We need to change the tax policies from rewarding the accumulation of capital, to rewarding the successful creation of more jobs. Including more turnover of jobs but especially having more net jobs at the higher revenue companies.

In small 5 million Slovakia, we are proud to be the world leading country producing the most cars per capita. The skilled-labor shortage draws immigrants from Serbia & Ukraine. Clustering continues to be going on.

I wouldn’t say we have “good government” tho. Oligarchs are far too powerful, yet their main political party looks to be the highest single vote getter in the upcoming Feb. election. This despite corruption and even a few murder scandals. The economy has been getting better.

I wonder if the Middle-Income Trap is real or whether other factors are limiting nation-states like Brazil and South Africa. I also wonder if the geographic stickiness of high-skilled workers is real. The Patrick Collison interview expressed a view that the stickiness of Silicon Valley may be at its limits and he discusses his interest in Eastern Europe (Estonia, Poland, and Romania) and Stripe’s “Remote Office” initiative. We still have sticky geographies, they just seem to be replicating globally. As Kling mentions, Amazon’s HQ2 search is an interesting case study.

No, wait; that’s not what we mean by that at all, is it? See – bias.

And as to “skilled” – look at certain fora and blogs dedicated to Rationalism. Those are some seriously skilled people but they have some ( to my ear ) odd beliefs. They also tend to think if you do everything right, you’ll get what you want. They tend not to believe in the dark holes between the poles, in indeterminism, in, basically, the neural biology of humans.

I doubt we’ll reinvent being led by the best of each skill group. There’s a word for that, starts with “f” and I won’t repeat it here.

It might be as simple ‘good government’ as compared to what. Think of Winston Churchill’s past comments on democracy or think about other forms of government. (Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Monty Python King Arthur.)

1) I figure democracy generally works because it creates the best to modify government and change leaders. Call Political Creative Destruction. Even effective leaders, say Merkel, tend to lose effectiveness after 8 or so years.

2) We forgot how often nations fell into Civil War because there was not a peaceful transfer of power.

3) In terms of skilled and educated labor, we forget how swampy US politics used to be! Huey Long and Tammany Hall were the most obvious but this stuff was very common before 1970.

4) Name a period with extremely effective government not just a good period for 8 – 10 years. We long for the 1980s or 1960s. Do you remember the 1970 – 1990 Crime Wave?