7 ms·

America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long a

by ttul 4y ago

America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in the US. But American progress is senselessly hobbled by a broken democratic model that has failed to rebalance policy making power toward the democratic center as people have moved into cities and away from the family farm. Until the country enacts reforms that fix this imbalance, other countries that find their way to greater dynamism by emulating the best of US policies may find they are leaping ahead of America. And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Add in a well designed skills-based immigration process and you have the recipe for something great. I am not saying Canada doesn’t have its problems (First Nations reconciliation and poverty, protectionist industries such as Telecoms to name two), but the political system is more adaptable and these problems can be solved. I’m less optimistic that the US will fix its democratic imbalance.

lostlogin 4y ago
> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Banks seems exempt from this. I’m not financially savvy enough to know if bailing out banks is good or bad. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...
- brookst 4y ago
  Utilities in general even. Nobody wants municipal water supplies failing quickly. But for core commercial actives it seems like a fair observation.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    No... but having them spend two decades failing slowly isn't the answer, either. I agree that utilities are a special case. The main point is that you don't want them to fail at all, ever. If they do fail, well, there aren't any good ways for that to happen.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Agree. I think there's a distinction between infrastructure that must be reliable, and first-order commercial enterprises that must be agile and risky. Banks are squarely on the infrastructure side. They're a foundation that people rely on to do the really interesting stuff, and as such should be 1) low risk, and therefore 2) not profit-maximizing.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      We could let utilities fail if we had a special receivership and continuity process for infrastructure. Think FDIC takeover teams.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  The bank argument is usually that banks cause a lot of collateral damage. If Peter loses his deposit at bank A then he can’t pay his landlord Peter who needs it to pay the mortgage with bank B, and his friend Bob might panic and pull his money at bank C.
Gareth321 4y ago
> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in the US. This is Denmark's model and it works very well. Denmark is considered the easiest to do business in Europe, and #4 globally (https://www.copcap.com/news/denmark-is-the-easiest-place-for-business-in-europe#:~:text=The%20World%20Bank%20ranked%20Denmark,Index%20was%20released%20in%202005 https://www.copcap.com/news/denmark-is-the-easiest-place-for....).
- ttul 4y ago
  Denmark came to mind as I was writing my comment, but I am not well enough informed. Thanks.
- euroderf 4y ago
  I'm no expert but afaik Denmark combines business flexibility with a decent social net. It is a dessert topping AND a floor wax.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    I always viewed Canada as a similar blend, except with frigid winters, more snow, moose and yet still unpleasant summers except on the southwestern and southwestern coastlines.
pseudo0 4y ago
> And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Feel free to move to Canada if you want half the wages, twice as expensive housing, and a multi-year wait to get a family doctor. There is a reason why so many Canadians end up working in the US on TN or H1 visas.
- polishdude20 4y ago
  Yep. I live in Canada and it just feels like our economic successes are due to natural resources and being close in location and culture to America. Couple that with the fact that like 80% of Canada is uninhabited. We may look big but we're a small population concentrated in only a few locations along the border.
- Teever 4y ago
  I think you've got cause and effect backwards. Or rather, you don't quite realize that it's a feedback loop. Canada heavily subsidizes the healthcare and post secondary education of all those people who then move to the US, often those people move back in retirement for the healthcare. That no doubt has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy as Canada pours resources into people and America reaps the benefits of that while Canada suffers.
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    They generally don't move back. Anyone who qualifies for Medicare (10 years of employment in the US) will get significantly higher quality healthcare through Medicare than they would receive in Canada. The problem is that Canada's healthcare system is a command economy. The government decides how many med school spots there are, how many residency places, and how many procedures will be funded each year. In order to keep costs down this results in rationing. You can't even pay out of pocket - it is against the law for Canadians to purchase private care in Canada. The end result is that people with means end up going to the US, and everyone else waits 6-12 months for medically necessary hip or knee replacements. Even critical medical imaging is backed up weeks. I know someone who waited multiple weeks for urgent cancer screening. The same scans are available in the US in 24-48 hours, for a few hundred bucks.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Canada's healthcare is so bad that if you are not immediately dying, you get no healthcare whatsoever.
- mitthrowaway2 4y ago
  This is not the case.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    It is. Add that with the rest of the problems Canada has, it might be the worst of the first world countries.
    - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
      I, for one counterexample, have gotten excellent healthcare on every occasion that I've needed it, and I have yet to be immediately dying. Obviously not everyone has had good experiences, and our healthcare system fails many people, but to say that you get no healthcare whatsoever unless you are immediately dying is absolutely hyperbole.
      - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
        Where are you located in Canada? I would be shocked to know you got non life threatening medical care in any of the major cities.
        mitthrowaway2 4y ago
        Vancouver. Occasions of excellent and free care include: general precautionary checkups and exams, blood and urine tests just to check on nutrition and general health, corrective surgery for minor conditions (eg. cyst removal), treatment for minor ear infection, hemorrhoid treatment, a great deal of care, MRIs, and x-rays after a bicycle accident resulted in a fractured bone, and of course several drive-through COVID tests throughout the pandemic.
pxue 4y ago
Canada is an oligarchy and retirement home for the unproductive. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but this is my conclusion after spending 25 years growing up, living, working and building startups here.
- Paul-Craft 4y ago
  You haven't done any convincing yourself. I'd like to see what your reasoning is before I even think about attempting to convince you.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  How much of your 25 years in Canada did you spend doing each, and what's your reasoning? I was pretty unimaginative when I was 25 too, but the states isn't my vibe.
rqtwteye 4y ago
" America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible." The US is also willing to neglect and disenfranchise significant portions of the population and let them live in poverty, homelessness and ghettos. When you walk around SF, LA or New York it's astounding that you have super rich people live next to destitute people but the rich are perfectly fine with this as long as they can have their nice houses and neighborhoods. Or that there are significant part of the population who can't get meaningful healthcare.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- boc 4y ago
  When you say “significant portions of the population” and then reference a segment of society that could collectively all fit inside one college football stadium, it feels like hyperbole. Despite what you read online, the amount of Americans who see unsheltered homeless on a daily basis is very low.
  - erodommoc 4y ago
    Off by over 5x: - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress. The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022 (https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_22_253 https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HU...) - Largest college football stadium: Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, Mich.) 107,601 (https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-biggest-college-football-stadiums-country https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-big...) - The population of Baltimore, MD is 576,498 as of the last census, so would be a closer point of comparison.
    - boc 4y ago
      Experiencing homelessness for one night is very different than the chronic homelessness which people are picturing. That second population is much smaller and way more visible.
WalterBright 4y ago
Canada has always had a lower performing economy than the US. Though with the current US government policies, the US economy will perform a lot less, and perhaps Canada will overtake it.
vkou 4y ago
> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. It says it operates on that principle, but the stranglehold that establishment industry has on the country says otherwise. Consolidation of capital and political power is exactly what we're seeing in banks, fossil fuels, mega-agri-firms, retailers, insurers, and healthcare providers. All of it results in a nightmare that is 'not working' for the public, but works very well for the people at the top.
ETH_start 4y ago
America has, along with Canada and Europe, rapidly moved toward social democracy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long... All of the empirical evidences indicates this slows economic development. Individuals being responsible for their own safety nets is more efficient, and creates better incentives, than large government bureaucracies socializing the cost of safety nets.
- mitthrowaway2 4y ago
  Is that because those who aren't capable of taking care of themselves just... die?
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    Economists have studied this extensively. Less substantial government social safety nets lead to higher personal savings rates. Personal savings rates reach as high as 40% in countries without social democracy. This capital is managed by the individuals who will derive the entire benefit from it, so they are incentivized to manage it effectively, and not hand it over to inefficient union-run bureaucracies, which give their employees early retirement at 55 with massive pensions: https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-workers-earn-143000-twice-much-private-sector-workers https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-... They are also incentivized not to be lazy and draw upon it, as doing so hurts their own interests, by depleting their own savings. When people pay for their own expenses, their incentives are aligned with the goal of national economic efficiency. Government, meanwhile, ultimately becomes a rent extraction mechanism, no matter what its ostensible purpose is: https://twitter.com/SpencerKSchiff/status/1252761285776859137?s=20 https://twitter.com/SpencerKSchiff/status/125276128577685913...
    - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
      In aggregate, I'm sure that's true, but there are all sorts in society, including people who have little capacity to earn money in the first place, let alone save it. That includes, for example, orphans, people with severe physical or mental disabilities, drug addicts, elderly people who lose their savings to fraud, and so on. Taking care of these people does create an economic burden on society that might come at the cost of some economic growth. But that's a choice, and for many people, a public social safety net that takes care of people in need is deemed worth the cost. When you're falling out of a plane, it doesn't matter how strong your incentive to fly is. You aren't going to grow wings by incentive alone.
EFreethought 4y ago
> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what's not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Microsoft has entered the chat.

