#publicpolicy — Public Fediverse posts

Ageing populations are not just a social issue — they’re an economic force. Our new piece on the Silver Economy explains how demographic transition is reshaping consumption patterns and pension systems worldwide. Valuable reading for executives, policymakers and financial planners. Read the full article: https://wix.to/sBtHSnM

#PublicPolicy
#SilverEconomy
#MarketStrategy
#PensionReform
#FinancialPlanning
#DemographicTransition

Broad tax reform belongs at the centre of Canada’s growth agenda
#Canada #Economy #TaxReform #EconomicGrowth #Productivity #Investment #EconomicResilience #PublicPolicy #Politics #TaxPolicy #Taxes #CRA #FiscalPolicy #The14Media
https://the-14.com/broad-tax-reform-belongs-at-the-centre-of-canadas-growth-agenda/

https://www.europesays.com/ch/129944/ No-frills city budget presented to Geneva councilors | News #Budget #Economy #Geneva #GovernmentFinances #payments #PoliticalEconomy #PublicEconomics #PublicFinance #PublicPolicy #tax

RE: https://mas.to/@thecontinent/117253179327056947

'In response to Namibia’s refusal to share its national health data, the United States will stop funding its HIV-response programme from 2027'

There's a lot of interesting material in this issue but I'm curious how many folks might believe that the Australian Gvt are not under the same pressure to surrender protected datasets on Australian populations (albeit with a different set of coercions)

#ausPol #publicPolicy

Canadian governments are taking different paths back to the office
#Canada #ReturnToOffice #RemoteWork #HybridWork #Government #PublicService #PublicServants #WorkFromHome #Politics #PublicPolicy #Labour #Employment #GovernmentPolicy #PublicTransit #Equity #Economy
https://the-14.com/canadian-governments-are-taking-different-paths-back-to-the-office/

Is Nepal Moving Toward a Socialism-Oriented Federal State or a Capitalist Economy? A Systems-Level Reflection on Nepal’s FY 2026/27 Budget

The Constitution of Nepal defines Nepal as a “socialism-oriented federal democratic republican state.” Multiple election cycles since the Maoist insurgency suggest that democracy has matured considerably. Political parties broadly operating within the republican democratic framework have consistently remained at the center of political competition. The most recent election, following the Gen-Z movement, arguably strengthened the foundations of the republican system. Political actors advocating a return to monarchy remained on the margins and failed to translate public unrest into electoral dominance. Historically, pro-monarchy sentiment tends to gain visibility when governments fail to deliver expected outcomes. The Gen-Z movement represented perhaps the strongest expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo political order. If the Nepali public genuinely favored restoration of monarchy, that election cycle would have provided an ideal opportunity for monarchy-supporting forces to emerge as a dominant political alternative. Instead, voters largely endorsed parties committed to republican democracy, reinforcing the democratic republican trajectory of the country. Yet another constitutional question remains unresolved: while Nepal appears committed to republican democracy, is it also moving toward becoming a socialism-oriented federal state? This article adopts a devil’s advocate perspective to examine whether the latest fiscal budget advances that constitutional aspiration or whether it reflects a different economic direction.

The Budget Represents a Development-State Strategy

Viewed from a systems perspective, the budget rests on a coherent developmental logic. Its central objectives are to accelerate growth through productive investment, strengthen state capacity through reform and digitization, and attract domestic, diaspora, and foreign investment. The underlying diagnosis appears reasonable. Nepal’s challenge is not merely a shortage of money but low productivity, weak state capacity, fragmented development efforts, and bureaucratic friction. The budget attempts to connect infrastructure, energy, agriculture, tourism, technology, and investment into a more integrated economic architecture. Borrowing is presented not as a tool for consumption but as an instrument for productivity-enhancing investment. From this perspective, the budget is essentially a wager on state capacity. If government institutions become more effective, projects are completed on time, corruption is reduced, and investment translates into economic growth, then higher borrowing may be justified. Many countries such as South Korea and Vietnam that successfully modernized followed versions of this strategy. The budget therefore deserves credit for attempting to move the conversation beyond annual expenditures toward a broader development framework.

