The modern tragedy of government at any scale is the inability of small-minded people to accept the fundamental paradox of Capitalism: that it is _simultaneously_ the best system for arbitration of price and one of the worst forms of government.
It is no accident that all the remaining first-world nations have a very similar setup: a healthy free-market nucleus operating inside of a strong pro-social shell.
> It is no accident that all the remaining first-world nations have a very similar setup: a healthy free-market nucleus operating inside of a strong pro-social shell.
It depends how you define "first-world nation".
A lot of the EU members had to cook their books to gain admittance, since they're close to being failed states economically. Goldman Sachs made billions off creative financing during their appication processes. (Germany's reponses to EU bailout requests told volumes.)
So I don't lump the US into any group of other states since the US has a real economy (at least before the 2020 election.)
Puerto Rico is a microcosm for how Europe ruined itself. The PR governor said, "If I don't provide handouts, they won't vote for me in the next election."
Admittedly, the US health care system is a failure in terms of cost and access, so joining civilization in that respect makes sense. It will take another doubling of premiums for widespread support, so give it 24-36 months.
Can you provide more context to that quote? I am unable to track it down.
Your caution against lumping the US into any other group of states surely also applies to PR's economy. What European nation is subject to equivalents to the Jones Act, the Jones-Shafroth Act, the federal limits on Medicaid funding, PROMESA, federal prohibitions from declaring bankruptcy, and special tax codes like the ex-section 936?
For that matter, what does it mean that "Europe ruined itself"?
I can't tell if you're sealioning, or just ignorant.
So I'll be charitable and assume you're just ignorant, being HN and all.
Half of the most-western EU members, including Italy, Greece and Spain, essentially give all their tax receipts to former civil servants (like PR does.)
That would be bad enough, but after the African economic migration to EU states, another burden of an additional 10% has been added to total welfare payments in most of those countries. So they're ruined economically. The EU doesn't need the Jones Act, since they keep shooting themselves in the feet.
There's a long (about 10 pages) 2019 interview/expose with PR officials. If I find a link, I'll post it.
Here's another paradox worth thinking about when trying to have incentive-only regulations (carrots without sticks.)
You might think that higher rates would incent companies to weatherize, but actually they perversely might reduce incentives... if you owned 100 power plants, of which some will work in an emergency and some won't, all you need is for the fraction that are weatherized to get enough surplus revenues during peak times to cover for the plants that are offline so that your overall revenues are flat or slightly higher. Higher electricity rates actually reduce your need to weatherize your plants.
While pricing power based off the market rate does not seem like a bad idea. The problem I see is that you don't see the price till you have used it. I don't see how you could let consumers quickly know of large price changes so they would know to conserve.
It's not like your light switch has a screen that says it will cost current "$x.xx" per minute to turn this light on. Same for outlets it's not like they tell the consumer that the current device running on it is costing "$x.xx" per minute.
For such a thing it would need to be real time for consumers to react to the market. Not here is you bill by the way.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 47.5 ms ] threadIt is no accident that all the remaining first-world nations have a very similar setup: a healthy free-market nucleus operating inside of a strong pro-social shell.
It depends how you define "first-world nation".
A lot of the EU members had to cook their books to gain admittance, since they're close to being failed states economically. Goldman Sachs made billions off creative financing during their appication processes. (Germany's reponses to EU bailout requests told volumes.)
So I don't lump the US into any group of other states since the US has a real economy (at least before the 2020 election.)
Puerto Rico is a microcosm for how Europe ruined itself. The PR governor said, "If I don't provide handouts, they won't vote for me in the next election."
Admittedly, the US health care system is a failure in terms of cost and access, so joining civilization in that respect makes sense. It will take another doubling of premiums for widespread support, so give it 24-36 months.
Can you provide more context to that quote? I am unable to track it down.
Your caution against lumping the US into any other group of states surely also applies to PR's economy. What European nation is subject to equivalents to the Jones Act, the Jones-Shafroth Act, the federal limits on Medicaid funding, PROMESA, federal prohibitions from declaring bankruptcy, and special tax codes like the ex-section 936?
For that matter, what does it mean that "Europe ruined itself"?
So I'll be charitable and assume you're just ignorant, being HN and all.
Half of the most-western EU members, including Italy, Greece and Spain, essentially give all their tax receipts to former civil servants (like PR does.)
That would be bad enough, but after the African economic migration to EU states, another burden of an additional 10% has been added to total welfare payments in most of those countries. So they're ruined economically. The EU doesn't need the Jones Act, since they keep shooting themselves in the feet.
There's a long (about 10 pages) 2019 interview/expose with PR officials. If I find a link, I'll post it.
You might think that higher rates would incent companies to weatherize, but actually they perversely might reduce incentives... if you owned 100 power plants, of which some will work in an emergency and some won't, all you need is for the fraction that are weatherized to get enough surplus revenues during peak times to cover for the plants that are offline so that your overall revenues are flat or slightly higher. Higher electricity rates actually reduce your need to weatherize your plants.
It's not like your light switch has a screen that says it will cost current "$x.xx" per minute to turn this light on. Same for outlets it's not like they tell the consumer that the current device running on it is costing "$x.xx" per minute.
For such a thing it would need to be real time for consumers to react to the market. Not here is you bill by the way.