[HN Gopher] Japan's Hometown Tax (2018)
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Japan's Hometown Tax (2018)
Author : Michelangelo11
Score : 240 points
Date : 2023-09-18 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kalzumeus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kalzumeus.com)
| MarketingJason wrote:
| Two initiatives I've thought about:
|
| 1. Schools receiving state tax dollars must adhere to percentage-
| based breakdowns of general tuition use. Basically, only x% of
| general tuition can be spent on administration costs, sports
| facilities, etc.
|
| 2. Percentage of tuition covered by tax dollars is set by local
| demand for that degree path and adjusted periodically.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Educating children is incredibly expensive.
|
| So people who've been homeschooled can opt out of that tax right?
| I mean: that's only logical.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Had beers with a community college president last week... he
| shared that there's a problem brewing where Arizona State (and
| perhaps others...) are going to high schools offering a program
| where for low tuition rates, kids can pick up some college
| credits. Sounds great on the surface, but the problems are that
| a) it means fewer of those students attending programs at the
| local community colleges, IE: taxpayer dollars going out of
| state, and b) apparently the credits offered are really only
| transferable to - you guessed it - Arizona State. It's all part
| of a disagreement between the school districts and the community
| colleges over where the kids are spending their time, and thus
| getting their share of state dollars.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| It's a stupid system. Taxes should go to your current city/state
| to run the services there. If you're not able to sustain programs
| on your shrinking tax base then you should start reimagining the
| existence of your city. If you need temporary assistance you
| should finance it with debt, or ask the national government for
| help. This is a silly and inefficient system that pours funds
| into parts of the country that should be left to die. If you want
| to revitalize places, you should be investing into industries
| that can bring youth and life to places, not leach it from
| others.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Your comment is ignorant and myopic. The area I come from has
| switched from being hugely important to completely worthless
| multiple times over the past few centuries.
|
| Even then, being profitable is not the same as being useful to
| society.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| So we should be subsidizing every small town in the hopes
| that maybe some day they begin contributing back to society?
| Can I go into the mountains and demand a sewage line and
| hospital be built next to me?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| No, you can make bad faith arguments and get ignored
| though.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| I really want to ignore small towns, so maybe we can
| compromise!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Did you grow up in one and not enjoy it? You seem
| extremely passionate about this issue. I can kind of
| relate, but although I left a small town in favor of city
| life, I don't think it's necessarily the ideal, or that
| the richness and complexity of cities makes smaller
| scales redundant.
| [deleted]
| vincentkriek wrote:
| I think a country can not exist with just big cities, or at
| least it should not be forced to. Small towns will always be
| more expensive than cities to maintain, this should not mean
| that small towns should then get less facilities.
|
| It's the equality vs equity discussion based in geography
| irrational wrote:
| Why can a country not exist with just big cities?
| kalleboo wrote:
| Outsourcing some things can be an existential threat
|
| edit: Note that China just the other day extended their
| 9-dash line to a 10-dash line
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Why aren't obese people healthy? they have so much
| (cellular) wealth stored up and such big organs.
|
| Ir's not that different. If you concentrate economic wealth
| in cites, the periphery starts to suffer economically
| because it can't exploit local resources effectively, and
| the population starts selecting for city activity. Over
| generations, that leaves you vulnerable agriculturally and
| militarily. If you experience a natural or military
| disaster that deals a massive blow to one of you key
| cities, the whole country can collapse.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Countries can exist with only big cities, but then they are
| dependant on other countries.
|
| In small cities you among other things have more
| agriculture and different forms of industry are also
| commonly pushed out of big cities.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| It can but then they are heavily dependent on external
| sources of food, water, raw materials, manufactured
| products, etc. that are outside of its control. This gives
| the outside nations who are supplying those things larger
| influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the city-
| state because they can raise costs of imports or even
| embargo them to pressure the city-state to align with their
| own foreign policy goals.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| Because you _really_ don 't want heavily polluting
| industries (oil refineries, chemical plants, steel mills,
| etc) close to a big city.
| justin66 wrote:
| Name a big city that doesn't have heavily polluting
| industries nearby.
| irrational wrote:
| Portland, Oregon?
| justin66 wrote:
| I don't know why you'd pose that as a question, but not
| having been to Portland I did the obvious thing and spent
| a minute in google maps. You're welcome. It turns out
| Portland has a steel mill not just nearby, but within its
| city limits.
|
| At the risk of stating the obvious, the point of my
| question wasn't to literally determine whether any big
| cities exist without heavy industry nearby, although that
| would be sort of interesting if it were the case. The
| point is that any such city is going to be an exception
| to the utterly ludicrous statement of the OP, "Because
| you really don't want heavily polluting industries (oil
| refineries, chemical plants, steel mills, etc) close to a
| big city." Big cities have always had this. The people
| there do not "want" them there any more or less than
| people in a small town would "want" them there.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Hopefully not too pedantic, but they do have Precision
| Castparts, which manufactures all sorts of aerospace,
| wind turbine, and other giant industrial things:
| https://www.opb.org/article/2022/03/02/court-
| approves-225-mi...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Agriculture.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Small towns will always be more expensive than cities to
| maintain, this should not mean that small towns should then
| get less facilities.
|
| Why not? I think it's a natural conclusion of that fact.
|
| Should every small town have a Tier 1 Hospital? A world-class
| university? A national sports team & stadium? An
| international airport? A symphony orchestra?
|
| Don't get me wrong, I grew up in a rural area and have a
| fondness for it, but I do expect that rural areas and small
| towns _should_ reasonably have less facilities than major
| cities.
| uncletaco wrote:
| > Should every small town have a Tier 1 Hospital? A world-
| class university? A national sports team & stadium? An
| international airport? A symphony orchestra?
|
| This almost describes Alabama.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > I think a country can not exist with just big cities
|
| Singapore is just a city. Hong Kong for a long time too. The
| Netherlands is functionally a very large low-density city
| with some high-density parts. And in some countries, like
| Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the small towns are economically
| non-existent compared to the cities.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Singapore relies on Malaysia (hmm wonder when and why
| Malaya picked up that "sia"); Hong Kong relies on China;
| the Netherlands relies on the EU.
|
| Which of their neighbors do you think Japan is safe to rely
| on to feed their population?
|
| edit: Note that China just the other day extended their
| 9-dash line to a 10-dash line
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The problem with these examples is they're heavily skewed
| once a single metric, eg small land area (Singapore, HK,
| Netherlands) or extreme resource disparity (SA & UAE).
| Generalizing from outlier examples is rarely a good idea.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Pretty much by definition a country with no small towns
| in gonna be all city. Those are necessarily outliers.
| vincentkriek wrote:
| I live in The Netherlands and it's not functionally a very
| large low density city. The main part of the country (de
| randstad [1]), but the rest isn't. And we need to pay to
| make sure there are facilities there, the government
| currently is just draining the natural resources and giving
| nothing in return.
|
| I don't know how a large country functions, but for the
| Netherlands there is a clear need to invest more in the
| rest of the country.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstad
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't live in the Randstad but I'm sure in some years
| everything will have closed up.
|
| One thing I will say though is that the area outside of
| it - pick any direction - is idyllic and doesn't seem to
| be struggling economically. Loads of local businesses,
| loads of people just going about their day, buying
| houses, having kids, etc. It's idyllic and I don't really
| understand why all the activity seems to be in the
| Randstad.
|
| I mean I do get it, it's a chicken / egg problem; talent
| travels to the cities because that's where the best jobs
| are, the best jobs go to the cities because that's where
| talent is.
|
| But I would like the government to incentivize more "work
| where you live" schemes; smaller sattelite offices for
| larger employers, remote work (obviously), extra income
| and subsidies if you work remotely (because of reduced
| office costs and to discourage commuting, since our roads
| and railways are all full up).
| CalRobert wrote:
| I think part of the issue is that if you're a couple
| there's a huge advantage to being within commute distance
| from multiple cities.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| I totally agree about how the lower investment in the
| non-Randstad parts of the country does not seem to have a
| negative affect. At least the further-away cities/towns
| that I've visited have been absolutely gorgeous. People
| are friendly, streets are clean, parks are well-kept,
| public transportation is world-class even in small towns.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| In this case it's more that almost the entire country is
| within a couple of hours of the Randstad. The whole
| country can act as a single economic unit, which isn't
| doable even in Germany, France, and the UK, let alone
| Canada or China. You can drive or take the train from
| Groningen to Eindhoven and back in a single working day
| with hours to spare; you can't even do that between
| Toulouse and Marseille, let alone further!
|
| If anything it's a good thing - it means investment in
| Amsterdam benefits far more people than just those in
| Amsterdam.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Bit of devil's advocate here, but would it make more
| sense to invest heavily in the Randstad so that more
| people can live there and enjoy the benefits of being in
| a heavily networked area?
|
| I just moved to the Netherlands (in the Randstad) and
| it's arguably better for the country that I moved to a
| place that already is dense and efficient to provide
| services to. Though it would be nice if it were above sea
| level.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| No one is forcing small towns to stop existing. Young people
| just don't want to live in them. And yes, I do think they
| should get fewer facilities because they can't afford them.
| I'm sure every geriatric town would love a world class cancer
| treatment center, but they're gonna have to suck it up.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| > Young people just don't want to live in them.
|
| That's why the hometown tax exists. Small towns use their
| residence tax money to raise children then none goes back
| in when the young adult moves to Tokyo and pays residence
| tax there instead of in their hometown.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Schools are funded by the national government in Japan.
| These families are not a net-loss on the community, as
| the parents pay taxes and children are a driver of
| economic activity.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Births are funded by local governments though
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Isn't that all covered by the national government and
| parent?
| innocenat wrote:
| Contary to the name, Japan National Health Insurance is
| managed at municipal level.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| TIL. Seems like it's a mix between national and municipal
| funding, but that doesn't really change the overall
| calculation, as the parents will have most likely paid it
| back through their own municipal taxes.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Small towns will always be more expensive than cities to
| maintain, this should not mean that small towns should then
| get less facilities.
|
| There are certain sorts of facilities which will almost never
| be available alongside small towns. It's not just "expensive"
| to maintain something like a Level 1 trauma center - if it
| were lightly utilized it would be economically unviable. It
| is something that will not exist away from a city.
|
| That's an extreme example but even more mundane medical
| facilities end up being very expensive when you push out into
| rural areas. That those areas tend to be economically
| depressed, at least in the US, makes the problem that much
| more serious.
| Aerroon wrote:
| We're living in the age of Urbanization Plus, where people
| aren't just moving from rural areas to cities, they're also
| moving from smaller cities to bigger cities in large numbers.
| It wouldn't surprise me if we were all trending towards South
| Korea your situations where half the population lives in the
| capital (except in the US - there will be a few cities everyone
| moves to, but probably not DC).
|
| The problem is jobs. People want to move where the jobs are.
| Now that farming isn't a big job creator and many factories
| have moved away then it's all about commerce. That requires a
| large concentration of people. Cities will often not have
| enough to offer to make a company move to their city instead of
| some other city. Especially nowadays when people get really
| upset over a city offering a good deal to some business (eg
| Amazon and New York a few years ago).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It wouldn't surprise me if we were all trending towards
| South Korea your situations where half the population lives
| in the capital (except in the US - there will be a few cities
| everyone moves to, but probably not DC).
|
| Though the political capital was moved to the South,
| economically the effective capital of the US remained (and
| remains) NYC.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Same with South Korea. The capital was technically moved to
| Sejong in the 2010s, but almost every Ministry that matters
| is still up north in Seoul.
| sib wrote:
| While NYC is great, and our biggest city, etc., one
| difference from other countries is that New York State (the
| whole thing), only represents 8.1% of US GDP. Even if you
| add all of New Jersey and Connecticut, you get about 12.3%
| of total GDP.
|
| As states, both California & Texas have greater share of
| GDP than NY.
