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I'm pretty sure I agree... I think you're saying that it would be fallacious to attribute california's strong private sector by association alone. (ie., california has a strong private sector, therefore, california's government must not be harming the private sector is fallacious).

It's an open question. California's private sector may actually enable bad government. Some of this is just geography - california has some huge advantages (quality of life) that means people will put up with a lot to live here.

As for government... well, one thing the state gov't did a long time ago was fund an extremely strong system of public universities, a move that continues to pay huge dividends, both in terms of educating large numbers of native-born californians as well as drawing in highly productive people from the rest of the world. I think that to some extent, california is coasting on past investments here, since the amount the state contributes to UC has been declining.

But it would take a lot to wrest high tech away from a region that has stanford, berkeley, and UCSF. So to some extent, you could say california gets away with some very bad decisions because it also made some very good decisions.




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