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I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

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Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#261

Post by inkcapmushroom »

kumarvvr wrote: post #144
egorfine wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is what the rest of the world usually says on the first encounter with "tips culture" in the US. As I see it, cultures are different and one thing that is considered an absolute taboo in one culture might be customary in another. Tips in the US are customary yet at the same time they are offensive in Japan. Bribes are killing the economy in my country yet it makes economy moving in India. PS: I personal…

First time I am hearing about this. Could you elaborate on the Tips culture in US? Do you have any first hand or second hand experience with it?

For waitstaff at a restaurant, baristas at a coffee shop, bartenders, or people giving personalized service (for example a tattoo artist) it's customary to give a tip of ~20% extra on top of the bill. The expectation is that extra money goes directly to the staff giving you the service, and you are expected to pay it; many of these services jobs are actually legally allowed to pay less than minimum wage with the expectation that the tips will cover the difference. You are allowed to give less if you feel the service wasn't satisfactory, or if it's an especially large bill, but to give no tip at all means you are a terrible person.

From my experience most people working these jobs prefer the tips system the way it is because a lot of times it's in cash so they can fudge their tax numbers if they want (might not be true nowadays as less people use cash), and also because often they make more money through tips than minimum wage, and they think if tips were removed the restaurants would only pay them minimum wage.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#262

Post by throwaway2037 »

riskable wrote: post #245
Vespasian wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some types corruption are worse than others. With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the end. From what I heard, for example, in Russia you do that but then the quartermaster goes and sells half of your equipment off on the black market and the grunts sell off the other half and replace it with something m…

> With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the end. Many studies have been done and this isn't really a thing. The government isn't paying 2x (or 100-1000x as is often the rumor) for a given thing. What they're paying is the price of certification and guarantees . If the law requires that a procured item be…

If you look at the required operating range (temperature and humidity) for most mudane item sold to the US military... it is INSANE. Plus, the amount of "QA" done on the final product ensures very low failure rates. All of this costs a LOT of money. I see the same issue with nuclear power plants built in highly industrialised countries with strong environmental protection laws.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#263

Post by soperj »

klausjensen wrote: post #109

~5 years ago, I hired three Indian developers. They asked me if we could set up an Indian legal entity, so that they could just get regular salaries in India with tax payments, deductions etc taken care of. I agreed and we got it done. One of the worst business-decisions of my life. The amount of red tape, stupid rules, corruption, signatures, stamps, showing up physically in a certain office etc etc... Mindblowing.…

> We have sent experts to the relevant tax offices etc, but the ONLY guy who can handle it is never there, refuses to deal with it, then says we need to go somewhere else - where we are sent back etc etc. Sent around in circles, basically - with everybody recognizing the money is in fact owed...

That sounds exactly like they're needing a bribe, but you're too rooted in western ways of doing things that you don't realize it.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#264

Post by throwaway2037 »

hef19898 wrote: post #178
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.

Just google Franz Josef Strauss for some history on German corruption. Followed by a quick search on how exactly the government sourced face masks during COVID (same political part basically). For Switzerland, well, a quick search for money laundering gives you all the information you need. EDIT: Both the FIFA and the IOCI, probably the most corrupt organizations on earth, are having their seats in Switzerland.

Your two orgs are not part of the Swiss gov't. Nor is the United Nations. On the whole Swiss society, business, and its gov't has very low corruption.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#265

Post by throwaway2037 »

hef19898 wrote: post #178
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.

Just google Franz Josef Strauss for some history on German corruption. Followed by a quick search on how exactly the government sourced face masks during COVID (same political part basically). For Switzerland, well, a quick search for money laundering gives you all the information you need. EDIT: Both the FIFA and the IOCI, probably the most corrupt organizations on earth, are having their seats in Switzerland.

I checked his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Strauss

I cannot find the word "corruption" anywhere. What am I missing?