|
| So US GDP is much less concentrated than in some other
| countries.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yes, the US is much less capital-concentrated than many
| other countries, even viewing NYC rather than DC as the
| center of concentration.
|
| Did not mean to suggest otherwise, but it is worth
| explicitly noting.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Yes we are probably trending that way, but I don't see how
| that's a bad thing. The bad thing is that rural and smaller
| cities were not able to compete thrive. In the end the
| centralization of the economy will only increase
| productivity, but if you want to keep them alive you need to
| invest in them to justify their existence. We should not be
| going out of our way to keep them alive, unless they have
| specific national interests.
| ecshafer wrote:
| The problem is amalgamation and the fact that western
| countries (very mistakenly) decided to deindustrialize and
| send their jobs to poorer countries to prop up their
| corporate profits. It is much harder for people to graduate
| and go get a good job at the local factory, have 4 kids, a
| house, etc. You need to go to college, get a degree, fight
| for a job which then become more concentrated in fewer places
| as they compete for workers.
|
| Hopefully remote work will help push back against this force.
| downrightmike wrote:
| The US Federal Gov't basically bail out all US cities for
| infrastructure because the cities never have the money to fix
| infrastructure because they'd have to double the taxes
| collected at the least to meet the need of replacing
| infrastructure when it needs it, usually 30 years.
| screye wrote:
| US cities are broken. Majority taxes are collected by
| residential zip code, and every person who works in the city,
| lives in the suburbs. The suburbs get wealthier off the
| economic productivity of the city.
|
| Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-
| MA, Piedmont-CA exist.
|
| If you want the city to accommodate your suburban commute,
| (parking requirements, wider roads) and your safety (the
| homeless are bussed to the downtown core), then you need to
| pay taxes into the city. If you avail of cheap labor from the
| city's poor, then you need to be paying taxes into the city.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA,
| Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist
|
| Ever been to Reading just outside of London? Or Richmond in
| Vancouver? Or Como outside of Milan? Or Icheon outside of
| Seoul?
| screye wrote:
| If you think Como, Incheon or Reading are anything like
| Beverly hills, Brookline or Piedmont, then I'm not sure
| you're getting my point.
|
| All 3 of my examples are within 10 minutes
| walking/driving from the downtown core of the city. Yet,
| they have carved out a completely isolated township for
| themselves, so as to avoid taxation from the parent city,
| while benefiting from every aspects of being
| geographically inside the parent city. It stops a city
| from expanding organically, leading to oddly tiny cities
| (SF) or city boundaries that look like a kids scribbles
| (LA, Boston).
|
| If you city isn't propagating radially from the downtown
| core then there better be a good explanation for it.
| rangestransform wrote:
| At least Richmond also has the issue of mooching off of
| the productivity of Vancouver, though the issue is less
| pronounced there due to decreased political power
| allocated to individual municipalities
| gottorf wrote:
| > Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA,
| Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist.
|
| I supposed places like Neilly-sur-Seine outside of Paris
| don't exist? I fail to see how rich, lower-density suburbs
| that well-to-do people prefer to live in while working in
| downtown centers is a uniquely American trait.
| screye wrote:
| > Neilly-sur-Seine
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8863259,2.2692631,3a,75y,
| 38....
|
| This does not look like low density suburb to me. The
| town only gets a commuter rail, and driving into Paris is
| a total nightmare. Suburbs are no the issue. Destroying
| cities to accommodate suburbs is.
|
| The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the city's
| downtown, take advantage of positives of dense urban
| development near them, while doing everything in their
| power from letting density touch their own neighborhood.
| It is selfishness at its worst.
|
| Paris has a population of 2 million, is a neat circle and
| clearly deprioritizes the needs of anyone outside the
| peripheral boulevard. You are making my point for me.
|
| Historically, suburbs were low density because an outer
| donut has more area than an inner circle. In the absence
| of land development regulation, density reflects the
| demand per sq/ft. If Americans were so sure of low
| density suburbs being a natural outcome, then they
| wouldn't wield every dirty weapon to ban land development
| in the aforementioned suburbs.
|
| In most American cities, the city does not control its
| own road or transportation budgets. This means that
| suburbs get to affect the lawmaking in the city, but
| cities do not get to do vice versa. I am not even going
| to address brain-dead laws like Prop 13 or rent-control
| that further destroy a city's ability to govern itself.
| sib wrote:
| > Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA,
| Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist.
|
| > The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the
| city's downtown, take advantage of positives of dense
| urban development near them, while doing everything in
| their power from letting density touch their own
| neighborhood.
|
| You have an interesting concept of "walking distance."
| Google Maps shows a 3 hour and 27 minute walk from
| Beverly Hills to DTLA. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Be
| verly+Hills,+CA/Downtown+L...
|
| Brookline, MA, has a population density of nearly 9,000
| people per square mile, so not exactly low density.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Notoriously, Neuilly-sur-Seine does pay a penalty for its
| underbuilding (actually, complete non-building) of social
| housing.
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/20101220-french-cities-
| rather-pa...
| omeid2 wrote:
| The optimal place to grow a child and operate an economic
| centre has different requirements.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| That's not what's happening here. Large metro areas in Japan
| have fine schools and are fine places to raise a child. They
| are not like the U.S with sketchy low income urban schools.
| What's happening is that generational residents are leaving
| their towns for economic centres, and the population is
| shrinking, and more importantly, aging.
| kalleboo wrote:
| edit: I have to clarity that the de-populating regional
| parts of Japan are mostly not what a U.S. or even EU person
| would see as "rural". These are cities of 300,000+
| population with working public transit etc. They OUGHT to
| be able to support themselves, yet people are still
| centralizing to Tokyo. I even have a friend in Osaka (pop 3
| million) who is considering Tokyo.
|
| I have lived in Tokyo and now I live in a very "regional"
| area of Japan and have two kids. While the school_s are
| actually better in Tokyo, I'm still far happier raising my
| kids here where there are abundant parks, beaches and
| nature, and would never want to move to Tokyo. I would be
| really sad if the rest of the country disappeared and
| everyone had to live in the concrete jungle.
|
| But I work remotely which is the only reason I can live
| here. The wages for my job are literally 10x in Tokyo than
| what they are here. That's why people move there. And
| that's why the schools are better in Tokyo - salaries for
| daycare workers and teachers here are too low so everyone
| leaves.
|
| At the same time as the salaries are higher in Tokyo - the
| cost of raising a family there is also far higher. It's
| very cheap to be solo or a working couple living in Tokyo.
| The most affordable large city in the world. Far cheaper
| than SF. But if you have more than 2 kids (beyond
| replacement rate), now you need a big car, a big condo, etc
| etc and it's completely unaffordable. Whereas here in the
| "inaka" I know people with 3-4 kids on a low salary that
| are doing "ok".
|
| Being able to even out the salaries in the country with
| remote work or even satellite offices using remote work
| technology would help lots.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Curious what you'd view as the requirements? We moved to a
| city (albeit not a large one) specifically so our kids would
| be able to bike to school and see friends more easily. These
| are also things that help power an economic centre.
| sampo wrote:
| > Taxes should go to your current city/state to run the
| services there.
|
| Generally, families in rural areas have more children than
| families in big cities. There should be some kind of monetary
| compensation (money transfer from cities to rural areas) for
| the rural areas than produce more people, who then move to
| cities and contribute to their economy. This Japanese system
| sounds good.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Why should there be a transfer? Education is already paid for
| nationally in Japan. Parents pay their taxes while there. The
| towns are not owed anything. Even if things are a little more
| murky in other parts of the world, I would be more in favor
| of nationalizing education than giving wealth to dying towns.
| Meekro wrote:
| Japan's government seems so _functional_ compared to what I 'm
| used to in the US, that I'm willing to give them the benefit of
| the doubt. Their governments are building all sorts of things
| every year while we can't seem to build a railroad track
| between LA and San Francisco in 20 years. Whatever they're
| doing over there is clearly working, and we in the US should be
| focusing on the plank of wood in our own eye and not the speck
| of sawdust in theirs.
|
| I'll admit that this "hometown tax" system has a certain amount
| of silliness, but wealth redistribution schemes often do. We're
| torn between "the weak should perish" and "some help wouldn't
| be so bad" and twist ourselves into pretzels trying to
| reconcile between these ideas. Plans like this hometown tax are
| the result of that, and some of our wealth redistribution
| efforts in the US probably seem no less strange to outsiders.
| rtpg wrote:
| if it makes you feel better, major construction projects in
| Japan can also take years and years and years. The difference
| being that you don't have federalism throwing a wrench in
| projects halfway through.
|
| It's hard to look at America and not draw the conclusion that
| federalism is a major mistake. So many problems downstream
| from fickle localities.
| gmarx wrote:
| Hard to blame this on Federalism when states had more
| relative power in the first half of the 20th century and we
| were able to complete amazing public works projects on
| reasonable schedules
| mbg721 wrote:
| Our tolerance for deaths during construction was higher,
| though.
| gmarx wrote:
| I haven't researched it in depth but I gather a much
| larger issue is the use and abuse of environmental law by
| the minority who don't want the projects done
| gottorf wrote:
| > It's hard to look at America and not draw the conclusion
| that federalism is a major mistake. So many problems
| downstream from fickle localities.
|
| The "fickle localities" that share sovereignty with the
| federal government is a tradeoff between efficiency and
| resilience. Totalitarian places can ignore localities and
| push huge national projects. China now has the world's
| longest high-speed rail system; but the same country lost
| 40-80 million people not even a century ago due to huge
| national projects that didn't pan out so well, under Mao.
|
| The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world;
| among the top 5, by any measure. It's hard to understand
| why anyone would look at the system of governance in the US
| and call it a major mistake.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| The difference between the US and China is not a central
| government which is empowered to make projects and a
| federalist system which gives undue influence to small
| interests.
|
| The difference is that the US is a democracy and China is
| a communist dictatorship. Tens of millions didn't die in
| china because a huge national projects; they died because
| they were ruled by a totalitarian dictator who had no
| regard whatsoever for the value of human life, and who
| was empowered purely by the threat (or the _guarantee_ )
| of violence and not by the consent of the governed. There
| is an ocean of difference between western democracies and
| communist dictatorships, and it's not how we allocate
| authority to public works projects
| kelipso wrote:
| Reductive arguments like this only encourages people to
| ignore you and whatever point you want to make.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| It's reductive to point out that the US has democracy and
| China does not? These are fundamental differences between
| the two. The argument the OP posted is like saying that
| Iran executes gays and apostates because of where power
| sits in their government and not because that power
| (regardless of how centralized it is) is wielded by
| religious extremists
| michaelt wrote:
| Sometimes you can't tell if something is successful
| _because of_ a distinctive factor, or _in spite_ of it.
|
| There's a lot of weird stuff about the American system of
| governance. For example, in most countries the legality
| of abortion would be decided by elected legislators,
| rather than judges who are appointed for life. And in the
| US the government can just 'shut down' for some reason,
| and this is just a normal sorta thing? Pretty weird. And
| filing tax returns isn't just for people in complex
| financial situations, practically everyone does it, and
| they have to pay third party companies? That's pretty
| unusual.
|
| It's far from obvious how these eccentric features could
| have influenced the founding of the likes of microsoft,
| intel, apple, facebook, google etc.
| gottorf wrote:
| The American system isn't without its eccentricities, but
| that's true for every country, I suppose.
|
| > in most countries the legality of abortion would be
| decided by elected legislators, rather than judges who
| are appointed for life
|
| State legislatures are doing that job. That there is no
| federal law on the issue of abortion reflects both that
| there is no unanimous consensus on the part of the
| people, as well as some level of craven political
| maneuvering (since abortion has been a big draw of people
| to the polls). At various times in the past 10 years
| alone, there were periods where both the Republican Party
| and the Democratic Party had control over the presidency
| and both chambers of Congress. A federal law of some
| kind, in either direction, could have been passed at
| those times (though perhaps subject to constitutional
| challenge).
