There are some general trends that are worth noting.
The right seems to generally want to support a new military-industrial complex focused more on immigration and monitoring the population and less on building aircraft carriers. The left seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.
The left seems to generally want to support a class warfare us-versus-the-corporations narrative which seeks to make more and more laws about all companies, 10 employees or a 1000. The right seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.
The political debate itself seems to be in a spot where the trick is not to get holding the bag. Do only as much as it takes for voters not to blame you. It's much more crisis-driven than it ever has been.
These trends don't look well for conducting international business. I don't think there's any disaster coming, but I think the complex social and political systems we've created will actually become less and less stable the more we try to over-manage them.
Right now my money is on "friendly for business" but the situation is slowly and inexorably changing for the worse. So if I were a foreigner looking do do a startup, I'd probably be in the states -- and probably would not plan on staying there. (insert long discussion about qualifiers that might change that plan, such as requiring a large, trained workforce or special infrastructure issues.)
EDIT: This "instability in complex systems" I brought up is exactly illustrated in the JotForms case. The law over-allocates power to an agency, registrars bend over backward to comply with whatever the agency wants (lest they get on the shit list too.), then some pencil-pusher kills several man-years of work. Not out of malice or evilness -- just by simply not being aware of the implications of her actions. The most frustrating thing is that there are no nazis or evil political parties required here. For the most part it's just good, smart, clever, and responsible people all acting as best they can. That's the real tragedy. It's not some kind of comic book, good-guy-versus-bad-guy situation. It's a bad system created by a bad dynamic, and it looks to get even more bad as that dynamic keeps reinforcing itself.
However, if you look at the current US congressional seats, you will see only those two organizations. Correct me if I am wrong, but that seems fair to say that despite whatever efforts other political parties are making, they are largely irrelevant with respect to effective policy being made.
The right seems to generally want to support a new military-industrial complex focused more on immigration and monitoring the population and less on building aircraft carriers. The left seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.
The left seems to generally want to support a class warfare us-versus-the-corporations narrative which seeks to make more and more laws about all companies, 10 employees or a 1000. The right seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.
The political debate itself seems to be in a spot where the trick is not to get holding the bag. Do only as much as it takes for voters not to blame you. It's much more crisis-driven than it ever has been.
These trends don't look well for conducting international business. I don't think there's any disaster coming, but I think the complex social and political systems we've created will actually become less and less stable the more we try to over-manage them.
Right now my money is on "friendly for business" but the situation is slowly and inexorably changing for the worse. So if I were a foreigner looking do do a startup, I'd probably be in the states -- and probably would not plan on staying there. (insert long discussion about qualifiers that might change that plan, such as requiring a large, trained workforce or special infrastructure issues.)
EDIT: This "instability in complex systems" I brought up is exactly illustrated in the JotForms case. The law over-allocates power to an agency, registrars bend over backward to comply with whatever the agency wants (lest they get on the shit list too.), then some pencil-pusher kills several man-years of work. Not out of malice or evilness -- just by simply not being aware of the implications of her actions. The most frustrating thing is that there are no nazis or evil political parties required here. For the most part it's just good, smart, clever, and responsible people all acting as best they can. That's the real tragedy. It's not some kind of comic book, good-guy-versus-bad-guy situation. It's a bad system created by a bad dynamic, and it looks to get even more bad as that dynamic keeps reinforcing itself.