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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)

#401

Post by pseudo0 »

agileAlligator wrote: post #33
pseudo0 wrote: post #18

It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral objection to paying bribes in an area where bribery is customary: > Obviously, they are playing “hard to get” to get me to pay some bribe and initiate the process. But after going through all this, I am not going to pay any bribe to anyone. And: > And they openly demanded bribes after waiting for four months. > So the Gram Panchayat NOC is stuck because of non…

> It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral objection to paying bribes Duh?

In a region where bribery is customary, trying to get stuff done without bribes is a case of tilting at windmills. I applaud the author's willingness to stand up for his convictions, but realistically his options are to either pay the bribes or set up his business in a less corrupt region. An entrenched local bureaucracy can easily outlast a typical small business when it comes to a fight like this.

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

#402

Post by spaceman_2020 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #293
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh as well (have lived there for years). Between these four states alone, we're talking about 40% of the country's population. If more than half of your country believes something, it can be said to be the majority opinion.

You wrote: > Google Sensei tells me: UP: 204.2M Bihar: 99.02M Rajasthan: 68.89M Madhya Pradesh: 73.34M Not even close to 40%. Population of India is about 1.3B to 1.4B.

Those numbers are way too old. Even by the 2011 census, UP was nearly 200M with a decadal growth rate of 20% in the previous decade. Bihar was 104M with a 25% growth rate.

Even with more muted growth, current population would be 230M+ for UP and 125M+ for Bihar.

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

#403

Post by otikik »

jeffdn wrote: post #369
otikik wrote: post #166

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. I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". In a lot of the western world that word it means things "having meetings" and perhaps "organizing PR campaigns". Straight up giving money to politicians is against the law.

This may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is explicitly illegal to give money directly to politicians in the United States. Lobbying is giving money to their campaign committees, which get them elected or re-elected. It is also explicitly very illegal for campaign committees to use their funds to do anything for the candidate -- there are a huge[0] number[1] of politicians[2] who have been severe…

Yes it is totally a meaningless distinction to me. On the level of “this is not gambling, because we use a virtual currency (that can be purchased with dollars)” that is prevalent on mobile video games these days. It is gambling, just with extra steps. And it is bribery, just with extra steps.

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

#404

Post by otikik »

Aunche wrote: post #358
otikik wrote: post #166

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. I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". In a lot of the western world that word it means things "having meetings" and perhaps "organizing PR campaigns". Straight up giving money to politicians is against the law.

>I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". This is what the internet thinking lobbying means because they just want to be angry at a thing without bothering to learn about it because that would expose their own political apathy. Lobbying in the US means the exact same things that it means in the rest of the world. Companies will donate a few thousand dollars…

> a few thousand dollars

You might want to revise that assumption.

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

#405

Post by solardev »

karterk wrote: post #137
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.…

Back when GST was introduced, they asked all exporters of software services to pay the 18% GST and then claim a refund because exports are exempted. This was before they introduced a process to apply for a "NOC" (which must be renewed periodically I think). So, I duly paid GST for the first couple of months. 5 years later, I'm yet to receive the refunds. First, they said that they were authorized to only sanction ref…

Are you sure these aren't just thinly-veiled requests for a bribe?

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

#406

Post by gumby »

About a decade ago I did set up an entity in India which employed people. However I did it as a JV with a subgroup of one of the big dynastic families. They had to own 50%+1 share, I am a PIO so owned the rest.

They had all the connections so setting things up was quick. Then we needed a factory so I visited a bunch of factories owned by the conglomerate. We picked one and they set aside some space to build our stuff. We didn't get soaked in that deal; I think that was because the factory wasn't really making much money and they figured the JV would throw off more cash.

We also worked with some other suppliers; I visited them directly, negotiated terms, and only then brought in the big guns from our partner. I figured that would mean we'd get the best deal: either the special deal for a new customer or the special deal for one of the big guys, whichever was cheaper. The latter was always cheaper, but I always wondered: would that have been true had we not already negotiated a ceiling on the price?

And in the end...the person assigned to be the CEO of the JV by the partner, a nice guy who seemed to work hard...embezzled most of the capital!

But my big lessons were: 1 - work with a partner who already knows whose hand to shake and 2 - don't try to do anything new; modify an existing structure. In that, the latter case is similar to what apparently is the standard way to open a restaurant in America: don't rent an empty space and fit it out as a restaurant; instead take over the lease and permits from someone who went bankrupt doing that, and run your restaurant on their kitchen setup and permits.

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

#407

Post by Aunche »

otikik wrote: post #404
Aunche wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". This is what the internet thinking lobbying means because they just want to be angry at a thing without bothering to learn about it because that would expose their own political apathy. Lobbying in the US means the exact same things that it means in the rest of the world. Companies will donate a few thousand dollars…

> a few thousand dollars You might want to revise that assumption.

You might want to revise your assumptions. These are the top lobbying recipients: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-recipients. All things considered it's not a lot of money. The vast majority of lobbying spending goes towards mundane expenses like payroll at lobbying firms. The reason lobbying is so powerful is that regular people don't pay attention to actual legislation, so politicians spend too much of their time campaigning and end up outsourcing the hard work of writing legislation to the lobbyists. Regardless, it's definitely not "literal legalized bribery."

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

#408

Post by otikik »

Aunche wrote: post #358
otikik wrote: post #166

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. I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". In a lot of the western world that word it means things "having meetings" and perhaps "organizing PR campaigns". Straight up giving money to politicians is against the law.

>I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". This is what the internet thinking lobbying means because they just want to be angry at a thing without bothering to learn about it because that would expose their own political apathy. Lobbying in the US means the exact same things that it means in the rest of the world. Companies will donate a few thousand dollars…

Using your own resource:

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders

I believe that’s at least 4 orders of magnitude higher than “thousands of dollars”. I rest my case

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

#409

Post by mrkstu »

phonon wrote: post #338
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries with high paperwork and bureaucratic burden are famous for also being highly corrupt. This is probably not a coincidence. Likely all the excess paperwork makes it easier to hide what's really going on, easy to provide roadblocks for those who don't pay, and easier to generally hide bad activity in a sea of noise.

Japan being a notable exception.

No, it's there. Look at the scandal around the assassination of Abe and the Unification Church. The church has had the main party of Japan bought and paid for for decades.

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

#410

Post by Aunche »

otikik wrote: post #408
Aunche wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think my shock was greater when I discovered that lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". This is what the internet thinking lobbying means because they just want to be angry at a thing without bothering to learn about it because that would expose their own political apathy. Lobbying in the US means the exact same things that it means in the rest of the world. Companies will donate a few thousand dollars…

Using your own resource: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders I believe that’s at least 4 orders of magnitude higher than “thousands of dollars”. I rest my case

...as I mentioned, the vast majority of this money goes towards things like paying people to read legislation, prepare presentations, and speak with politicians. It's not "literal legalized bribery."
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