|
| High-level judges appointed for "life" (and by this I
| include age-capped retirement) are not unusual in
| developed countries. The German Bundesgerichtshof, the
| Australian High Court, and the Supreme Court of Canada
| all have this. The point, of course, is to promote the
| independence of the judiciary from the other parts of
| government.
|
| > in the US the government can just 'shut down' for some
| reason, and this is just a normal sorta thing
|
| The power of the purse is in the hands of the
| legislature. When an annual budget fails to be passed,
| the executive no longer has authority to spend money, and
| kind of goes on hibernation until a budget is passed.
|
| Parliamentary systems have a different kind of shutdown,
| where if no ruling majority forms, then a caretaker
| government comes in with no mandate from the people to
| substantially change any policy. This can last much
| longer than any US government shutdown; Belgium had no
| leadership in parliament from 2007 to 2011, for example.
|
| > It's far from obvious how these eccentric features
| could have influenced the founding of the likes of
| microsoft, intel, apple, facebook, google etc.
|
| Well, sure. You pointed out various frivolous (to
| economic behavior, at any rate) factors that have nothing
| to do with entrepreneurship or laissez-faire capitalism.
| It would be far from obvious to anyone how abortion
| policy relates to the founding of companies.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| Legislators pass laws, judges (normally) can only strike
| them down. It is pretty much like other places otherwise,
| but that process of the government limiting itself is a
| key feature imho.
| gmarx wrote:
| abortion legality was determined by unelected judges from
| 1973 until 2022. Roe v Wade was overturned and now we
| have the situation you consider not weird. Elected
| legislators in each state determine to what extent
| abortion is legal
| rtpg wrote:
| > The US has one of the highest median incomes in the
| world; among the top 5, by any measure. It's hard to
| understand why anyone would look at the system of
| governance in the US and call it a major mistake
|
| No amount of money beyond being a millionaire gives you
| nice infrastructure where there was none. I'm not going
| to say all of the US is messed up but there are many
| people who choose to move away from the US and to other
| countries, taking massive pay cuts, because the
| surrounding conditions are nicer.
|
| EDIT: also, Europe built a massive rail network without
| the cultural revolution.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _The US has one of the highest median incomes in the
| world; among the top 5, by any measure. It 's hard to
| understand why anyone would look at the system of
| governance in the US and call it a major mistake._
|
| The US is not rich because it has such an amazing system
| of government, but because it was a sparsely-inhabited
| continent rich in natural resources when it was settled,
| just prior to the industrial revolution. Australia is
| rich for similar reasons, despite having a different
| system of government. Saudi Arabia is wealthy despite
| being one of the most despotic countries in the world,
| because it gained independence right around the time that
| crude oil took over from coal as the industrial fuel of
| choice, and SA has crude oil in vast abundance.
|
| It's not that systems of government don't matter, of
| course some work far better than others. But geography
| matters _a lot_ , and political theorists and
| philosophers habitually underestimate it.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| The Japanese government is not a golden beacon of success and
| efficiency. Their economic stagnation is arguably from their
| over investment in useless projects, and archaic regulations,
| leading to the employment ice age. That's ignoring anything
| about their social policy. They are not so good that they
| don't deserve criticism.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| Well, I don't know if this is a _good_ system or if a similar
| system could be applied well in my country, but the article
| certainly made me smile.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I find it curious that more countries don't do what America does,
| and tax you wherever you live. While this policy would absolutely
| screw me over as someone who lives in a very low tax country, I'm
| not sure what the argument _against_ it for a country like the UK
| is.
| mark_up wrote:
| How about... one shouldn't have to pay taxes to a country in
| which they don't reside and whose services they don't use.
| ambicapter wrote:
| What if you have a passport from that country? You're still
| technically "using their services" (their diplomatic presence
| and apparatus) wherever you go, no?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Many people live in countries different from their
| citizenship. If you have an Indian passport but have lived
| in Germany for 5 years, should you pay taxes to India?
| [deleted]
| rendall wrote:
| Fun fact! There are only two countries in the world that
| require expatriates to pay income tax back to their home
| countries: Eritrea and the United States of America!
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| The US taxing you anywhere you live is only possible because of
| the premium people place on US citizenship. Even so, some
| people elect to give it up when they emigrate somewhere else.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| The US can only do this because it has sufficient power to
| force other countries to report information on how much US
| citizens make to the IRS. If the UK tried making the same
| demands, the most likely responses from other nations would be
| "screw you, no" and "that sounds like a lot of work, pay us."
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I think it's because there would be an uproar :-) Don't forget
| the UK is much smaller than the US - over there you can travel
| a landmass half the size of the whole of Europe and that law
| wouldn't bite you.
|
| The equivalent law in the UK would mean that if you just moved
| 60 miles from the UK to France you'd have to pay tax twice.
| Much more limiting.
|
| _Edit_ : two people have now told me that you get an IRS tax
| credit for foreign tax payments. I stand corrected - never knew
| that!
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > The equivalent law in the UK would mean that if you just
| moved 60 miles from the UK to France you'd have to pay tax
| twice.
|
| To my understanding, that's not how the US taxes work. You
| have to file a tax return with the US, but you get a credit
| for the taxes you've paid to other countries [0] so you
| actually end up paying whichever tax is higher.
|
| [0] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/fore...
| ghaff wrote:
| That's correct. But it means even if you move from a high
| tax country/state to a low tax one (which may provide a
| very different level of services for the lower taxes--as is
| often the case with US states) you still get hit.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| There is a significant degree of double taxation for
| overseas Americans, the credit only covers a subset of
| common cases. It is not uncommon to pay more taxes as an
| American overseas than you would pay to each country
| separately if you were only filing in one.
| nvarsj wrote:
| While FTC helps with most things, you can still get knocked
| for stuff that doesn't fit into the US tax code. Like stamp
| duty - you're taxed in the UK when buying property, then
| taxed in the US when selling (you're exempt in the UK on
| your primary property).
| pc86 wrote:
| You don't pay tax twice under the (still ridiculous) American
| system, the IRS does credit you for whatever foreign taxes
| you've paid. I'm not sure if it's 1:1 but there is a credit.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I have to pay US taxes past $120k (this year - it was $112k
| last year) regardless of having already paid taxes on the
| full amount in Estonia.
| pc86 wrote:
| You are right there is an inflation-adjusted cap for the
| exclusion, thank you for the correction!
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I 'm not sure what the argument _against_ it for a country
| like the UK is._
|
| Part of the reason is there are very rich, politically active
| people who prefer the status quo. Such as the prime minister's
| wife, the owner of the Daily Mail, and suchlike.
| ghaff wrote:
| For one thing, in Europe at least, people are relatively mobile
| between countries. While it's different legally of course,
| imagine US states trying to tax you permanently even if you
| move elsewhere? (Yes, California supposedly tries sometimes
| but, in general, the idea is silly.)
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >US states trying to tax you permanently even if you move
| elsewhere? (Yes, California supposedly tries sometimes
|
| To clarify, California tax agency will sometimes aggressively
| audit residents who _claim_ to have moved elsewhere, when
| evidence indicates they have not actually abandoned their
| California domicile.
| Izkata wrote:
| A few years ago they tried to impose 10 years of taxes on
| anyone moving out of state, and make it retroactive to
| anyone who had already moved in previous years.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| Do you have a citation for such an extraordinary claim?
| Who do you mean by "they" and "a few years ago"?
| Izkata wrote:
| See 50310(b)(1) on https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/fac
| es/billTextClient.xhtm...
|
| And I meant exactly what I said: there's only one third
| party in this conversation, California, and 2020 is "a
| few years ago".
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| To state that this was a proposal to tax "anyone moving
| out of [the] state" is patently false. It would have only
| applied to people over a very high wealth threshold,
| $30,000,000.
|
| You also omitted that this would be a wealth tax, not an
| income tax. Big difference. Income is determined on an
| annual basis and is usually sourced to where it is
| earned. Wealth is an accumulation over years, including
| unrealized or unrecognized (for tax purposes) income from
| various sources (e.g. different states).
|
| Finally, this was a failed bill submitted by a few
| legislators, which would have required 2/3rds vote in
| both chambers. It never even made it out of the chamber
| of origin and so never came up for a full vote. So,
| "California" in fact did _not_ "try" to impose this tax,
| since it was never even close to passing under
| California's rules, let alone being signed into law. And
| as several commentators elsewhere have observed, it would
| probably face significant challenges in court even if
| there was some alternate universe where it was CA law.
|
| See also:
|
| https://www.natlawreview.com/article/why-wsj-attacking-
| dead-...
|
| https://scocablog.com/exit-taxes-in-california-not-so-
| fast/
| neilwilson wrote:
| There's a better fix for this. Stop measuring success by how far
| away you have to live from your mum to get a job.
|
| Once we have a Job Guarantee, not only does that mean interest
| base rates remain at zero permanently (ensuring permanently low
| mortgages), but it also means you can live where you want in the
| country.
|
| Business then has to go where the people are if it wants any
| labour - which of course it largely can in a majority service
| based economy.
|
| Stars shine not because of gravity, but because of the outward
| pressure that stops them collapsing in on themselves.
|
| Countries need to adopt similar policies if they wish to shine
| and not collapse.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I would love to read more on this.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| >it largely can in a majority service based economy
|
| Is your plan here to consolidate all capital in the hands of a
| few corporations? Because most businesses cannot just move
| somewhere else because their owners cannot just move somewhere
| else.
| Eumenes wrote:
| > Once we have a Job Guarantee
|
| What's a job guarantee? Anyone who wants a job can get one.
| hippich wrote:
| A local Texas guy told me once that he donates quite a bit to the
| local church, explaining that he would prefer his money do good
| locally instead of being diverted to the war machine that sucked
| in his son.
| duxup wrote:
| It's not like a church builds roads in his home town...
|
| What does that statement really mean?
| xeromal wrote:
| Depends on the area, but I live in the Southeast where
| churches are plentiful and my local church (which I don't
| attend since I'm agnostic) has a drive up food pantry staffed
| by the neighborhood. I contribute to it as well. They also
| provide housing for people on hard times and like to come
| together whenever anyone is widowed and made an orphan.
| They've even raised money for cars for people who are
| struggling to make a living. They frequently raise money
| whenever someone needs healthcare and often times the needs
| of the community are met just by local experts donating their
| time. Many folks are blue collar and may come together to
| repair a house/driveway/roof. etc
|
| Churches can be pillars of a community if done correctly.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| > whenever anyone is widowed and made an orphan
|
| Man, only in the South can that be the same event.
| xeromal wrote:
| hahahah, I walked into that one. ;)
| mulmen wrote:
| It means charitable donations are tax deductible.
|
| Local governments don't always provide the community services
| of churches either.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| It means the US government spends 10 times as much on killing
| others (military spending - 13%) than it does on essential
| infrastructure (transportation - ~2%)
| callalex wrote:
| I'm not sure why that's relevant as I have never heard of a
| church building trains and sewers...
| pauldenton wrote:
| I never heard of a local government building trains
| either.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't want to disagree with your general point (because I
| agree that our infrastructure is not great, and that the US
| glorifies the military in ways I find uncomfortable), but
| let's also remember that doing a good job at two wildly
| different things may not cost the same amount of money.
|
| While I do think the US should be spending more on
| essential infrastructure, it is entirely likely that the US
| could end up doing an exemplary job at that, but still
| spend less money on it than on the military.
| huimang wrote:
| It means exactly what he said: he wants it to do good
| locally. There are other ways money can be used locally for
| good than building roads.
| catgary wrote:
| [flagged]
| barelysapient wrote:
| Not all churches engage in this behavior. You appear to
| hold some pretty strong and uncharitable assumptions.
| callalex wrote:
| Not all, just most.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Churches will often times have food pantries, soup kitchens,
| hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, etc. They provide
| resources to the poorest in their community.
