contrast India or…

You seem to think that people are never influenced by outside sources such as wealthy capital owners spreading propaganda in Iowa in order to make it the way the capital owner wants. I know you'll say "oh people can make choices for themselves" but that's not how behavior works especially when avenues of information are so highly controlled

You mean wealthy capital owners who want to erase people’s natural affection for their own culture and communities so they can freely sourcing fungible labor from anywhere in the world? Yeah, there is a propaganda effort on that front.

That said, I think in the long run people see through propaganda and correctly perceive their own self interest. Knowledge workers in NYC and SV are following their own self interest in aligning themselves with global capital on the immigration issue—they benefit from a globalized economy with free movement of labor—while plumbers in Iowa are acting in their self interest to opposite it.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#385

Post by onetimeusename » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #382

random314 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incorrect. It’s totally fine to not get along with other people—and certainly to not want to share a democratic polity with them—based on cultural differences. I like how Republicans act as master and judge and issue the judgement "incorrect" and go on to adopt a blatantly racist stance under the currently fashionable republican sound bite of "unacceptable cultural differences", while immediately switching to the d…

Who said anything about republicans? I’m an immigrant from a country that exists because it split off from another country due to cultural differences (even though nearly everyone in the story was a “brown” Muslim). It would be hypocritical as hell for me to complain that Trump voters in Wisconsin feel the same way. Nearly all the people immigrating to the US come from countries that believe the same thing as republi…

I don't even think liberal Americans believe that. People who advocate for unrelenting immigration would probably be very upset if Russians were coming across the border (or some European, culturally conservative Christian-esque group) by the millions. I would argue those liberals are lying when they talk about what nationhood is. They believe in it, just not the one they live in.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#386

Post by rayiner » Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

onetimeusename wrote: post #385

rayiner wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about republicans? I’m an immigrant from a country that exists because it split off from another country due to cultural differences (even though nearly everyone in the story was a “brown” Muslim). It would be hypocritical as hell for me to complain that Trump voters in Wisconsin feel the same way. Nearly all the people immigrating to the US come from countries that believe the same thing as republi…

I don't even think liberal Americans believe that. People who advocate for unrelenting immigration would probably be very upset if Russians were coming across the border (or some European, culturally conservative Christian-esque group) by the millions. I would argue those liberals are lying when they talk about what nationhood is. They believe in it, just not the one they live in.

Every now and then you can see glimpses of that. After Muslims went for George W. Bush in 2000, The New Republic of all places wrote an article accusing Grover Norquist of having ties to radical Islam because his wife is Arab: https://newrepublic.com/article/83799/norquist-radical-islam...

If Hispanics and Muslims were coming here and voting their social values instead of their economic ones you can bet the narrative would be different.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#387

Post by JeremyNT » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 1:03 AM UTC

CadmiumYellow wrote: post #354

JeremyNT wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just say that many of these people do not value the things that I find important and vice versa. Many are here because of the lack of income tax, the country music industry, and the extremely culturally conservative government. They either do not care about the poor public transit/services/infrastructure/schools/etc or they do not care enough to outweigh the benefits. A common refrain I hear when talking to peo…

The fact that you refer to "the country music industry" and not just "the music industry" makes me wonder how much of Nashville you've really experienced. I know tons of people who work in the music industry here and not one of them has anything to do with country music. Music in general has a huge pull here, whether it's for young singer-songwriters, indie bands, audio engineers, people who work in live events, vide…

I've experienced it plenty, thanks.

The article is about government, which is a shit show here by almost any definition. The city has a massive council that is at war with the state, to the extent that the state just passed a law to cap the council size out of sheer spite. They're handing over billions to buy a stadium for a rich sports franchise. They handed out tax credits to Amazon for jobs in an office building that they're never going to fill.

There are reasons people would want to live here despite this, my list isn't exhaustive. But I can't see any world in which "good governance" appears anywhere on the list, unless you measure it only by how low your taxes are and how lax regulation is (I'm aware some do).

Maybe the extremely pro business, pro developer, pro tourism Nashville considers itself to be a success, but I can't get on board. There has to be a metric other than growth when making decisions, and I'll personally never willingly live in another city that is so blindly focused on it.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#388

Post by rayiner » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #369

rayiner wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a perspective that's really hard for someone in the US to understand. When people here make the exact same arguments that you're making, it sounds xenophobic and dangerous. It's the stuff of Trumpism and MAGA. It’s hard for a minority of Americans, who happen to control the media and institutions, to understand. That minority is freaking out because Trump voters in Idaho have a similar understanding of nati…

This is essentializing. Do you think my ex boss who voted BNP, thinks Pakistan was a great country and used to call Prothom Alo communists and complain about Chhatra league has the same idea as your family about Bangladesh?

Doubtful, but Trump voters in the Midwest aren’t a monolith either. Gov. Reynolds in Iowa was immediately on board with Afghanistan refugee resettlement. My point is that it’s a widespread (if not universal) sentiment in Bangladesh, so why should I be surprised to see the same widespread sentiment in Ohio?

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#389

Post by gretch » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

ikiris wrote: post #353

gretch wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dumbest and most unproductive interpretation of what I said. But sure, it’s true I suppose.

Its a summary of your argument's logical conclusion. You might want to reflect on that instead of the vitriol.

I admit it’s true, it just has no value.

You can say it about any govt in the world. Oh I guess some people still live in Iran/Russia so their govt is doing just fine.

It’s not true, but it’s not insightful nor actionable. That’s why it’s dumb

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#390

Post by random314 » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 6:28 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #382

random314 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incorrect. It’s totally fine to not get along with other people—and certainly to not want to share a democratic polity with them—based on cultural differences. I like how Republicans act as master and judge and issue the judgement "incorrect" and go on to adopt a blatantly racist stance under the currently fashionable republican sound bite of "unacceptable cultural differences", while immediately switching to the d…

Who said anything about republicans? I’m an immigrant from a country that exists because it split off from another country due to cultural differences (even though nearly everyone in the story was a “brown” Muslim). It would be hypocritical as hell for me to complain that Trump voters in Wisconsin feel the same way. Nearly all the people immigrating to the US come from countries that believe the same thing as republi…

> I’m an immigrant from a country that exists because it split off from another country due to cultural differences

Dude, stop bringing up Bangladesh as context for anything and everything. What you are calling "cultural differences" in 1971, was simply called genocide because of racism by everyone else.

But you are going for the racism and genocide is A-ok, as it's just an expression of "cultural differences". You can continue with your word play in your replies again.