I'm seeing a lot of arguments in this thread against starting a business in France, so my question is this: outside of the US where would you start something?
Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
91–100 of 324 posts
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laws aren’t permanent. They can be, and in fact often are, rolled back or abolished. See Glass-Steagall Act and the much more recent Dodd-Frank rollbacks as examples. The fact of the matter is that when you make progress in an area you can’t just sit back and relax. You have to continue to work hard to prevent regression, especially when there are strong economic pressures in that direction. This is why unions are as…
The perpetual cruft stacking seems to be a far greater problem of passing large laws like eg Dodd Frank. In terms of regulation, the biggest problem the US has, is a century of cruft having built up, and the rarity with which it gets fully removed or even looked at + questioned for whether it should be on the books at all. The perpetual, hilariously absurd expansion of the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regul…
May 17: "18 USC §§2340 & 2340A make it a federal crime for a person acting under color of law to commit torture overseas."
...That doesn't seem to fit the general "frivolous law" theme...
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy: - Weekends (40 hour week) - Minimum wage - No child labor - Workers compensation - Not being massacred by your employer¹ Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood. ¹ See, e.g. , the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.
Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws. In developed economies they only serve as a levelling mechanism, which also make it impossible to fire anybody. The only people they serve are unproductive and incompetent employees.
> Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws.
I suppose no political organizations are necessary in places where there are decent and enforced laws, not even political parties, but that's not how humans work. Decent laws aren't the result of generosity from those in power - decent labor law isn't a result of corporate altruism - but of political struggles between different elements of society. Democracy doesn't work magically; it works by the people who have a seat at the table competing and negotiating. Those without a seat are ignored - their obvious needs, their priorities (you can always identify those without a seat: the others say about their needs: 'they're exaggerating; it's not that big a deal'), and needs that only they have the experience to know or anticipate. Individual factory workers don't have a seat, but their union does.
The rest of the parent is just hyperbole.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corporate tax rate is at 33% and 16% for small business, that doesn't strike me as particularly high, especially considered what it used to be in the US. There are many taxes on employee's but they fund their benefits, so that's something you don't have to provide separately to your employees and you can basically see it as part of the salary.
It was increasingly a problem for US competitiveness. The US was bleeding a lot of successful companies to other countries for tax purposes, and it was getting worse (Pfizer tried to flee to Ireland). The average national rate in Europe is around 18%, and 21% for the EU. France is competing with this: Austria 25%, Spain 25%, Netherlands 25%, Italy 24%, Norway 23%, Denmark 22%, Sweden 22%, Portugal 21%, Slovakia 21%,…
What is the source of this information? In Estonia corporate income tax is essentially 0% - all re-invested income is tax-free, you only pay taxes when you eventually decide to pay out dividends (or salary). Which can be years, decades or never.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep you've highlighted the main issues here. Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population. Don't get me wrong, unions were vital in the 40-70's as there was a clear abuse of the workforce. But today, the workforce can't wrap their heads around how a balance sheet works. And all those social laws make hiring and firing very hard,…
Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy: - Weekends (40 hour week) - Minimum wage - No child labor - Workers compensation - Not being massacred by your employer¹ Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood. ¹ See, e.g. , the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.
There is poor evidence to support your points. And what about Switzerland that has very low union membership, have pretty much 40 hours weeks, no child labor, and the highest compensation across Europe despite having no minimum wage? It does not add up if we follow your narrative.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
The perpetual cruft stacking seems to be a far greater problem of passing large laws like eg Dodd Frank. In terms of regulation, the biggest problem the US has, is a century of cruft having built up, and the rarity with which it gets fully removed or even looked at + questioned for whether it should be on the books at all. The perpetual, hilariously absurd expansion of the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regul…
May 17: "18 USC §§2340 & 2340A make it a federal crime for a person acting under color of law to commit torture overseas." ...That doesn't seem to fit the general "frivolous law" theme...
The point was hardly that every law on the federal books is bad. If you read the first 100 tweets on that account, my opinion is maybe 90 are bullshit that shouldn't be on the books. Nobody is going through all of those and removing the trash. Every little thing doesn't need a law, everything shouldn't be a federal crime.
eg
"18 USC §1465 makes it a federal crime to produce an obscene, lewd, lascivious, or "filthy book" for sale in interstate commerce."
"10 USC §2674(c) & 32 CFR §234.11(a) make it a federal crime to drink alcohol at the Pentagon without written authorization."
"40 USC §6307 & 36 CFR §520.4(h) make it a federal crime to play a ball game at the National Zoo, except in an officially-designated ball game area."
"21 USC §§331, 333, 343(g) & 21 CFR §139.150(b) make it a federal crime to sell "egg noodles" that aren't ribbon-shaped."
"18 USC §46(b) makes it a federal crime to knowingly barter for out-of-state water chestnuts."
"16 U.S.C. §§707(a), 718g & 50 C.F.R. §91.14 make it a federal crime to submit an entry in the Federal Duck Stamp contest that you copied from a picture on the internet."
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy: - Weekends (40 hour week) - Minimum wage - No child labor - Workers compensation - Not being massacred by your employer¹ Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood. ¹ See, e.g. , the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.
Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws. In developed economies they only serve as a levelling mechanism, which also make it impossible to fire anybody. The only people they serve are unproductive and incompetent employees.
> Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws.
You clealy have no idea about what you're saying. For your comment to make any sense you need to believe that any worker acting exclusively by himself has the resources to enforce those laws agains any company and suffer no repercussion during the process. This idea is utterly absurd.
Meanwhile, unions do offer specialized legal services and do pressure managers to not overreach or overstep their authority, and do so as a proxy to any employee and even while preserving his anonymity if needed.
In fact, if anything you've said made any sense then unpaid overtime or unpaid weekend work would be unthinkable, but instead it's the norm in some abusive companies without any union.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#98I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…
>The truth is it is much much cheaper than in the US, and probably unmatched in Western Europe. Now, all this preexisted Macron.
Not only Europe, but much of China as well. Besides the basic "no tax for a new company below $N annual revenue for 5 years," there are megatons of all kinds of obscure, but very generous state grants.
If stars align well for the company, it can effectively live off grants while having 0 revenue. This was most extreme during "The Solar Bubble" when companies were collecting from $3m to $6m for just having word "solar" in company name.
The oversight has since improved a little little bit, and you are less likely to get money with 0 revenue company.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#99No EU beurocratic shithole is going to be good for startups.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#100I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…
It sounds like you have to spend a lot of time proving that what you are doing qualifies for these bonuses. Seems mostly like a haven for those who have the connections and know-how to get through the approval process.