| mbg721 wrote:
| My parish actually divides its money up pretty cleanly; the
| first collection each week is for the upkeep of the church
| building, its school, etc., and there's a second collection
| that rotates, but once a month it's for the St. Vincent de
| Paul Society, which does rent assistance, furniture and
| coat drives, and the like, regardless of the recipient's
| religious affiliation.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Churches do usually do mutual aid though. And sometimes much
| more humanely than the government.
|
| (Fwiw I'm not a Christian nor do I care for religion)
| pauldenton wrote:
| 2% of most city budgets is spent on roads. It's not like the
| local government is primarily spending tax money on road
| maintenance
| skipkey wrote:
| It means that the donations to the church are generally tax
| deductible, and thus divert some money from the federal
| government to the church. And the church likely has many
| charitable activities.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Churches are a complete scam.
| jessepasley wrote:
| Are they more of a scam than the wars in Iraq and
| Afghanistan?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Unfortunately in North America at least the dominant
| churches are politically, ideologically and increasingly
| "theologically" onside with wars and other fairly awful
| things that the government is involved in.
|
| Grew up in an evangelical church in Alberta, Canada. It's
| just gotten more and more political and more and more
| explicitly right-wing ideological.
|
| That and a lot of the good work many churches do is
| strings-attached.
|
| That's not to say there isn't amazing charity work being
| done by many churches and some amazing Christian
| humanitarian charity work generally. But when I pay my
| taxes I know that the distribution of the funds is
| _nominally_ under some democratic and legal governance
| that is not attached to someone 's personal belief
| system. (Though that is also degrading over time)
|
| (FWIW I've personally donated funds to charities that
| have church / religious affiliations despite being an
| atheist. But I'm _extremely_ picky about it)
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| Sure, some churches are on the side of war. I grew up in
| such a church. Now I attend one of the "mainline"
| denominations (which tends to roughly mean Protestant,
| and not Evangelical). Mainline denominations are usually
| more politically liberal. Much more likely to find
| strident anti-war stances.
| minorannoyance2 wrote:
| No, but they are more of a scam than most taxes.
| Historically speaking, churches haven't exactly abstained
| from war or pretty much any other atrocity. In terms of
| our current reality, they are usually not better value
| for money than taxes. Any time you can point to
| corruption, misuse of funds, politics or other issues, it
| is worth remembering that this applies to the churches as
| well.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Even if this is true "historically speaking", it doesn't
| have to be true of this guy's local church. Despite the
| bad press generally, an individual church can still be an
| unambiguous benefit to its community.
|
| I would be willing to bet that the majority of local
| (single location, <400 members) churches are like this.
| Free meals for the community, donating money / labor /
| resources to homeless shelters, partnering with food
| banks and soup kitchens, etc are all very common. You
| just don't hear about it.
| moate wrote:
| Is this more of a scam than the comment it was responding
| to?
| [deleted]
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| There is no longer any war in Iraq or Afghanistan
| pauldenton wrote:
| I'm sure the 7 billion dollars worth of equipment won't
| come back to bite us in the ass, like training Mujahideen
| between 1979-1989 to fight the Soviets and supplying them
| with Stingers did
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| In what way did arming the Mujahideen with Stingers bite
| us in the ass
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| After watching the collapse of the Third Place in real
| time during my life: maybe there was a method to the
| madness. You realize how utterly herculean a task it is
| to plan town gatherings and realize that some small
| (optional but peer-pressured) tithe and bit of prayer
| isn't much different from going to a Cafe to meet up and
| paying for a drink.
|
| I almost wish I could like church for those reasons.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I'm actually really confused by this claim, as a person
| raised in a non-white immigrant household. I bought onto
| the idea of churches as community because my immigrant
| churches were full of apple picking, group meals in the
| church itself, thanksgivings at the pastor's house, etc.
| But someone recently told me in Catholic mass you don't
| even get a church-wide breakfast?? WTF? How the hell does
| community get formed if the actual worshipping actions
| isn't inherently a community building action? Someone
| told me the guy can bless you if you don't eat the bread,
| but you can't even ask for a specific blessing, like "my
| son needs an A, can I get the whole church to pray for
| him" style stuff.
|
| I'm way more skeptical of the notion of church as a
| community now. If all the church community is via
| volunteer charity actions, just volunteer directly
| unaffiliated with a religion.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| >But someone recently told me in Catholic mass you don't
| even get a church-wide breakfast?? WTF?
|
| That really depends on your individual parish in my
| experience. The church I grew up going to had donuts
| after ever 10:30am mass, and the one I go to now has free
| breakfast. I've also been to ones that have nothing at
| all.
|
| It's also extremely common for Catholic churches to hold
| a "Friday Fish Fry" every Friday during Lent
| kelnos wrote:
| > _How the hell does community get formed if the actual
| worshipping actions isn 't inherently a community
| building action?_
|
| Yep, Catholicism (American white-people Catholicism, at
| least) is weird like that. Maybe it's different in
| different places or among different ethnic-majority
| parishes, but I grew up in New Jersey and Maryland, and
| was dragged to mass weekly by my (devout) parents. There
| wasn't really any kind of community there; we showed up,
| took our seats, did the rituals, and then left and went
| home.
|
| They also put me through CCD (Catholic version of "Sunday
| school") for 8 years, and while I want on some (more or
| less mandatory) retreats and activities with my fellow
| classmates, I don't recall any of those relationships
| extending outside class. I didn't end up forging any
| closer relationships with the other kids who went to my
| regular school, either. Granted, I may not be typical: I
| decided I didn't believe when I was in 5th or 6th grade,
| so I did the bare minimum just to get through it; maybe
| others tried harder and worked to make it more of a
| community.
|
| I did work for our church's music director one summer in
| high school (mostly odd jobs and clerical stuff), and
| would play trumpet in the church's small ensemble for
| (rare) special events (regular mass just had a
| piano/organ player), but I didn't really get much out of
| that, aside from enjoying playing some music.
|
| > _but you can 't even ask for a specific blessing, like
| "my son needs an A, can I get the whole church to pray
| for him" style stuff._
|
| The church we went to in Maryland did have a small
| section of time devoted to community prayers. It wasn't
| specific, like they would just read a list of names (I
| think you had to sign up in advance to get someone on the
| list), and after each name, the congregation would
| respond "Lord, pray for them" or something like that.
|
| > _I 'm way more skeptical of the notion of church as a
| community now._
|
| I think it just depends on which religion/denomination,
| and the conditions in the local area. Some churches might
| do more to try to build community than others. And some
| churches might actually do build community, but many
| people who come for services just don't care to
| participate for whatever reason.
|
| Personally I don't have a positive view of religion, but
| I do think it's a shame if some community-building has
| gone by the wayside due to declining church attendance.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Catholic Churches do plenty of community meals - just not
| around mass. This is likely due to the former requirement
| to fast proper to communion.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I think that's bizarre though. Mass is the one
| requirement everyone needs to do together-- obviously,
| that's the best time to sit with a meal and gossip. Even
| on important holidays, easter mass etc. are the few times
| limited practicing catholics will appear. This is the
| perfect time to ask how they've been, how're the kids,
| and welcome them with fresh hot food, maybe invite them
| to the litter picking up effort next week.
|
| I'm extremely skeptical of church as a community building
| thing now, because based off of my white friends
| recollection there's very little actual community around
| worship itself. There are a bunch of volunteer actions
| outside of it, but just going to worship isn't itself
| community. This makes me question why we can't have a
| generic mutual aid group do this instead, like the
| Anarchist Soup folks.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The Catholic position would be that that isn't what the
| Mass is for; it's a ritual sacrifice that meets a real
| spiritual need. Similarly, the priest doesn't need to be
| especially likeable or even give a homily in order to say
| a valid Mass.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| None of those have to do with community formation, which
| is what the subject is about.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Sure, but you're going to be fighting an uphill battle if
| you want to make the Mass into that.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| Right, so I'm pointing out that places of worship may not
| actually be great Third Spaces. They may not offer the
| community that people say they do.
| kelnos wrote:
| They could always offer breakfast _after_ mass ;)
| kelnos wrote:
| More detail downthread, but I don't feel like growing up
| attending Catholic mass every week did much community-
| wise. We'd show up, sit down, do the rituals, and head
| home, without really interacting much (if at all) with
| fellow parishioners.
|
| Certainly there were people who were more involved -- the
| church had a youth group, for one thing, and a bunch of
| outreach programs. But those were the kind of things that
| you had to specifically seek out, apart from the usual
| religious services. And if you aren't going to get
| community-building out of the religious services
| themselves, then you might as well build community
| outside the church entirely.
|
| Not saying that all religious/church communities are all
| the same; my girlfriend in high school was much more
| involved with her church community (different religion).
| But her experience seemed to be more of an outlier than
| the norm.
| downrightmike wrote:
| [flagged]
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Some churches are, sure. Churches as an overall category
| are absolutely not a scam.
| [deleted]
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Tax deductions only come into play if they are higher than
| the standard deduction. Unless he is donating tens of
| thousands of dollars each year (in addition to other
| itemized deductions), it likely doesn't change anything
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This was great! One question, on this:
|
| > And there, that's Japan's most novel redistribution program in
| a nutshell.
|
| How is this "redistribution"?
| kibwen wrote:
| It's redistribution because it takes tax income that would go
| to a wealthy area (Tokyo) and distributes it to poorer areas.
| pc86 wrote:
| Just because it's a person choosing to do this instead of a
| bureaucrat doesn't mean it's not redistribution. To use the
| example in the article, you're taking 40% of your taxes which
| would go to Tokyo and instead sending them to Gifu.
| badcppdev wrote:
| All taxation is redistribution. This is a novel tweak to
| taxation.
|
| I think all tax payers wherever should get some form of choice
| in where their tax money goes even if it's only a small
| proportion of the total.
| madarcho wrote:
| Redistribution of taxes, from areas of high densities to lower
| density prefectures.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Thanks - but isn't this more like "reallocation"? I thought
| redistribution was more about taking money from some people
| and giving it to (or spending it on) other people, of which
| taxation is one method.
| moate wrote:
| You take money that would have ostensibly gone to the
| citizens of Tokyo and instead provide it to the citizens of
| _town of your choice_.
|
| Reallocation and redistribution are synonymous here, one is
| just used in more headlines (probably because more people
| use "distribute" more regularly than "allocate"). Nothing
| different should be inferred by either word choice IMO.
| Balgair wrote:
| Man, this would be so good for the US to implement.
|
| The exact tax details and how money is exactly moved around are,
| of course, the devil in the details.
|
| But, forget all those very important but very arduous details for
| a minute, and just imagine that system up and working.
|
| You pick some small town out there on the Gift website. You like,
| I dunno, Country Hams. There's a small place outside of
| Harrisburg, PA that specializes in that gift. They send you a
| medium sized ham around the holidays. It's not a mass market ham,
| as that's against the rules. It's real home grown and processed
| country ham. They put in some advert for the country ham festival
| in October or some month (I don't know anything about the ham
| world, sorry!). Its free tickets to get in. You think, hey, why
| not? Go out there, spend some hotel/AirBnB money, eat at the
| diners, buy gas, etc. Great little fall escape. You do this every
| year for a while. The town gets a reputation, they're the Country
| Ham town now.
|
| Boom, a little cottage industry, government mandated to exist and
| help out the people there. The town gets to choose the cottage
| industry, of course. But they can leap frog it, make something of
| it, get things going again. Government is just coming in and
| priming the pump.
|
| I don't know. There's something so damn wholesome about this idea
| that I just love it. Helping out each other, getting things
| moving again, diversifying the market, keeping things alive.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I don't agree. The whole concept is diverting money from places
| that need it (the ones with all the residents) to places that
| don't. That was at least sentimentally understandable when
| people were sending tax dollars to places they have actual
| connections to, but once it becomes about securing some kind of
| consumer goods it doesn't even have that justification and will
| obviously benefit most municipalities which least need the help
| (since they will be most able to put together an appealing
| package). Anyway, if you want artisanal ham there are plenty of
| butchers who would appreciate your business.
| kelnos wrote:
| Is that really the case, though? It seems like Tokyo (etc.)
| are still doing just fine, and a lot of the smaller towns
| that act as "feeders" for the big cities get a boost, which
| allows the small towns to do a better job of educating their
| kids, which directly helps the big cities later on.
|
| I think you maybe missed all the details in the article that
| explains why it's a little unfair that the small towns spend
| money to educate their citizens, but then don't get to reap
| the benefits of that education?
|
| I do agree with you that the end result in Japan is now a bit
| weird, since many people "pick their hometown" based on
| whatever gift/deal is available. But I think even in the
| original formulation, the benefits were much more than just
| "sentimental".
