[lazide]

My point is rather than almost anything can be made smooth if you have enough $$ pointed at making it so. One of the biggest issues with small economies is that they don’t have the capital spent to make it easy to do things yet; which is friction that helps keep them small.

[yencabulator]

This is so ridiculously contrary to a Northern European existence that it's just funny. US is ridiculously more bureaucratic with lots of back office papers shuffled around by humans. US tax filing is hard to even describe to someone who never lived there.

Official procedures can be made smooth by valuing them being smooth.

[lazide]

You just pay. All the problems are known and have workarounds, it just involves money.

That’s my point.

It doesn’t have to be nice or clean or smooth, if there is a known solution which someone can just throw money at, at scale.

The harder problem with these smaller countries and economies, is people haven’t figured out how to do that yet. So you end up having to track down x or y random lawyer, then hope they don’t screw you, etc.

[yencabulator]

That's a very American approach. Just enable a grift economy existing purely because the original thing was bad. The Nordic approach is to make the original thing better. The end result is less wasteful.

[lazide]

Also smaller. The ‘waste’ also counts towards GDP, as long as the money keeps moving.

Lots of people have built homes and families off it.

What really slows an economy down is when money stops moving.

[embedding-shape]

> The ‘waste’ also counts towards GDP, as long as the money keeps moving.

Honestly, that explains a lot. Vastly different perspective from what I'm used to, but useful insight into the US.

[lazide]

Yup. It can be pretty brutal living it too. But most places are, frankly, in their own ways.

Still way easier than India, for example, where the answer is often either the same or ‘try to scam your way around the problem’ if you can’t.

[yencabulator]

That's an argument for U.S. healthcare insurance industry being a good thing. Uhh.. no?

[lazide]

It certainly pads a lot of people’s wallets! Like anything, it’s about what trade offs, when, by whom, etc.