Billionaire's breakup plan would chop California into six states
reuters.com
reuters.com
Basically if you did this you'd end up with a poor northern California with no economy, farm land with little educational prowess, and then the cities that turn into states. So yah if you live in a city-state that economically does well then things are good, just expect the prices of food/water/power/education to increase.
Wonder what would become of the UC system?
When it came out earlier, it was because Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State, gave Draper the go-ahead to gather the necessary signatures to put this on the ballot. They had a deadline of this Friday, 18 July. Draper announced on Monday he had enough signatures and would be filing them on Tuesday.
Ummm, so if you re-name places on a map, the cars will go away? Wut?
To be clear, I think this is a move that would benefit the majority of HN readers living in CA. It would benefit capital the most, it would benefit programmers significantly (so long as the supply/demand balance in our labor market remains as it is), and everyone else would get screwed over (or, equivalently, would get to screw us over less). I'm not to judge one way or another, but we should be realistic about who the winners and losers would be.
Big governments are more easily susceptible to corruption and therefor inevitably benefit big corporations.
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-corrupt-states-and-terri...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territo...
If the big government effect was large then California, with the most people in it should be the most corrupt. Check out Mississippi. With a paltry 2.9 million people it should be a bucolic bastion of upstanding government... And Alaska, with only 0.7 Million people must be the shining light of sanity in our world... ( ranks 5th in corruption, remember senator Ted Stevens? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens )
The big government theory doesn't hold water.
Anyways, its quite a long shot to claim the "big government theory doesn't hold water" because of the specific examples you pointed out. Moreover, I'd argue that most of your examples aren't devoid of the influences of big government as all these states are under the increasing central authority of D.C.
To clarify, it seems it might be pertinent to explicitly point out that there are many factors involved with corruption: some chance, education, culture, geopolitics, etc. Size of government is what I'm arguing as an important factor. Your examples are NOT without influence of the factors mentioned.
Actually, I find the capacity and likelihood of smaller governments being less susceptible to corruption as being quite intuitive as well. Though I'm not arguing by merit of intuition alone. Government theory is exclusively based on human understanding. My understanding of humans is that societies can feel abstracted away from large beuracratic governments. And indeed this is an observation as well.
There are logistical issues with large governments as well. Its far more difficult to voice an opinion to large governments because they inevitably fall into the trap of bureaucracies. So when a handful of thousands of people petition online for something it often gets ignored and rejected by some clerk of a secretary working for some office for some congressmen/women. Lots of smaller issues go unchecked by the people.
So, though its not an explicit part of the 3 branch government check system, I don't think we need to argue about the fact that the general public is an important, if not the most important check on the government.
And if we recognize the fact that the general public has the most crucial responsibility the in the role of the government, then it shortly thereafter follows that it easier for smaller populations to agree, argue, deliberate, process, charge, incriminate, build most suitably.
This was a large topic of concern for even the founding fathers. Problem is Washing DC for Americans is this ominous den of bureaucratic all pretending to be too busy to address your or my concerns. The same vibe is put out by the California state government. And not enough authority rests at the local city levels for people to give a damn about who they elect.
If the silicone valley was its own state, we'd have legalized gay marriage and weed. It be easier to get through to our state government about taxes and traffic and whatever else.
I think smaller nations have the benefit of governments which more accurately represent the sentiments of its citizens.
Besides, if its just lines on a map (and the number of stars on the flag), then why not do it. People are too easily put off by ideas that are made to "sound" extreme.
2) Solve the states water issues. Dogma. Free markets fix everything. Thus by implementing free markets for water (and first removing historical water rights) everything is solved, because markets are good at that sort of thing.. We just have to start charging people for water ( http://seekingalpha.com/article/213157-how-the-free-market-c... ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trading , and http://worldsavvy.org/monitor/index.php?option=com_content&i... , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization
3) Ease traffic congestion : Two ways this works out. a) free markets logic on cars. Toll ways, road privatization, time of use based pricing etc. or b) free up the environmental regulations to start building more lanes on all the highways everywhere (though that doesn't really help).
If it was done well then maybe the 6 states would be a good thing. More likely than not it is simply a way shake up the political apple cart so some people can get more apples than they had before.