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#266

Post by throwaway2037 »

pjc50 wrote: post #146
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.

They aren't, but there's definitely some present at the top. With enough money on the table, how could it be otherwise? Others have mentioned gas, but there's also BaFin/Wirecard: https://newrepublic.com/article/162084/weird-extremely-germa...

In the finance industry, BaFin is widely regarded as slow moving, out-of-date, and incompetant. Note that I did not use the term corrupt. Do you really think some BaFin staffers got bribes from Wirecard not to investigate? I doubt it.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#267

Post by cafard »

soperj wrote: post #263
klausjensen wrote: post #109

~5 years ago, I hired three Indian developers. They asked me if we could set up an Indian legal entity, so that they could just get regular salaries in India with tax payments, deductions etc taken care of. I agreed and we got it done. One of the worst business-decisions of my life. The amount of red tape, stupid rules, corruption, signatures, stamps, showing up physically in a certain office etc etc... Mindblowing.…

> We have sent experts to the relevant tax offices etc, but the ONLY guy who can handle it is never there, refuses to deal with it, then says we need to go somewhere else - where we are sent back etc etc. Sent around in circles, basically - with everybody recognizing the money is in fact owed... That sounds exactly like they're needing a bribe, but you're too rooted in western ways of doing things that you don't real…

US citizens bribing foreign officials can be convicted of a felony under (I think it is) The Foreign Corrupt Practices act. Whether DOJ chases down three-developer scale stuff, or has only the staff for multi-zillion class bribes, I don't know.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#268

Post by throwaway2037 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #110
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.

At least for Germany... we're not overtly corrupt: you don't need to bribe policemen to get out of fake charges or traffic stops, you don't need to bribe city officials for building permits. But at the large scale, we are absolutely a corrupt nation: our former Chancellor Schröder sold us out to Russia, there have been dozens of millions euros worth of (shockingly ruled legal) corruption during the pandemic, the larg…

You wrote: >

This is true in most highly industrialised countries. Can you name any where this is not true? I don't know any.

Another way to think about it: What is the polar opposite? "the large companies ... extremely unhealthy / combative relationship with almost all [political] parties". That sounds like the bad old days in 1980s India. Most economies would be a wreck if that were true.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#269

Post by FredPret »

Vespasian wrote: post #132
ricardobayes wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually kind of disturbing how there are basically only a handful of countries on the planet without systematic corruption. Maybe there are none. Perhaps it's a human trait.

Some types corruption are worse than others. With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the end. From what I heard, for example, in Russia you do that but then the quartermaster goes and sells half of your equipment off on the black market and the grunts sell off the other half and replace it with something m…

100%, I’m originally from a really corrupt country. They steal the money, and then still refuse to do the work. Result: no money, nothing works.

Here in the West, there is much less corruption to begin with, but the work gets done for the most part. Result: things work

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#270

Post by leidenfrost »

miroljub wrote: post #248
jkestner wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if Lula committed corruption, but he apparently wasn't more corrupt than the judge who tried him, who became Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice. All the charges were dismissed eventually because of court bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_Inácio_Lula_da_Silva

Thanks for the info. I don't follow Brazilian politics, but somehow the picture of a corrupt ex-president going to jail persisted in my head, since that was the news we were getting here back in the time. I couldn't understand why our news in Germany was pretending that a guy convinced of corruption would be a saviour of Brazil against the evil Bolsonaro. That highlights one of the main problems in our societies. We…

When the baseline of corruption is high enough and those who judge you are equally or more corrupt, convictions for "corruption" are a weapon from those who do not want a specific someone on the government rather than real intention of reducing corruption.

Simplifying, it's like this: If the road to presidency is corrupt, you either become also corrupt (on a varying degree) or stay as one of those parties with no more than 1% of the votes. But then, there's a pact of silence between cronies. And those who are accused of corruption are the ones that either went too far or went against powerful people in the government.

I take all those trials with a grain of salt.

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