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Comment by JackFr | Hacker News Reader

This post off-base in all dimensions. The Heritage Foundation economic freedom index ranks the Netherlands ahead of the the United States.

Zoning and regional transportation planning are not the central planning to which Hayek is talking about. And one only has to look at the farmer protests of 2019-2020 to see the popular response when the government overreaches.

Additionally all of the dunks on the US are misguided. The Netherlands is a country of 18 million people, in one of the flattest countries in existence with >90% of the population in urban areas. “We love bikes.” Well, duh.

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Don’t forget it’s much less scorching and/or humid in the summer than most of the US, and much warmer in the winter.

Temperature and weather conditions do not significantly affect the level of winter cycling: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

It gets nowhere near as hot or as cold as most of the US. It is like most northern European coastal countries...maybe negative temperatures in winter, maybe 29 degrees on the hottest day in summer...the only months where the weather is really different are July and late December/January. Weather is pretty much the same all year round apart from that (just to be clear, I live in a coastal area close to the Netherlands).

The non-coastal regions of the US are more like Eastern Europe where you can get 35 degrees in the summer and -20 in the winter.

We've seen 40 degrees in the Netherlands in recent years. As well as below -15.

Have you seen it for practically a month straight? 40 degrees is average high in Las Vegas from June to September, and it’s only getting below 30 degrees from November to March. In Houston, Atlanta, Miami or New Orleans, it’s above 30 from May to October, and it’s even worse than in Vegas, because these places are much more humid, making the heat less bearable, as sweating doesn’t really cool you off.

Seriously, climate in Netherlands is in no way comparable to most of US.

Honestly there is no small country in the world that is comparable to most of the US.

It totally is. In summer I go out on the bike for fun all the time. In winter? No way - essential trips only. And I'd say that's typical for all Dutch.

It is also a tax haven, its healthcare system is one of the closest to the US in Europe (to mention something that people in the US are constantly banging on about), and has succeeded by totally opening it's economy to world trade (Netherlands is one of the biggest agricultural exporters in the world, biggest trade surplus as a % of GDP in the developed world)...but, ofc, everything has to been seen through the reductive prism of socialism and capitalism that stopped being relevant decades ago (look at US housing, the only other mortgage market that is as socialist is Denmark, and it isn't as socialist as the US...these things aren't simple).

Let us not forget, the Netherlands practically invented financial capitalism in the 16th through 18th century. Apart from the well known markets and exchanges they invented the permanently capitalized enterprise with tradeable shares of ownership distinct from management duties. (And colonies in North and South America, Africa and Asia to boot.)

Netherlands practically invented financial capitalism in the 16th through 18th century

And even here, you find that the Dutch also instituted the first real central bank[0], which laissez faire folks would tell you lead to panics and recessions.

Tulipmania[1] happened about twenty years later, but I'm open to believing that was a coincidence.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Amsterdam

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

And, ironically, that period of financial capitalism was felled by massive growth of govt debt...

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