Is the Budget Fundamentally a Trickle-Down Strategy?

A central question is whether the budget’s theory of change resembles a form of trickle-down economics. Much of the strategy focuses on investment promotion, infrastructure expansion, digitization, regulatory reform, business facilitation, and productivity growth. The implicit assumption appears to be that economic growth will eventually spread throughout society through employment generation, enterprise creation, and broader economic opportunities. The concern is not whether growth is desirable. The concern is whether the benefits of growth will reach marginalized populations quickly and equitably enough. Critics may reasonably ask whether the budget places greater emphasis on investors, businesses, and the middle class than on direct improvements in the economic conditions of vulnerable communities. If economic gains remain concentrated among those already positioned to benefit from investment opportunities, the constitutional aspiration of a socialism-oriented state becomes harder to reconcile with actual policy outcomes.

Do Specific Policy Choices Reflect a Capitalist Rather Than Socialism-Oriented Direction?

Several policy signals raise broader questions about the state’s economic philosophy. First, taxes imposed on education and health services are likely to be passed on to consumers unless strong regulatory mechanisms prevent it. If the objective is to increase reliance on public education and public healthcare, improving the quality and competitiveness of those services may be a more effective first step than creating additional costs within private alternatives. Second, electricity consumption thresholds before tax appear low relative to the growing electrification of modern households. As families adopt induction cooking, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other appliances, many middle-income households could exceed these thresholds. The result may unintentionally encourage continued reliance on gas, firewood, or other fossil-fuel alternatives. If the objective is to redirect electricity toward industrial use, expanding generation capacity may be more sustainable than discouraging household consumption.

Third, enthusiasm for data centers, AI, remote work, and digital services raises a deeper strategic question. Is Nepal building on its own long-term comparative advantages, or is it once again responding primarily to incentives created elsewhere? Nepal previously moved away from potentially transformative assets such as electric public transport systems, ropeways, and large-scale reservoir hydropower development, and  increasingly relied on labor export. The concern is not that digital industries are undesirable, but whether Nepal is repeating a pattern of chasing externally driven opportunities without a clearly articulated national development vision.

These examples create an impression that the budget may be nudging Nepal toward a model closer to contemporary market capitalism than toward the socialism-oriented framework envisioned by the constitution. Ironically, some parts of the capitalist Americas are currently witnessing renewed interest in democratic-socialist ideas and stronger social welfare policies, while Nepal appears to be emphasizing investment-led growth and market incentives.

The Real Debate may not Socialism Versus Capitalism

As the world is witnessing a renewed interest in democratic-socialist ideas and stronger social welfare, the deeper issue may not be whether Nepal is becoming socialist or capitalist country. The more important question is whether the assumptions underpinning the strategy prove correct. Several unintended consequences deserve attention. First, the key question is whether Nepal can finally convert borrowing into productive assets rather than accumulating debt without generating sufficient returns. Second, growth alone does not guarantee broad-based prosperity. The strategy assumes that gains from investment will spread through jobs, enterprise creation, and economic opportunity reaching marginalized communities. History suggests this outcome is possible but far from automatic. Third concern is about governance. The budget assumes improvements in administrative efficiency, project execution, corruption control, bureaucratic coordination, and institutional discipline. If these governance preconditions fail, borrowing could become another source of fiscal stress and public resentment rather than a catalyst for development. Fourth, the budget contains numerous concepts—corridors, processing, digitization, investment facilitation, infrastructure, tourism, and energy. Yet the overarching economic vision remains somewhat implicit. It is unclear whether these initiatives are components of a strategic coherent national development strategy or simply a collection of individually attractive policies held together by optimism rather than a clearly articulated economic vision. The assumption appears to be that combining these fragments will naturally produce prosperity, which deserves scrutiny.

