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Especially government of a small, homogenous country with massive oil wealth in a peaceful part of the world. It's very much "easy mode" as far as governments g
by HPsquared 29d ago
Especially government of a small, homogenous country with massive oil wealth in a peaceful part of the world. It's very much "easy mode" as far as governments go.
- throwaway894345 29d agoAh yes, massive oil wealth, that famously strong predictor of good governance.
- joecot 29d agoIt usually is when western countries don't continuously interfere with your government.
- noosphr 29d agoTexas is well known for good government and long term planning.
- telotortium 29d agoI mean, compared to a lot of other states Texas is fairly well run for its budget.
- georgeecollins 29d agoThis. I think people in California (like me) have trouble seeing the things Texas does well because of partisanship. It's bad for California not to see when another state does a thing better.
- all2 29d ago[flagged]
- scarmig 29d agoCalifornia's biggest problems are mostly along the lines of "too many people want to live here." I have plenty of complaints about California governance, many of them conservative coded. But if California is a failed state, it's a failed state that much of the world aspires to be.
- rmunn 29d agoI have family in California so I've visited often. It's got beautiful geography, and very pleasant weather most of the time (at least in the areas people have chosen to live: few people voluntarily choose to live in the desert areas). I don't have much personal experience with California's government other than second-hand reports, usually from people leaving the state so you can imagine those reports tend negative. But I suspect that if California's government were better, there would be even more overcrowding problems, i.e. that bad government is actually helping the state (in a small, entirely backwards, way) by keeping many more people from wanting to move there.
- linkregister 29d agoCivil liberties aside, yes, Texas has good governance.
- throwaway2037 29d agoOne thing that many people don't know: Texas has one of the best performing state economies in the last twenty five years -- number 3 in the US. Ref: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/gdp-growth-by-u-s-state-map-1990-2024/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/gdp-growth-by-u-s-state-map... This isn't an accident. Yes, there has been a oil-and-gas boom (fracking, mostly), but it is a great place to do business, so many other non-petro industries have been furiously expanding there in the last 25 years.
- throwaway27448 29d agoWell, they're also terrible at spending state resources despite high taxes (outside of income tax). One of, if not the worst, public education systems in the country. Pretty bad urban planning, too. Decent food and music tho
- rendang 29d agoBy one (seemingly pretty reasonable) measure Texas has the 4th-best state education system! https://www.stevesailer.net/p/naep-test-scores-mississippi-miracle https://www.stevesailer.net/p/naep-test-scores-mississippi-m...
- throwaway27448 28d agoOh! I wonder if my field (history) is particularly bad or my social network is just particularly disgruntled.
- yencabulator 26d agoHaving seen both county services (including DMV) and healthcare in small-town Texas, definitely no.
- throwaway27448 29d agoWhat are the counterexamples? Maybe Nigeria? EDIT: yes, also Iraq and Venezuela
- scrollaway 29d ago“The resource curse” is what you’re looking for. There’s a lot of counter examples - Norway is the odd one out.
- true_religion 29d agoOr even the USA historically. Pre 1900s, America was a country of continual economic crises, and fractured politics. It was sitting at the time in the latest supply of easily exploited natural resources in the world, yet somehow could not pay its troops pensions lost Civil war, could not keep its strategic oil supply from being raided by the executive branch corruption, and could not keep it plutocrats from directing military action for the sake of bananas of all things.
- givinguflac 29d ago|Or even the USA historically. Pre 1900s, America was a country of continual economic crises, and fractured politics. Have you read about the US post-1900? I think you can leave off pre 1900s…
- true_religion 28d agoYes but pre 1900s there were vastly more resources. The USA at some point had the lions share of the world’s easily exploitable oil.
- _--__--__ 29d agoI think the resource curse didn't apply to Norway because they had an established post-industrial economy for hundreds of years before they got into oil exporting (they didn't even start drilling until the 1960s, 50 years after Venezuela or the Arab states).
- throwaway2037 29d agoWhat is wild to me: The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Norway took very different paths. For those unaware, the UK shares the North Sea with Norway and there is plenty of oil and gas extract in the UK area of the North Sea. And, the Netherlands has an enormous gas field in the northern part of its country. The UK and Netherlands left it up to private industry and (mostly) taxed it as regular business profits. They didn't create a national petro fund from these profits. However, Norway took a very different path. They created a state-run oil and gas company (Statoil/Equinor) that operate many of the oil and gas extraction sites, and famously created a national petro fund to manage most of the profits. I always wonder why... Was this a missed opportunity for UK and Netherlands?
