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Can the UK Create Something To Rival Silicon Valley?
An anonymous reader writes "Hoping to bring together ambition, creativity and energy in one place, the UK government hopes to grow East London so that we can benefit from the same sort of success that has been seen in California; jobs, tax revenue, highly skilled workers and takeovers. If it works, the country would massively benefit, with something to rival other established industries."
A good start would be not offering to arrest and deport people who broke no law in your country.
the UK government hopes to grow East London so that we can benefit from the same sort of success that has been seen in California;
- DOA, just like Russian version of Silicon Valley (Skolkovo).
That is unless the government in UK is planning to get rid of regulations, taxes, labour laws and inflation of-course.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
No
What is the author smoking. California currently has $380 billion in devt and a 10.8% unemployment rate. I would call that far from being successful.
If I were the UK, I would not want to model anything after California
sudo make me a sandwich
Also, no non-compete contracts.
If there are enforced non-compete contracts then there will be no community of individuals to hire to create a "Silicon Valley".
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
The boat sailed on a Silicon Valley workalike about 25 years ago. What with all the tech patents, software patents, business model patents, and patent trolls sewing up innovation unless you're already IBM, Microsoft, or Apple, you won't be able to innovate and defend anything What are they thinking, incubate and develop the next Facebook? The next PayPal? TechLawyers.com?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Hey, Wild West swings both ways, ya know? You cannot tell government to stay out of your way and then come back whining when it does.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think that Silicon Valley and innovation these days mostly means software development and services on the Internet, and not so much hardware devices and operating system.
I also wonder why technologically minded people would want to move to a place and innovate when you get arrested for a tweet. Now before +Troll, think about it for a second. Most people responsible for innovation these days don't like regulations constraining the Internet, and certainly not regulations and laws that get users thrown in jail.
The UK truly is a pit of shit right now as far the Internet, freedom, privacy, freedom of speech, etc. is concerned. Not exactly attractive to most of the talent in the rest of the world. If you are already there you are just making the best of it.
California is broke because of Prop 13. It basically cut out from under it the main funding mechanism for the state government property taxes and then put severe limitations on how the state could raise funds through other mechanisms by making any tax increase in other categories like sales tax or income tax too difficult to enact. As such the previous high-tax/high-service government that Californians enjoyed became unstainable.
Additionally, due to the initiative system the state has almost no control over it's finances. Something like 70% of the budget is mandated spending by initiatives, with a large portion of the remaining 30% either things you have to spend money on like police, or required via Federal funds. It's why to pass a budget every year they always need to resort to some tricks. And with the requirement that they need 2/3rds majority to pass any budget, instead of 50%+1 like every other state in the union, means the minority party has no interest to negotiate.