The fifth concerns Nepal’s long-term development challenge. For more than four decades, billions of rupees have been invested in expanding road access into hill and mountain districts. While connectivity improved significantly, many districts continue to experience population decline as young people migrate to cities or overseas employment. Agricultural land is increasingly abandoned, wildlife pressures have intensified, and local economic opportunities remain limited. This experience suggests that infrastructure alone does not guarantee development. The more fundamental challenge may be employment generation, entrepreneurship, agricultural modernization, and innovation. A clearer budgetary focus on urban and rural entrepreneurship could potentially provide a more direct response to youth migration. Finance, training, vocational education, pilot programs, market access, digital economy initiatives, grants, loans, mentoring, and long-term support mechanisms could then function as supporting pillars around that central objective.

Finally, Nepal’s strategic location between India and China remains an underdeveloped dimension of national economic planning. The bridge-economy concept appears indirectly through investments in connectivity, energy, logistics, and regional development, but it remains insufficiently explicit. Positioning Nepal within the evolving economic geography of Asia may ultimately prove as important as any individual budget allocation.

Concluding, the budget reflects a serious attempt to accelerate growth, strengthen state capacity, and attract productive investment. Those objectives are difficult to oppose. However, important questions remain: are some policy choices moving Nepal closer to a market-capitalist model and trickle down economy than to a socialism-oriented nation; is there a sufficiently explicit economic vision connecting the many initiatives contained in the budget; can Nepal finally overcome its historic weakness in execution?The ultimate test will not be the size of the budget, the ambition of the plans, or the sophistication of the theories behind them. It will be whether the strategy creates productive employment, broad-based opportunity, stronger institutions, and a development pathway that keeps young Nepali invested in the country’s future. Efficiency can accelerate development. But democratic legitimacy, social inclusion, and long-term national purpose ultimately determine whether development becomes sustainable.

Note: This article is inspired by the article “New Team, New Budget: Nepal’s Big Development Bet [Part 1: Big Budget. Big Dreams. Big Assumptions.” published by Dr. Alok Bohora in his Substack website “Nepal Unplugged”. I was acknowledged in his successive article for contributing to the discussion. This article combines my thoughts together my synthesis of above mentioned article.

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School Kits, Big Impact: Inside El Salvador’s Quiet Education Push

Dear Cherubs, there’s something oddly powerful about a cardboard box that doesn’t contain chaos, delivery delays, or “please assemble yourself” furniture instructions. In El Salvador, it contains something far rarer: opportunity, neatly folded and mildly creased.

Across the country, thousands of children have been receiving full school kits—uniforms, shoes, books, stationery, backpacks, and in some cases digital devices—aimed at reducing the everyday friction that keeps education just out of reach. According to UNICEF, such school supply initiatives are widely used in developing education systems to improve attendance and reduce dropout rates, especially among lower-income families.

THE BOX THAT CHANGED THE MORNING ROUTINE

On paper, it sounds simple: give kids the tools they need for school. In practice, it’s a quiet reshaping of daily life. No scrambling for notebooks. No “borrow a pen again?” conversations. Just a child getting ready for school without the background noise of scarcity.

The initiative has been associated with government-led education support programs in El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele’s administration, which has prioritised visible social interventions alongside broader security reforms. As noted by thisclaimer.com in its coverage of public welfare initiatives, such programs often carry a dual effect: practical support for families and a strong symbolic message about inclusion.

One widely shared moment showed a young girl opening her kit and reacting with visible excitement. Not because it was luxurious, but because it was enough. And sometimes, enough is revolutionary in its own quiet, inconvenient way.

DIGNITY, BUT MAKE IT PRACTICAL

Here’s the uncomfortable part: school supplies shouldn’t feel like a headline. They should feel like background noise. Yet in many regions, they still function as a financial barrier disguised as a shopping list.

Critics of large-scale distribution programs often point out logistical challenges and long-term sustainability questions. Fair. But supporters argue that immediate access matters more than theoretical perfection when children are currently sitting in classrooms without basic tools.

