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It's very American to have government services so bad that there's a sapsucking layer of private companies profiteering from being confused with the government.

nine_k 2y ago
I'd appreciated it if you named us a country with highly efficient, fast government services. (For bonus points, a European country.)
- yurishimo 2y ago
  I've been pretty satisfied with the Netherlands as an American who moved here a couple years ago from Texas. Especially local government, things get done on time, when they say they are going to. I filed my taxes super early (by Dutch standards) and got my finalized copies in a couple of months. New IDs take days to process if you're already in the system. In all my interactions with the government to immigrate, everything was on time and efficient. My only gripe is that you have to go to some larger cities for some services which requires travel or potentially taking time off, but that's not really a problem when your entire country is accessible by rail/car in less than 3 hours. And these are specific expat services, not every day stuff.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Pick any low-corruption high-democracy happy country and that's what you'll see. Nordics pretty much all qualify. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#... https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/happiest-countries-in-the-world https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/happiest-countries-in-the...
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  Norway.
hanniabu 2y ago
Many public services used to be great. Then private companies spent decades lobbying to have their funding cut or hamstring them in some other way so they could come in and privatize the market. The USPS is probably the last good functioning service and Trump made huge budget cuts to try the same thing with that.

nine_k 2y ago

I'd appreciated it if you named us a country with highly efficient, fast government services. (For bonus points, a European country.)

yurishimo 2y ago
I've been pretty satisfied with the Netherlands as an American who moved here a couple years ago from Texas. Especially local government, things get done on time, when they say they are going to. I filed my taxes super early (by Dutch standards) and got my finalized copies in a couple of months. New IDs take days to process if you're already in the system. In all my interactions with the government to immigrate, everything was on time and efficient. My only gripe is that you have to go to some larger cities for some services which requires travel or potentially taking time off, but that's not really a problem when your entire country is accessible by rail/car in less than 3 hours. And these are specific expat services, not every day stuff.
yencabulator 2y ago
Pick any low-corruption high-democracy happy country and that's what you'll see. Nordics pretty much all qualify. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#... https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/happiest-countries-in-the-world https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/happiest-countries-in-the...
kwhitefoot 2y ago
Norway.

hanniabu 2y ago

Many public services used to be great. Then private companies spent decades lobbying to have their funding cut or hamstring them in some other way so they could come in and privatize the market. The USPS is probably the last good functioning service and Trump made huge budget cuts to try the same thing with that.