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Comment by betocmn | Hacker News Reader

"Why Nation Fails" is a phenomenal book. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time to think of US institutions as reasonable examples of how the author portraits creative destruction and extractive institutions.

I understand there might be some broken things in your nation's systems. Still, the fact you're able to discuss them here or work towards changing them through legal methods, shows the US is far off on the right track of constitutional rule and pluralism.

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Yeah, I generally agree. The book does highlight how much of it is hinged on contingency, though. The US has strong institutions, but the dynamic of having elites opposing change is still present, obviously. High barriers of entry is a prime example of how it can be done when other options are unavailable.

Any recent example of a societal issue affecting American lives got fixed in American system?

Medicare Part D coverage of prescription drugs. Seniors now have subsidized coverage for not a lot of money and the program costs less than the forecast.

A bunch are changing in real time right now. For example, telemedicine being full legalized and paid by government insurance, same as in person doctor visits.

I can think of 1

It used to be very expensive to travel between US cities because a govt agency (forget the name, maybe the board of air travel?) set the who what how could fly planes from a to b, and at what price. Think mad men times, panAm, etc.

That agency was eliminated circa 1980 by some stroke of luck and perfect alingment of planets. Ticket prices plummeted and this opened flying to the poor.

That was also the last time a US regulatory agency was disbanded.

This wasn't because of regulatory overhead, it was because they had created regional monopolies for the airlines. It's exactly like insurance (or prescription drugs, if you're thinking internationally) is now, and that industry wages a life and death fight every time that"deregulation" comes up. It's corporate welfare created by federal corruption.

Right, the way the government regulated airlines is by creating monopolies.

Is it possible that extremely high costs to enter the business, as well as extremely high operating costs mean that only the biggest airlines, with the most network benefits survive?

Sure. It's not an either/or. An airline company is hard to start regardless of what the gov't does. However, parsing out routes and giving airlines monopolies on them adds a significant number of bricks to the wall.

We might soon have another federal regulatory agency disbanded but considering which one it is I’m not sure if that will be a good thing for anyone but banks.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/justices-to-review-consti...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/us/supreme-court-consumer...

If that agency is disbanded, it will also be good for payday lenders.

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