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| [deleted, moved to parent discussion.]
| minorannoyance2 wrote:
| I hate to rain on your parade, but for every one town trying to
| "fulfill your dream", you'd get ten doing stuff like "donate to
| our square town in the triangle state you hate, and we will
| pass laws to own those triangles for you". Then add the Amazon
| HQ debacle and similar on top, and sprinkle some sweet madness
| during any campaign season (which is most of the time at this
| point). I'm pretty sure that making taxes "fun" is "fun" in the
| same way that NFTs are "fun" investing.
| sdrothrock wrote:
| > Boom, a little cottage industry
|
| This is the devil that lives in the details. You have an
| industry of people who are trying to get these charitable
| donations, and the towns that can't afford that industry or
| don't have anything particularly commercializable to sell get
| left in the dust.
|
| For every town that becomes Country Ham Town, you have hundreds
| of small towns who are "random postcard town" who only get a
| few bucks a year. It's tough to say if they even make money vs
| losing money on that.
| Decabytes wrote:
| I wonder if this could get handled at the county level. The
| money could be dispersed equitably by the county seat, and
| people could choose from a number of gifts provided by the
| towns in the county
| emodendroket wrote:
| That's a good thought but why stop there? Why not have some
| kind of national government that collects tax dollars and
| apportions them according to need?
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| As a military brat who doesn't really have a hometown, or even a
| clear regional identity, I like that this system lets you choose
| a town to donate to without forcing it to be connected to your
| birthplace or life history.
|
| It'd be nice to be able to earmark it to particular government
| functions, maybe even charities in the area, etc.
| NeoTar wrote:
| > It'd be nice to be able to earmark it to particular
| government functions, maybe even charities in the area, etc.
|
| "[Your Town] has finest municipal art galleries in the state
| whilst streets are filled with pot-holes"
|
| Allowing people to allocate money to government functions is
| generally a bad idea except if very tightly limited. Things
| which are 'nice' will get over-funded, and things which people
| find unpleasant* will not getting the funding needed. I think
| the problem would be ten times worse if it is people who don't
| actual live in an area get to choose how funds are allocated.
| teeray wrote:
| > things which people find unpleasant* will not getting the
| funding needed.
|
| Septic systems are a great example of this on a home scale.
| So many people treat them as a mysterious vortex in the
| ground where all sewage magically vanishes. They don't bother
| to pump the tank every few years because it costs a couple
| hundred dollars. Then they're shocked when their leech field
| is completely failed and needs to be replaced to the tune of
| $30k.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I can't wait for (nicer) incinerating toilets to cost less
| than $5k. Going to put a real damper in septic tank builds
| in areas that allow simple graywater systems.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| To be fair, the current realistic alternative still has
| potholes. Maybe we should entertain a tightly limited
| allocation. Sure, let the people from outside of town donate
| to whatever (it's free money at best and no gain at worst),
| but local citizens can only allocate a portion to specific
| public goods.
| soperj wrote:
| > "[Your Town] has finest municipal art galleries in the
| state whilst streets are filled with pot-holes"
|
| Maybe they have too many roads?
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Sounds like they don't have enough art galleries.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Educating children is incredibly expensive. The regions are
| quite annoyed that they pay to educate their children but that
| Tokyo reaps all the benefits. This state of affairs has continued
| for decades.
|
| We see the same problem in USA states. State taxpayer dollars pay
| for some amount of public college education for state
| universities. These are typically called "State Appropriations",
| and varies between 30-80% of the student's overall tuition costs.
|
| Back in the 1980's, taxpayers footed most college tuition using
| state appropriations, so college was "cheap" for students back
| then. Now (2023), (at least in my state, Michigan), state
| appropriations typically cover 20-40% of a college student's
| tuition.
|
| There is concern with this though, because of what is called
| "brain drain". Citizens spend all these taxpayer dollars
| educating youth at colleges, then the graduates from U of M, etc
| all move out of state to California, Boston, Seattle, etc for big
| tech jobs.
|
| Then the state of Michigan doesn't see any more tax dollars from
| those students. Which begs the question, why pay tax dollars for
| higher education if those who benefit from that education do not
| contribute back?
| RhysU wrote:
| This is a perspective issue.
|
| The customer was the in-state parent. Rest assured, they were
| taxed just fine.
|
| The child, when it finishes college, should do whatever is best
| for the child.
|
| If the kids are leaving the state, the problem is the state
| isn't attractive to the next generation. Not that the kid
| somehow skipped out on the state. Heck, the state had an
| inertial advantage over every other state and still couldn't
| keep the kid there.
|
| Source: I grew up in Pennsylvania. Love the place. Left for
| greener pastures. Don't owe them anything out of my paychecks
| today. But my parents kicked into their coffers for decades and
| still do.
| mihaic wrote:
| I'm trying to see both sides, but how is the parent the
| customer here?
|
| I think you're mixing an opinion on high taxation in general
| (which you might be right about), versus how big metropolises
| enjoy labor that was raised somewhere else.
| rtkwe wrote:
| One of the biggest functions of primary education beyond
| preparing the kid for their future is as a free(ish) place
| to stick your kid during working hours. Look at what
| happened during COVID when schools were shutdown it caused
| a lot of problems because suddenly someone had to take care
| of the kid during the day. The chaos that change caused
| alone is I think excellent evidence for that. It's also why
| schools happen so early even though it's clinically proven
| to be an inferior time to start school for the kid, they
| have to start that early so the parent(s) can get to their
| 9-5 job.
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Of course the parent is the customer. Generally the parent
| is the one who makes sure the child is wel prepared for the
| future. College is a step in that process.
| mihaic wrote:
| I agree that the parent is a beneficiary of the
| education, but my argument is with the fact that
| "customer" involves one beneficiary. By your logic for
| instance anyone that's childless shouldn't pay taxes for
| education, even though they benefit indirectly from an
| educated population.
|
| Isn't the company that's hiring the graduate just as much
| a beneficiary for instance?
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Simple. It's not based on the child's taxes (or future
| taxes) because then they could go to a California college,
| claim residency there immediately, and get California
| prices. Instead, I have to pay an extra $30k or so for
| them. Further, they haven't paid any taxes before college,
| because they were in high school. So again, the fact that
| each state gives "local" kids a break has nothing to do
| with the kids taxes. Kids haven't paid taxes, and kids
| moving state doesn't change fees.
|
| What does matter? My taxes, as parent. I pay soooo much
| taxes and I will continue to do so. As a result my kid is
| essentially forced to go to a college in state. And he will
| then FOR SURE move out of state. But I won't.
|
| So. It's a cost to me. Like we are considering moving back
| to CA to get the UC discount. I will pay more in taxes but
| I'll get a chunk of it back in tuition break.
| asah wrote:
| counter-argument: by not having to appeal to (most) families,
| big cities can focus on attracting young professionals, hence
| the original moniker: YUPpies.
| bbreier wrote:
| so if this holds water, wouldn't we expect these educated
| professionals to return to the states which appeal to
| families when they are ready to start one?
| greiskul wrote:
| People are trying to find stability in a unstable system.
| The system is unstable because of the shifts in the North
| America (and World) economy. With manufacturing leaving
| the US, and the US focusing more on the service industry,
| the economics of scale of the service industry favour
| centralization in urban areas, so thats where the jobs
| end up being created. If the current system stay in place
| for long enough, it will become stable, with multi
| generation families having entire cycles in a given
| region. It's the same thing that happened to coal
| country, just in a larger scale, and slower.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Why would they need to move back to their original state
| instead of over moving to a small city or into the
| suburbs?
| xp84 wrote:
| I'm sure a non-insignificant group do move to one
| spouse's hometown, since I can assure you, having your
| kids' grandparents close by can be life-changing
| (especially for modern, dual-income families).
| rtkwe wrote:
| I'm seeing a lot less of that among people my age who are
| having kids. Most stay wherever they've setup their lives
| but move to a larger house or something similar.
| kelnos wrote:
| I see the same, but I think the consequences hinted at by
| the GP are very present. I know quite a few parents, some
| with _their_ parents nearby, others without. The ones
| with their parents nearby universally have more of an
| ability to do things without their kids (either
| regularly, or as a special-case).
|
| And I know several parents who tried the "go it alone"
| method for a while, but eventually decided to move back
| to one of their hometowns, specifically to be closer to
| their parents for reasons related to their kids. Most of
| it seems to be a mix of wanting nearby, reliable
| childcare, as well as just wanting their kids to grow up
| with regular contact with their grandparents. (I've also
| seen the phenomenon where the grandparents, after
| retirement, end up moving to the parents' location, but
| often that requires the grandparents to move to a higher
| cost-of-living area, so I expect that happens less
| often.)
|
| I don't plan to have kids, so this is certainly a grain-
| of-salt-worthy opinion, but it feels to me that parent-
| marriages would be on average healthier if the parents
| had easier childcare options so they can more often do
| "date night" type things. Certainly nearby grandparents
| is not the only way to achieve that, but it _is_ one of
| the simplest options, assuming grandparents who are happy
| to be involved to that degree.
| tzs wrote:
| There are a couple of probably significant factors that
| would counter such a tendency.
|
| First, the states with the big cities they moved to also
| have smaller towns outside those cities that are fine for
| families. They can move to one of those and still have
| sufficient contact with the city to maintain their
| career.
|
| Second, their spouse likely is not from the same state
| they are from, and may not want to move to that state.
| And they may not want to move to where the spouse is
| from.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Whatever reason the old city isn't attractive to the next
| generation, it is completely reasonable for people to want to
| fix it at the national level.
|
| If you don't, you will only concentrate all kinds of problems
| on your largest cities, and even invent some wild new problem
| because cities can not survive all by themselves.
|
| That said, a tax based on what city you happened to be born
| or identify with is the kind of weirdness that my culture
| can't assimilate. But it may make complete sense there (maybe
| because it's more traditionalist? do they _want_ to be that
| traditionalist?).