by ttul 4y ago

lostlogin 4y ago

> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Banks seems exempt from this. I’m not financially savvy enough to know if bailing out banks is good or bad. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...

brookst 4y ago
Utilities in general even. Nobody wants municipal water supplies failing quickly. But for core commercial actives it seems like a fair observation.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  No... but having them spend two decades failing slowly isn't the answer, either. I agree that utilities are a special case. The main point is that you don't want them to fail at all, ever. If they do fail, well, there aren't any good ways for that to happen.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Agree. I think there's a distinction between infrastructure that must be reliable, and first-order commercial enterprises that must be agile and risky. Banks are squarely on the infrastructure side. They're a foundation that people rely on to do the really interesting stuff, and as such should be 1) low risk, and therefore 2) not profit-maximizing.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    We could let utilities fail if we had a special receivership and continuity process for infrastructure. Think FDIC takeover teams.
bobthepanda 4y ago
The bank argument is usually that banks cause a lot of collateral damage. If Peter loses his deposit at bank A then he can’t pay his landlord Peter who needs it to pay the mortgage with bank B, and his friend Bob might panic and pull his money at bank C.

Gareth321 4y ago

> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in the US. This is Denmark's model and it works very well. Denmark is considered the easiest to do business in Europe, and #4 globally (https://www.copcap.com/news/denmark-is-the-easiest-place-for-business-in-europe#:~:text=The%20World%20Bank%20ranked%20Denmark,Index%20was%20released%20in%202005 https://www.copcap.com/news/denmark-is-the-easiest-place-for....).

ttul 4y ago
Denmark came to mind as I was writing my comment, but I am not well enough informed. Thanks.
euroderf 4y ago
I'm no expert but afaik Denmark combines business flexibility with a decent social net. It is a dessert topping AND a floor wax.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  I always viewed Canada as a similar blend, except with frigid winters, more snow, moose and yet still unpleasant summers except on the southwestern and southwestern coastlines.

pseudo0 4y ago

> And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Feel free to move to Canada if you want half the wages, twice as expensive housing, and a multi-year wait to get a family doctor. There is a reason why so many Canadians end up working in the US on TN or H1 visas.

polishdude20 4y ago
Yep. I live in Canada and it just feels like our economic successes are due to natural resources and being close in location and culture to America. Couple that with the fact that like 80% of Canada is uninhabited. We may look big but we're a small population concentrated in only a few locations along the border.
Teever 4y ago
I think you've got cause and effect backwards. Or rather, you don't quite realize that it's a feedback loop. Canada heavily subsidizes the healthcare and post secondary education of all those people who then move to the US, often those people move back in retirement for the healthcare. That no doubt has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy as Canada pours resources into people and America reaps the benefits of that while Canada suffers.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  They generally don't move back. Anyone who qualifies for Medicare (10 years of employment in the US) will get significantly higher quality healthcare through Medicare than they would receive in Canada. The problem is that Canada's healthcare system is a command economy. The government decides how many med school spots there are, how many residency places, and how many procedures will be funded each year. In order to keep costs down this results in rationing. You can't even pay out of pocket - it is against the law for Canadians to purchase private care in Canada. The end result is that people with means end up going to the US, and everyone else waits 6-12 months for medically necessary hip or knee replacements. Even critical medical imaging is backed up weeks. I know someone who waited multiple weeks for urgent cancer screening. The same scans are available in the US in 24-48 hours, for a few hundred bucks.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

Canada's healthcare is so bad that if you are not immediately dying, you get no healthcare whatsoever.

mitthrowaway2 4y ago
This is not the case.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  It is. Add that with the rest of the problems Canada has, it might be the worst of the first world countries.
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    I, for one counterexample, have gotten excellent healthcare on every occasion that I've needed it, and I have yet to be immediately dying. Obviously not everyone has had good experiences, and our healthcare system fails many people, but to say that you get no healthcare whatsoever unless you are immediately dying is absolutely hyperbole.
    - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      Where are you located in Canada? I would be shocked to know you got non life threatening medical care in any of the major cities.
      - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
        Vancouver. Occasions of excellent and free care include: general precautionary checkups and exams, blood and urine tests just to check on nutrition and general health, corrective surgery for minor conditions (eg. cyst removal), treatment for minor ear infection, hemorrhoid treatment, a great deal of care, MRIs, and x-rays after a bicycle accident resulted in a fractured bone, and of course several drive-through COVID tests throughout the pandemic.

pxue 4y ago

Canada is an oligarchy and retirement home for the unproductive. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but this is my conclusion after spending 25 years growing up, living, working and building startups here.