- fancyfredbot 29d agoI wonder the same thing about high taxes and state run energy companies. I don't think the UK ever really had an option to create a fund though. Deficit was too high. Doubt there would have been anything left to invest even with an increased cut for the state. UK had an IMF bailout in the 70s and was in a mess. Norway was in much better shape I think.
- deleted 29d ago[deleted]
- hagbard_c 29d agoYou're missing what happened in the Netherlands when the gas reserves were found. The social-democratic government headed by Joop den Uyl - who thought the reserves should be extracted and sold within 30 years - used the proceeds to increase social benefits while lowering the acceptance rules to get government benefits. This had a large pull effect which ended up with more than 10% of the labour force getting benefits under the 'WAO' (an acronym for 'Wet op de ArbeidsOngeschiktheidsverzekering' or 'law governing insurance for those not fit for employment'). This way of spending temporarily available resources on expanding the welfare state got a name: The Dutch Disease. It was an example for Norway on how not to squander income from the oil reserves and a deciding factor in creating the oil fund.
- GeoAtreides 29d ago>homogenous country must you whistle so loud, i'm deaf now
- ai_critic 29d ago[flagged]
- linkregister 29d agoI'm assuming you meant "heterogeneity" for your statement to make sense. (And I agree with your statement given that revision)
- WarmWash 29d agoThey are saying "If having a group of like mined people creates instability, show your work."
- linkregister 29d agoIf that's the case, it makes no sense. The parent statement is claiming that homogeneity is "easy mode". How is this congruent with your statement?
- danlitt 29d agoNazi Germany?
- throwaway2037 29d ago> homogenous country This is widely misunderstood about modern Norway. Twenty years ago, yes, it may have been true. Today, the population is about 17.5% foreign born. As a point of comparison, the United States is about 15% foreign born.
- thesmtsolver2 29d agoHow much of that is from legal migration from developed first world countries for both countries? I know I will be downvoted for this.
- throwaway2037 21d agoOverwhelming, the world over, people from less developed countries try to migrate to more developed countries. If Norway had lots of highly skilled, well educated engineers, doctors and nurses moving from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh would it make you feel different? Also it is weird that you used the term "legal". Due to natural geography, it is very hard to illegally migrate to Norway. Probably, legit visa overstay is the most common. Also, during the Arab Spring and Syria Civil War, many refugees came by bicycle (no joke!) from Russia to far northern Norway.
- kulahan 29d agoThis must require a shocking cultural adaptation. In the US, we have many social bonding customs. You'll hear often about how Americans strike up conversations at random, often say "how are you?" as a default greeting, and smile a suspicious amount. There are dozens of examples, but that's because it's baked into the culture of USA as a foundational aspect. I can't imagine trying to shift from essentially Japan to America++ in two decades.
- deleted 29d ago[deleted]
- throwaway2037 29d ago> This must require a *shocking* cultural adaptation. I agree. The change was pretty fast. Same for Sweden (20.5%), Denmark (14%), and Finland (11%). I would like to hear from people in their 30s and 40s who grew up in these countries and witnessed the changes first hand. (There is no hidden agenda/meaning in my request.) The real trick to seeing the best parts of US culture: Get away from the east and west coasts. Once you go inland, especially to small cities, people are very welcoming. I have seen many YouTube videos were foreigners travel to "parts unknown", and are pleasantly surprised when random people stop to have a chat and wish them a good day. For example, lots of Peter Santenello's YouTube videos[1] are about visiting lesser known parts of countryside US. The people are overwhelmingly friendly (to a fault!). Honestly, I think a lot of continental Europe isn't so different. In small cities and towns, all kinds of random people will wave and say hello in the local language, even if they guess that you cannot speak their language. Usually, they are excited to see some obvious foreigners visiting their place. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello
- danso 29d agoJust came back from traveling through Norway, and from my perspective as a Chicagoan, Oslo and Bergen definitely did not look or feel homogeneous.