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I would love to hear a realistic plan how West Virginia could
| make itself as attractive as NY, Chicago, etc.
| pauldenton wrote:
| Knocking down all the dirt hills until you have enough flat
| land to build a city the size of NY or Chicago?
| monknomo wrote:
| I think the question is not how to be as attractive as NYC
| where people from all over move to West Virginia, but
| rather how to make it so that young people in the 60-90th
| percentile feel like they may as well stay.
|
| A possibility is a great affordability ratio - cheap
| housing as compared to the prevailing local wage.
|
| Remember, inertia to stay where you you are from is strong,
| you just have to help it along
| mcguire wrote:
| What is your opinion of Chattanooga, TN?
| mcguire wrote:
| I'm curious about your opinion of the states' decisions to
| reduce funding for public universities.
|
| Neither the state collectively, non-parent residents of the
| state, nor the in-state parents get any future economic
| reward for funding higher education if the student leaves the
| state, so reducing the state's costs in that regard seems
| rational.
|
| But that reduction in funding was part of the rise of the
| student loan industry, which subsequently seems to have
| completely deranged higher education funding.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| What is the reason to have higher education organized by
| geography instead of by industry? Shouldn't the medical
| industry be responsible for medical education, for example?
| Then you don't have a state or a city wasting investment on
| a student who will bail, and you don't have students who
| are disadvantaged for being born in the wrong state or
| city.
| thfuran wrote:
| >Neither the state collectively, non-parent residents of
| the state, nor the in-state parents get any future economic
| reward for funding higher education if the student leaves
| the state
|
| That seems to presuppose that the students don't benefit
| from the education and/or there's no interstate commerce.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I went to michigan and tons tons tons of people ended up at the
| auto companies. Sure many left the state, but there's no doubt
| that the state had many more educated high earners because of
| the university.
| kstrauser wrote:
| On the other hand, if college were still affordable, students
| could stay where they wanted instead of being all but forced to
| move to cities with higher salaries. For every 1 software
| engineer who flees to Silicon Valley, I bet there are 20
| accountants, teachers, and nurses who'd like to continue living
| in their home state if they could afford it.
| volkl48 wrote:
| While not a perfect program, it seems to me that NY State's
| "Excelsior scholarship" (for those who's family has a household
| income of <$125k) is one possible answer to that.
|
| College tuition is free, you're required to live and work in NY
| State for the same number of years that you accepted the state
| funding for after graduation. If you don't do that, the
| scholarship/grant becomes a loan.
| scarby2 wrote:
| This probably works in NY as it's a good place to start a
| career after college. Try doing this in West Virginia,
| Alabama or North Dakota. If you took that program after
| graduating you'd probably find yourself working for low wages
| and being underemployed.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > Then the state of Michigan doesn't see any more tax dollars
| from those students. Which begs the question, why pay tax
| dollars for higher education if those who benefit from that
| education do not contribute back?
|
| People who live in Michigan might hope that their children can
| access a good education.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > all move out of state to California, Boston, Seattle, etc for
| big tech jobs
|
| Seattle is busy complaining about all those tech jobs, and how
| unfair it is that they make lots of money.
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-splitting-of-s...
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Hate if you do, hate if you don't. If there were no tech
| jobs, people here would complain that they don't have them.
| If there are tech jobs, they complain that there are too
| many, when in reality they are complaining because they are
| missing out.
| kelnos wrote:
| I do suspect that there would be different people
| complaining in those two cases (with some overlap, sure).
|
| Either way, the complains are pretty irrational. I live in
| San Francisco, where all the property owners are thrilled
| that their home value has surged in the past couple
| decades. Take away all the tech jobs, and see what happens
| to those home values... Can't have your cake and eat it
| too.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Yeah, Seattle is the same.
| jadbox wrote:
| I think this is what makes the article so interesting of this
| hometown tax idea, as I would have liked to have participated
| if it was here. Fwiw, I moved away from UofM to California for
| career building last decade, but I moved back this year as I do
| love Michigan, the highly volatile weather and all.
| wirthjason wrote:
| Thank you for saying Michigan is your state. Context matters a
| lot. It's annoying when people generically use "in my state" or
| "in my country".
| omscs99 wrote:
| I don't get why money is so concentrated in NYC and SV
|
| Why are people willing to pay more to get you to move to those
| areas? It just seems really weird, like there's some man behind
| the curtain pulling strings to concentrate people in the above
| metro areas
| bsder wrote:
| > I don't get why money is so concentrated in NYC and SV
|
| For the same reason that Detroit was the technical hub 100
| years ago.
|
| Smart people congregating leads to more smart people
| congregating.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Because there is money there, it's a virtuous cycle. NYC with
| wall street and tech, SV with VCs and tech. It's the place to
| be for those things, which makes it the place to be for those
| things, which brings more money in for those things, repeat.
| kelnos wrote:
| Because that's where the businesses and business connections
| are. It's sort of a chicken-and-egg problem. NYC & SV are
| successful business hubs because they are successful business
| hubs. Sure, they both had to start somewhere, there's no
| guarantee of their continued dominance, and that's not to say
| other business hubs can't come into their own, but it's going
| to be an uphill battle for new locales wanting to attract
| talent.
|
| The pandemic & work-from-home made people realize that these
| hubs aren't really as crucial to business success as people
| thought they were, but there's still a lot of institutional
| inertia (not to mention shitty companies requiring employees
| to return to office for no real reason aside from managerial
| power trips).
| thanosbaskous wrote:
| Alaska has had to deal with an extreme version of this issue
| for a long time. One mitigation that the state has come up with
| is to offer competitively priced student loans to Alaska
| residents who are bound for colleges across the US. The
| interest rate on the loans is further lowered if you live in
| Alaska after graduation, incentivizing educated Alaskans to
| come back. Those students are also likely to have maintained
| their Alaska residency to qualify for the Permanent Fund
| Dividend (an annual payment that comes from rolling returns on
| the state's sovereign wealth fund).
| bern4444 wrote:
| Its up to the state then to ensure they create an environment
| that attracts these recently graduated students!
|
| Listen to what these post graduate students want - for those
| who are moving a city like NYC or Boston they are probably
| enjoying not having urban sprawl, fun downtown areas, available
| housing, easy and accessible public transportation, etc.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Listen to what these post graduate students want - for
| those who are moving a city like NYC or Boston
|
| I totally agree with everything you're saying and listed but
| let's not pretend the biggest item is anything but "higher
| salary" for most. We all know that some of these major metros
| have companies that pay 5-10x what you'd get in a small
| midwestern town.
|
| Anecdotally, I did an internship in Cleveland followed by an
| internship in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley). I got job offers
| from both and chose California. The Cleveland company was a
| major donor to me school, so I got hounded by the schools
| career development office about why I chose to go to Santa
| Clara instead. They asked what the company could do to be
| more attractive to me - they mentioned intern ice cream
| parties, and Friday hours worked, and mentor programs, etc.
| The intern pay was $18/hr vs $80/hr, and when I brought it
| up, that was not a good answer - they wanted something
| cheaper easier and more superficial to change.
|
| My point is that NYC and Boston have nothing to worry about,
| and nothing will change.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Hey, now, cut _all_ the hours off _every_ day _other_ than
| Friday and then a 78% pay cut starts looking okay.
| retrac wrote:
| There is a similar phenomenon with Canada, and the USA.
| University is cheaper and more subsidized in Canada, and then a
| small but significant % of graduates - often some of the very
| best - move to the USA, and then never pay another tax dollar
| towards education, or anything else. It might be a bit
| annoying, but there's little that can actually be done about
| it, and all the usual arguments about the benefits of an
| educated populace still apply; the vast majority don't move
| away.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| In the US, there are programs where various federal agencies
| will pay for your education, and offer you a job on
| graduation. At a high level, the terms require you to repay
| the cost of education (prorated) if don't work for that agent
| for a certain period of time.
|
| I can see this working in Canada (or other states that want a
| boost in educated citizens). Subsidize education via
| forgivable loans, then forgive the loans if you work in-
| state. The main issue I see is that the US has a terrible
| history with loan forgiveness. You always hear stories of
| (eg) teachers who should get their loan forgiven being
| rejected for some paperwork issue or simply bank fraud.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Canada is probably a net recipient though -- lots of our
| immigrants were educated in South Africa, Turkey, Iran, et
| cetera. I suspect we gain more from other countries than we
| lose to the States.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Pure spitballing. What if: in exchange for fully subsidized
| schooling at a state school, graduates participated in a
| profit-sharing agreement with the country and city that they
| went to school in? Similar to the Lambda model (what happened
| to them anyways?).
| drw3 wrote:
| Sued by former students: https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwar
| dconroy/2023/03/29/former-...
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, but Lambda got sued for misrepresenting material
| facts about the deal to their students. I don't think
| this lawsuit (or Lambda's actions) invalidates the idea
| GP presented.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Yikes! Well this seems like a place where colleges are
| socialized better: we all know that getting a college
| degree, especially certain degrees, are no indicator of
| employability.
| guardiangod wrote:
| >We see the same problem in USA states. State taxpayer dollars
| pay for some amount of public college education for state
| universities. These are typically called "State
| Appropriations", and varies between 30-80% of the student's
| overall tuition costs.
|
| And the world yell the same thing to USA. Canada, Italy, and
| England etc. all subsides their world-class universities with
| public funding. Where do the students go after graduation? US.
| intrasight wrote:
| This needs clarification. If you can gift it anywhere, can you
| gift it back to Tokyo (for example)? I would think that the
| kickback that the place you actually live (services, access to
| events, etc) would be more valuable to the taxpayer than would be
| services in a city where you don't live.
| rtpg wrote:
| You can't gift it to where you live (or rather, where you will
| send your residence tax).
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Good point. Is Tokyo not participating in the bidding war for
| people's good will? Perhaps it's not allowed to?
| Hamuko wrote:
| Considering it was an olive branch towards the rest of the
| country in order to avoid this being set into the national
| law, it'd probably look pretty bad if Tokyo started to try
| and outbid the rest of the country.
| sampo wrote:
| > If you can gift it anywhere, can you gift it back to Tokyo
| (for example)?
|
| If you live in Tokyo, your residence tax goes to Tokyo by
| default. You don't need to do anything, you don't need to
| specifically gift it to Tokyo.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The article explains it is an opt-in program; if you live in
| Tokyo and don't opt-in to gifting your taxes elsewhere, you're
| paying all your taxes to Tokyo.
| paxys wrote:
| What the author calls a "beautiful" system to me seems to be
| bordering on fraud and undermining what the law was originally
| intended to do. Basically random small towns hire consulting
| companies who run advertising campaigns asking people nationwide
| to send them their 40% "hometown donation" and get 20% of it back
| as a "gift", thus conveniently evading half their taxes? Who
| exactly is benefiting here?
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| previous discussions:
|
| posted 2018, 249 comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18256660
|
| posted 2022, 105 comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31152365
|
| Not here to complain about a repost, just mentioning in case
| someone is looking to dive further and see what people said
| before.
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Japan 's Hometown Tax (2018)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31152365 - April 2022 (105
| comments)
|
| _Japan 's Hometown Tax_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18256660 - Oct 2018 (249
| comments)
|
| (And yes, agreed - such links are solely for those with
| extended curiosity. Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).
| version_five wrote:
| Not sure I understand all the subtlety but as a Canadian (where
| we have about 3 big cities and the rest has no voice) I'd love to
| be able to divert my tax away from the city I live in and to my
| home town. If course we don't really pay income tax directly to
| the city, so it would be complicated and probably just make more
| bureaucracy.
| thsksbd wrote:
| It'd certainly be more elegant and transparent than the
| equalization payments with largely similar results (Maritime's
| getting help from their diaspora).