And there’s a dry irony here: we live in a world where high-tech solutions for education are debated in conference rooms, while the simplest fix—actually giving kids what they need to learn—still qualifies as a policy achievement.

The emotional centre of this story isn’t political branding or viral clips. It’s a child seeing possibility packaged in a backpack and not having to translate it into something else to understand it.

Whether one views these initiatives as transformative policy or practical optics, the result on the ground is hard to ignore: fewer barriers between a child and a classroom.

And maybe that’s the real headline nobody prints loudly enough: sometimes progress doesn’t arrive as disruption. Sometimes it just arrives on time.

Sources list:
UNICEF — https://www.unicef.org/
World Bank Education Overview — https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education
Government of El Salvador — https://www.presidencia.gob.sv/
BBC News Education Coverage — https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2lgt

RE: https://partychickens.net/@mason/116514703013503570

'some governments will require the tools that they use to support post-quantum cryptography in the near future. This means that a lot of companies want post-quantum cryptography, and people will begin to expect it from serious projects'

#cryptography #publicPolicy #quantumComputing #postQuantumCryptography

TVs get cheaper every year. So does fast fashion. But rent, healthcare, and college tuition keep climbing. Baumol explained this in 1966. We're still living it. by @daylightatheism.bsky.social

https://onlys.ky/cost-disease/

#Economics #CostOfLiving #Inequality #LaborEconomics #PublicPolicy

Casinos create jobs and tax revenue, but at what cost? A balanced look at whether gambling truly helps or harms local economies.
Read here: https://www.mattsheabooks.net/do-casinos-help-or-harm-the-economy/

#Economics #Gambling #Casino #LocalEconomy #PublicPolicy #SocialImpact

Quebec since 1995: decline or progress?
#Quebec #Canada #Economy #FiscalPolicy #Poverty #PublicFinance #Demographics #SocialEquality #Taxation #Healthcare #Progress #Inequality #Housing #Sustainability #QuebecReferendum #EconomicGrowth #PublicPolicy
https://the-14.com/quebec-since-1995-decline-or-progress/

PS: The joyful picture of Barbara Gittings I posted earlier today came from the private sphere, but even their private moment was political. Certainly they left their papers to the NYPL under terms that allow it to share the image online.
#PrivateLives #PublicPolicy #ThePersonalIsPolitical 🏳️‍🌈
https://zirk.us/@markstoneman/113912211935345371

The 2023 US 50-State National Seismic Hazard Model - Overview And Implications
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https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/science/2023-national-seismic-hazard-model-whats-shaking <-- USGS technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1177/87552930231215428 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #earthquake #seismichazard #risk #hazard #shakemap #cost #economics #geology #engineeringgeology #hazardmodel #model #modeling #seismicity #faultruptures #groundmotions #probabilistic #probability #geostatistics #engineering #planning #management #mitigation #NSHM #forecast #infrastructure #publicsafety #hazardassessment #fault #faulting #structuralgeology #intensity #mercalli #buildingcode #design #publicpolicy #shakemap #engineeringrisk #future
@USGS @FEMA

@mozilla Adding some hopefully relevant hashtags for discoverability: #privacy #internet #contentcreator #contentcreators #onlineprivacy #netneutrality #regulation #censorship #bigbrother #restrictact #dataprivacy #bigtech #decentralisation #decentralization #web3 #e2ee #encryption #interoperability #publicpolicy

My first #migration on here is complete.

👋🏻 #EduMasto looking forward to learning from and with you.

If we’ve only ever met on the bird app, I truly hope we can make a fresh start. Like my many plants, I’ve grown several new leaves and life looks wonderful and very different now.

My profile shows what I’m up to. Lots for #Education #college #RealCollege #Sociology #Writing #parenting #plants #inequality #publicpolicy #politics #Philadelphia #cats #dogs and more, including my ♥️ husband.