Paul-Craft 4y ago
You haven't done any convincing yourself. I'd like to see what your reasoning is before I even think about attempting to convince you.
brailsafe 4y ago
How much of your 25 years in Canada did you spend doing each, and what's your reasoning? I was pretty unimaginative when I was 25 too, but the states isn't my vibe.

rqtwteye 4y ago

" America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible." The US is also willing to neglect and disenfranchise significant portions of the population and let them live in poverty, homelessness and ghettos. When you walk around SF, LA or New York it's astounding that you have super rich people live next to destitute people but the rich are perfectly fine with this as long as they can have their nice houses and neighborhoods. Or that there are significant part of the population who can't get meaningful healthcare.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
boc 4y ago
When you say “significant portions of the population” and then reference a segment of society that could collectively all fit inside one college football stadium, it feels like hyperbole. Despite what you read online, the amount of Americans who see unsheltered homeless on a daily basis is very low.
- erodommoc 4y ago
  Off by over 5x: - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress. The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022 (https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_22_253 https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HU...) - Largest college football stadium: Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, Mich.) 107,601 (https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-biggest-college-football-stadiums-country https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-big...) - The population of Baltimore, MD is 576,498 as of the last census, so would be a closer point of comparison.
  - boc 4y ago
    Experiencing homelessness for one night is very different than the chronic homelessness which people are picturing. That second population is much smaller and way more visible.

WalterBright 4y ago

Canada has always had a lower performing economy than the US. Though with the current US government policies, the US economy will perform a lot less, and perhaps Canada will overtake it.

vkou 4y ago

> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. It says it operates on that principle, but the stranglehold that establishment industry has on the country says otherwise. Consolidation of capital and political power is exactly what we're seeing in banks, fossil fuels, mega-agri-firms, retailers, insurers, and healthcare providers. All of it results in a nightmare that is 'not working' for the public, but works very well for the people at the top.

ETH_start 4y ago

America has, along with Canada and Europe, rapidly moved toward social democracy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long... All of the empirical evidences indicates this slows economic development. Individuals being responsible for their own safety nets is more efficient, and creates better incentives, than large government bureaucracies socializing the cost of safety nets.

mitthrowaway2 4y ago
Is that because those who aren't capable of taking care of themselves just... die?
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Economists have studied this extensively. Less substantial government social safety nets lead to higher personal savings rates. Personal savings rates reach as high as 40% in countries without social democracy. This capital is managed by the individuals who will derive the entire benefit from it, so they are incentivized to manage it effectively, and not hand it over to inefficient union-run bureaucracies, which give their employees early retirement at 55 with massive pensions: https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-workers-earn-143000-twice-much-private-sector-workers https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-... They are also incentivized not to be lazy and draw upon it, as doing so hurts their own interests, by depleting their own savings. When people pay for their own expenses, their incentives are aligned with the goal of national economic efficiency. Government, meanwhile, ultimately becomes a rent extraction mechanism, no matter what its ostensible purpose is: https://twitter.com/SpencerKSchiff/status/1252761285776859137?s=20 https://twitter.com/SpencerKSchiff/status/125276128577685913...
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    In aggregate, I'm sure that's true, but there are all sorts in society, including people who have little capacity to earn money in the first place, let alone save it. That includes, for example, orphans, people with severe physical or mental disabilities, drug addicts, elderly people who lose their savings to fraud, and so on. Taking care of these people does create an economic burden on society that might come at the cost of some economic growth. But that's a choice, and for many people, a public social safety net that takes care of people in need is deemed worth the cost. When you're falling out of a plane, it doesn't matter how strong your incentive to fly is. You aren't going to grow wings by incentive alone.

EFreethought 4y ago

> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what's not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Microsoft has entered the chat.