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Aren't you essentially doing that already?
|
| The Federal government spends disproportionately outside of
| cities.
| renewiltord wrote:
| In the US, this is pretty simple actually. If you set up a
| charity whose sole purpose is beautifying some region (that
| will pass IRS's tests), you can donate to it and reduce your
| taxable income. I imagine Canada has a similar structure.
| pc86 wrote:
| I say this as someone who grew up in a small rural area and now
| lives in a slightly-less-small suburban/rural mix (but not in
| Canada). All this does is overfund rural areas and underfund
| urban areas which are likely already underfunded - although my
| only experience is the US so maybe Canada is a little better
| about this.
|
| Rural areas do not "have no voice" - they have exactly the
| representative power of their population, the same as urban
| centers. I'm not sure what makes people in or from rural areas
| thinks that once people live close together their voice should
| count for less. How is it "right" or "fair" to move to an urban
| center, take advantage of urban amenities and services, take
| advantage of that higher salary, and siphon some of that tax
| money away to rural areas because of nostalgia?
| jdasdf wrote:
| >Rural areas do not "have no voice" - they have exactly the
| representative power of their population, the same as urban
| centers. I'm not sure what makes people in or from rural
| areas thinks that once people live close together their voice
| should count for less. How is it "right" or "fair" to move to
| an urban center, take advantage of urban amenities and
| services, take advantage of that higher salary, and siphon
| some of that tax money away to rural areas because of
| nostalgia?
|
| 2 wolves and sheep deciding on what's for dinner huh?
|
| Have you considered that the key problem here is the lack of
| direct control that people have over their own lives, causing
| these sort of situations where you have groups of people who
| permanently have zero effective agency over their futures?
|
| I agree, giving people more voting powers just because they
| live in a certain place isn't the right way to fix this. But
| the fact that there is a problem is undeniable, and the fact
| that this inequality in voting helps ameliorate this problem
| is true as well.
|
| The right answer here is to remove power from the state and
| elected officials, and return it to where it belongs, those
| being asked to pay for it either directly, or by being
| affected by it.
|
| There is nothing as democratic as everyone choosing for
| themselves.
|
| In the same way we should not have a vote to decide what's
| for dinner, and the winner means we all eat the same thing,
| we should not have votes on local and personal matters.
|
| Democracy isn't voting, it's agency over what rules you.
| pc86 wrote:
| Lots to unpack here, and as I said I don't know much about
| Canada and next to nothing about Japan so this is strictly
| about the US.
|
| > _2 wolves and sheep deciding on what 's for dinner huh?_
|
| Tired analogy that doesn't actually make any point.
|
| > _groups of people who permanently have zero effective
| agency over their futures_
|
| This applies to approximately 0% of people in the US. Yes
| there is a small proportion of people who are so poor they
| can never move away from where they're born. Most of these
| people happen to live in urban areas, not rural.
|
| > _the fact that there is a problem is undeniable_
|
| For it being undeniable you haven't actually said what the
| problem is - only a strawman that rural Americans have no
| agency over their futures which is utter nonsense.
|
| > _return [power] to where it belongs, those being asked to
| pay for it either directly, or by being affected by it_
|
| If democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for
| dinner wouldn't you want more power in the state and
| elected officials, so they could protect the sheep?
|
| The problem is everybody acts like they're the sheep being
| taken advantage of by big bad government when it's almost
| never actually the case.
| jdasdf wrote:
| >Tired analogy that doesn't actually make any point.
|
| It does, but it seems you've missed.
|
| Let me make it clear as day.
|
| If there's a country with 3 people on it, where 2 of
| those people want to oppress the third, there is nothing
| that the third can do to prevent that oppression.
|
| That is a perfectly legitimate outcome of a voting
| system, and one that occurs often.
|
| >This applies to approximately 0% of people in the US.
| Yes there is a small proportion of people who are so poor
| they can never move away from where they're born. Most of
| these people happen to live in urban areas, not rural.
|
| On the contrary.
|
| If you've ever been affected by a law or regulation
| you're against, you've directly suffered from this in
| regards to that topic.
|
| Indeed, the whole idea of "red states" and "blue states"
| that is common in US politics kind of shows it happening
| at a large scale.
|
| For example I've recently seen news about parts of
| eastern Oregon wanting to secede and join Idaho, and the
| primary reason for that is that you have a minority
| (rural eastern Oregonians) who are permanently
| disenfranchised with effectively zero agency over the
| laws and regulations that rule over them, as a result of
| them being a minority in Oregon.
|
| This is the problem.
|
| >If democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for
| dinner wouldn't you want more power in the state and
| elected officials, so they could protect the sheep?
|
| On the contrary, for it is that power that is being used
| to oppress.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Indeed, the whole idea of "red states" and "blue
| states" that is common in US politics kind of shows it
| happening at a large scale.
|
| > For example I've recently seen news about parts of
| eastern Oregon wanting to secede and join Idaho, and the
| primary reason for that is that you have a minority
| (rural eastern Oregonians) who are permanently
| disenfranchised with effectively zero agency over the
| laws and regulations that rule over them, as a result of
| them being a minority in Oregon.
|
| Northern California is the same, with this proposal to
| solve it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(propos
| ed_Pacific_st...
| pc86 wrote:
| Being subject to a law or regulation you're against is
| not oppression, and you're not suffering. It can be, but
| that's not true by definition.
|
| Having to do something you don't want to do, or not being
| allowed to do whatever you want, is not oppression.
| jdasdf wrote:
| Define oppression then.
|
| Because I fail to see any conceptual difference here.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| By your definition (as far as I can tell), all laws are
| oppression. Is there any law to which there won't be any
| opposition by some person out there? No, certainly not.
| So we must have laws and the debate must be whether
| particular laws are too restrictive or not.
| irrational wrote:
| > For example I've recently seen news about parts of
| eastern Oregon wanting to secede and join Idaho, and the
| primary reason for that is that you have a minority
| (rural eastern Oregonians) who are permanently
| disenfranchised with effectively zero agency over the
| laws and regulations that rule over them, as a result of
| them being a minority in Oregon.
|
| This goes both ways. In Utah, the urban liberals feel
| like they are disenfranchised because the majority
| suburban/rural population of the state consistently votes
| conservative.
|
| Anytime you have a majority (whether that is majority
| liberal urban in Oregon or majority conservative rural in
| Utah) you will have a minority that feel disenfranchised.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| > For example I've recently seen news about parts of
| eastern Oregon wanting to secede and join Idaho, and the
| primary reason for that is that you have a minority
| (rural eastern Oregonians) who are permanently
| disenfranchised with effectively zero agency over the
| laws and regulations that rule over them, as a result of
| them being a minority in Oregon.
|
| Isn't this also the case of blue cities in red states? I
| believe e.g. there's a big hullabaloo in Virginia at the
| moment where the bluer school district close to DC is
| resisting anti-transgender top-down demands from the
| state. If we want to argue about rural people being
| disenfranchised, by number, way more people in cities are
| disenfranchised simply because cities are more populated.
| jdasdf wrote:
| >Isn't this also the case of blue cities in red states? I
| believe e.g. there's a big hullabaloo in Virginia at the
| moment where the bluer school district close to DC is
| resisting anti-transgender top-down demands from the
| state. If we want to argue about rural people being
| disenfranchised, by number, way more people in cities are
| disenfranchised simply because cities are more populated.
|
| Absolutely, and my point isn't about a "rural vs urban
| divide" at all.
|
| It is a general argument and principle that can be
| applied to every action of government.
|
| It doesn't matter if oppression is done by a dictator or
| by a Majority.
|
| The problem is too much state power.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I don't know, let me know if this is slippery sloping or
| something, but I don't see why the issue is the state has
| too much power. You will always have a disenfranchised
| political minority unable to force the majority to follow
| whatever political position they want. There's
| conservatives in my city who feel disenfranchised about
| crime; does the city have too much power, then? What if I
| feel disenfranchised about no one believing me in an
| Among Us game?
| jdasdf wrote:
| You're missing the point.
|
| Being enfranchised in driving the state is only important
| if the state has a significant impact in your life.
|
| The lower the impact (read, the power) of the state, the
| lower the need to be enfranchised.
|
| For your example: If the state didn't have law enforcing
| powers, the states policy on crime wouldn't matter much.
| You could just hire your own private police to protect
| your interests.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > For your example: If the state didn't have law
| enforcing powers,
|
| Then its _not_ the state [0], whatever it calls itself,
| in the same way that Emporer Norton, despite his claimed
| title, was not the head of state of the United States.
|
| [0] though it may be part of a larger structure involving
| elements formally outside of its bounds that together
| constitutes an effective state.
| dahfizz wrote:
| So you agree that this is a problem then, and we should
| work to increase agency and reduce disenfranchisement by
| moving more power to local communities?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This is an interesting allegory, but it's doesn't seem to
| mesh with reality. After all, in US voting, n is much
| larger than 3, and 66% represents a super majority...
|
| Can you put into concrete terms? How many times has
| Philadelphia and Pittsburgh bullied their way into
| something that the rest of the commonwealth of
| Pennsylvania was so against? I think you'll find that
| what usually happens is the rest of the commonwealth gets
| its way, regardless of what the big cities want (because
| _they_ have the numbers in the state legislatures).
| jdasdf wrote:
| I mean I gave an example in Oregon but you seem to have
| skipped it.
|
| If you'd like a more concrete example, how about we look
| at the effects that these minority/majority impacts have
| had on the delegates sent to the presidential college?
|
| Here:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presi
| den...
|
| As you can see you have several states that have always
| voted for the same party for decades.
|
| For example, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North
| Dakota, Oklahoma, south Dakota, Utah and Wyoming... Have
| voted for the republican candidate every single year
| since 1964. How many Democrats live in those states?
| These are literally millions of people who by virtue of
| being a minority have had exactly zero agency in who will
| rule over them.
|
| On a more local level, how many regulations are voted on
| by people in cities, but will inevitably affect rural
| people? Or heck, any people who did not want those
| regulations?
|
| For people being oppressed, who have no actual way to
| prevent their oppression, does it really matter if the
| oppression is being done by a dictator or a vote?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _I mean I gave an example in Oregon but you seem to have
| skipped it._
|
| That's not an example of what you're saying. It appears
| to be in ongoing discussions. -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| _On a more local level, how many regulations are voted
| on by people in cities, but will inevitably affect rural
| people? Or heck, any people who did not want those
| regulations?_
|
| What level are you talking about? I mean, what locality
| spans city and rural areas? These are great hypothetical
| situations, but you gotta put real examples behind them
| to show that there is some conspiracy about oppressing
| people living in rural areas. Even at a state level, due
| to the nature of districting, urban areas don't have any
| more representation in state legislatures.
|
| _As you can see you have several states that have always
| voted for the same party for decades._
|
| You're now changing your argument from urban-rural to
| D-R?
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Not GP, but recent things off the top of my head:
| California's law to end single family zoning. Gun laws in
| most blue states. Washington's comprehensive sex ed law.
|
| It's not really urban-rural or D-R as such. It's more
| "people who don't even live in your town are dictating
| how to run it".
|
| Like the recent ruling with abortion: it made it not a
| federal concern. That's it. Why do people in California
| care so much about what e.g. Alabama is doing now? Do
| they get upset about abortion laws in Poland too?
|
| Higher levels of government are needed to prevent
| conflicts (e.g. to deal with someone in Colorado
| polluting the river and screwing over everyone in Utah),
| but they end up getting used to enforce social norms. It
| would be better if we could push more regulation down to
| the county/municipal level. People wouldn't need to be so
| polarized because they could just agree to disagree, and
| live somewhere with like-minded people.
|
| Want to live somewhere where there's strict credentials
| for teachers? Cool. Want to live somewhere where the lady
| down the street that homeschools her kids can also teach
| yours? Cool. It's a big country. There's room for
| everyone.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _California 's law to end single family zoning_
|
| Not sure how this fits in. It only had 25% nay votes in
| the assembly and 17.5% nay votes in the senate. Some nay
| votes came from a D from SF and someone form Huntington
| Beach, so the vote really wasn't on party or urban-rural
| lines. I also wonder how genuine you're being when you
| say a measure that gives someone _more_ freedom (to build
| what they want on their property) is someone telling you
| how to live your life.
|
| _Gun laws in most blue states._
|
| I'm not really sure laws what you mean. We have to
| recognize that nationwide, 63% of adults are dissatisfied
| with our current gun laws. In light of this, we have the
| SCOTUS striking down gun laws that _most people want_.
| This doesn 't appear to be the win you think it is.
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/470588/dissatisfaction-gun-
| laws...
|
| _Washington 's comprehensive sex ed law_
|
| I'm not sure what to say when you think _direct
| democracy_ is bad with regards to state measures.
|
| _Like the recent ruling with abortion: it made it not a
| federal concern. That 's it. Why do people in California
| care so much about what e.g. Alabama is doing now?_
|
| Well, this specific issue aside, this current trend of
| conservatives trying to legislate from the SCOTUS (people
| appointed for a lifetime) is largely undemocratic. If you
| _don 't_ want people who don't even live in your town
| dictating how to run it, you should be _very_ opposed to
| SCOTUS doing just that, since they basically answer to no
| one.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| You're really missing the point here. The entire point
| being made is that what the voters at the level of a
| state or the entire nation _is irrelevant_ because _it
| shouldn 't be their decision to vote on_.
|
| Even if 75% of California residents want to ban single
| family zoning, if 75% of residents in Redding want to
| keep it _in Redding_ , why should people in San Diego
| have any more than 0% influence on that decision? People
| 600 miles away should have exactly zero input into
| something like that.
|
| It's not about whether the decisions being made are good.
| It's about who gets to make them/how broadly they apply.
| China could have the greatest ideas in the world, but it
| doesn't make sense to "democratically" vote with equal
| representation between US and Chinese citizens on what
| free speech laws in the US should be. They have 4x the
| population and nothing in common. Such a "democracy"
| would be a farce.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Even if 75% of California residents want to ban single
| family zoning, if 75% of residents in Redding want to
| keep it in Redding, why should people in San Diego have
| any more than 0% influence on that decision?
|
| Because Redding isn't an independent, self-supporting,
| sovereign entity, its an administrative subdivision of
| California whose existence as an entity and powers of
| government are delegated to it by the people of the State
| of California through the Constitution and laws of said
| State (in part directly, and in part indirectly through,
| e.g., Shasta County, a similar but higher-level
| subdivision within which Redding is nested), and which is
| funded in no small part by distribution of taxes set and
| collected by and from the State of California as a whole.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| No one is discussing the legality of such things. The
| discussion is whether things like that are just. That's
| why e.g. eastern Oregon has a secession movement. The
| west side of the state can legally tell the east side to
| do what they want. The east side does not feel that being
| in a shared democracy with the west side is working.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > No one is discussing the legality of such things. The
| discussion is whether things like that are just.
|
| That's what I was discussing, too.
|
| If there was a Redding-separatist movement, we could
| discuss whether Reading separatism is just and whether
| that changes the justice of decision-making arrangements,
| but the justice of decision-making authority within the
| current context is not independent of the structure of
| that context aside from the particular decision-making
| question being examined, and where "Redding" fits into
| that structure.
|
| (This is also a separate question from the justice of
| particular decisions; like it can be just for the people
| of California at large to be the decisive decision-making
| authority, and still be unjust for them to make a
| particular decision. But that wasn't the question.)
| ndriscoll wrote:
| There is a secessionist movement in NorCal[0], but as has
| been said before:
|
| > Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
| established should not be changed for light and transient
| causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
| mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
| sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
| forms to which they are accustomed.
|
| The bar for injustice is quite a bit lower than
| secession-inducing. If you have broad agreement in place
| X that they would like to live one way, and agreement
| among places Y and Z (who have never even _been_ to X and
| would be entirely unaffected by what X does for the
| decision at hand) that X should live another way, then I
| assert Y and Z imposing their will on X is unjust,
| regardless of how democratic the decision was, or whether
| some generations-old political structure says Y and Z can
| do that. The people of Y and Z should recognize that they
| _shouldn 't_ do that.
|
| [0] https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-
| government/capitol-aler...
| jdasdf wrote:
| >You're now changing your argument from urban-rural to
| D-R?
|
| This tells me you missed the argument i was making.
|
| The point isn't a specific urban-rural or Dem-Rep, it's
| the underlying concept of not having agency over what
| rules you.
|
| The more powers you grant the state, the less powers you
| have, and the greater these issue become and the more
| important acquiring political power becomes.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's interesting that you bring up Pennsylvania - nearly
| every regulation, law, whatever that affects cities is
| either _only_ enforced for "cities of the first class"
| or cities of the first class are specifically excluded.
| There's only one first class city in PA and I'll give you
| three guesses which one it is. So essentially you end up
| with three sets of laws - 1) applies to all
| Pennsylvanians and typically have nothing to do with
| cities or how they work 2) applies only to Philadelphia
| 3) doesn't apply to Philadelphia but applies everywhere
| else.
|
| You're actually making a good argument in favor of
| jdasdf's point. Just try to get a concealed carry permit
| in Potter County, and one in Philadelphia County, and see
| how different they are. Both completely legal because
| there's totally different laws in play for the same
| process.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The premise was that big cities, like Philadelphia & PGH
| would somehow undemocratically impose their will on the
| rural parts of the state. Like you say, that isn't
| happening. Philadelphia's regulations aren't being
| imposed in Potter County.
| em-bee wrote:
| _If democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what 's
| for dinner wouldn't you want more power in the state and
| elected officials, so they could protect the sheep?_
|
| it would be better to give more independence to the sheep
| so that deciding what's for dinner doesn't need a
| majority vote of all of them. if we ignore the obvious
| outcome that the wolves want to eat the sheep, but simply
| look at the fact that wolves want meat and sheep want
| grass, it simply doesn't make sense that the majority
| here gets to dictate what everyone should eat, instead
| each group should be able to make their own choice.
|
| that means localizing decisions where that makes sense.
| and not allowing the majority to control resources that a
| minority depends on. among other things.
| ejstronge wrote:
| Curiously, rural regions of the US have a fair amount of
| power due to how electoral seats are distributed. I'm not
| sure if this is also true in Canada, so it is possible that
| the GP's situation differs from your own experiences.
| mlinhares wrote:
| They're also heavily subsidized to make them "work", a
| considerable piece of rural America would already be gone
| if there wasn't a large amount of government funds being
| diverted to keep it alive and we will spend even more as it
| becomes less and less desirable to live there.
| subroutine wrote:
| As soon as WFH became an option people flocked away from
| cities. NYC lost 200k people over two years; SF lost 60k.
| I would say there is a large population of city folk who
| desire to move to more rural areas.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| If you listen to the news, they're all moving to other
| cities, like Austin, TX, not to rural areas.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes. Other/smaller cities, college towns, etc. I'm sure
| some have taken the opportunity to move somewhere that
| looks more like rural--but I have to believe the
| lifestyle shift would be a bridge too far for most.
| mlinhares wrote:
| They're moving to suburbs near big cities or cheap big
| cities in less populated states, not rural areas.
| ghaff wrote:
| >suburbs near big cities
|
| It's not really true of the Bay Area--and it's at least
| complicated around Manhattan. But a lot of cities like
| Boston an hour or an hour and a bit drive in reverse
| commute, much less weekend, traffic can bring you to a
| lot cheaper housing. There are expensive suburbs too.
| However, it's pretty easy to find suburban or exurban
| towns that are accessible to Boston for an evening event
| that have relatively modest home prices. Not Midwest
| cheap but reasonable. (Of course there are very expensive
| towns as well.)
| ericmay wrote:
| Sure but what would that have to do with subsidization?
|
| What's the GDP of New York City versus upstate?
|
| As an aside this silly concept of "rural/urban divide" is
| just that.
|
| Silly.
|
| We need farms and farmers to feed us, it's ok to
| subsidize some of these places so that happens.
|
| It's also ok for the people doing the subsidization to
| ask the rural people to stop complaining about
| "socialism" or other nonsense when they're the primary
| benefactors of handouts.
| subroutine wrote:
| What would the GDP of NYC be, if NYC didn't have a near
| monopoly on the proximity to high paying jobs in NY
| State? If every NYC job (aside from those that absolutely
| required people to work on-site) allowed full time WFH,
| my bet is that it would be significantly lower. And
| people with high paying wages would be more scattered
| around the state, requiring less subsidizing. It would
| also mean that not every highly educated person moves
| away to the city. Part of the reason urban and rural
| politics is so divided is that every smart kid from a
| small town goes away to college and never comes back.
| Some because they have no desire, but others because the
| job they want doesn't exist outside a metro.
| jwells89 wrote:
| There may be some element of truth to that, but jobs
| aren't the only reason why highly employable young people
| tend to move to urban areas. There's other big reasons,
| like there being a lot more to things to do and a vastly
| wider variety of large hobby/interest communities and
| cultures in urban areas.
|
| This is why the bulk of people moving away from city
| centers during the pandemic moved to cheaper cities or
| the suburban metros surrounding cities rather than small
| towns, and unless small towns stop being small towns it's
| not going to change.
| ericmay wrote:
| Idk, but you're intentionally responding as though you
| missed the point so I don't have much else to say here.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Well yes, when an area is heavily subsidized it can be
| attractive to live there.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Nominally, it's also true in Canada. Due to lower populated
| rural ridings, one rural vote can be worth up to 4X an
| urban vote.
|
| But in current conditions, votes in rural Western Canadian
| ridings are basically worthless. They're ultra-safe
| Conservative seats, so they can be and are ignored.
|
| But it wasn't very long ago that they were highly
| competitive ridings split between two right wing parties.
| Because Canada doesn't quite have the same 2 party system
| as the US does, the situation isn't as static.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's true of states that are as a whole relatively rural
| (think Wyoming) but not, say, upstate NY.
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| I'm guessing New York farmers don't have as much power as
| their Montana cousins.
|
| Rural and low population _states_ have a fair amount of
| power due to having a fixed number of senators per state,
| but rural areas in an otherwise non-rural state may find
| themselves outvoted and thus mostly irrelevant.
|
| The opposite situation, city slickers outvoted by country
| bumpkins, is of course possible in rural states.
| runako wrote:
| This obviously varies by state, but tends to not be
| accurate at the state level either due to the way state
| legislatures are elected.
|
| For example, in my state the majority of residents live
| in the largest metro area. But the smaller towns & rural
| areas are able to more or less permanently control the
| legislature (because legislators have geographic
| districts). As a result, our laws are frequently written
| in ways that are openly hostile to our major city, while
| favoring more rural areas.
| pc86 wrote:
| You're 100% right, the more rural your state the more power
| your state holds in Presidential elections, and indirectly
| in the Senate, but not much beyond that. I don't think
| there's a corollary in Canada but I could certainly be
| wrong.
| CalRobert wrote:
| This is about suburbs, not rural areas, but Canadian
| politics provides an interesting history in suburbanites
| wresting power from city dwellers. Among other concrete
| impacts it means more parking, shifting funds away from
| public transport (which is less useful to suburbanites),
| etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamation_of_Toronto
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkO-DttA9ew&t=35s
| icodestuff wrote:
| More, even, since ridings don't all have to have the same
| population, unlike Congressional districts.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by "voice". I think in common use,
| you would mean power in government. This scheme was put into
| play because rest of Japan, in fact, has a louder voice than
| Tokyo:
|
| _Tokyo and the regions could have resolved their differences
| through the democratic process, in which the regions outvote
| Tokyo and could have altered Japan's national tax and economic
| policies to their advantage. Tokyo obviously doesn't want this,
| and instead agreed to an opt-in system which allays some of the
| regions' concerns._
|
| Doing some back of the napkin math wrt representatives in the
| House of Commons and senators, in Canada, the situation
| probably wouldn't be much different for Vancouver, Montreal and
| Toronto. In a lot of ways, this where the US is. NY (the city)
| foots the bill for not only most of NY (the state), but also
| its tax money funds projects and services in other states as
| well.
|
| Living in a US state's biggest city myself, it is a drag to see
| the rest of the state constantly block legislation that will
| help us grow, while on the flip side they are gladly taking our
| taxes, as we pay by far the most into the state's coffers. What
| I mean to say is, due to the way we pay local, state/province
| and federal taxes, the big cities are already a net positive in
| terms of tax revenue for the rest of the province/country.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| This is a relatively common use of the word "voice", I don't
| think GP "means" anything else. A politician running for
| election might promise to give a voice to some part of their
| constituency that so far had been ignored (no political
| power). In general "the power of the people" ~= "the voice of
| the people".
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I thought so, too, but it didn't make much sense given the
| context of the article and what they were saying :)
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Yes it does, in my opinion. Seems very clear. Canadians
| outside their three big metro areas feel like their
| government represents those metro areas and not the rest
| of Canada. They feel like they "don't have a voice
| compared to the big 3".
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I guess how someone feels and the actual reality of the
| numbers can be different.
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