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How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

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Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#971

Post by rtpg »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #953
rtpg wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got married in Japan so was curious about the differences. The two differences seem to be needing to schedule an appointment and needing proof of income. Doesn’t seem really much worse than most countries (tho I can get Denmark being easier) I do place some blame on embassies not issuing documents in local languages. I’m not asking for proof I’m not married for fun! Extremely unhelpful, tho a good job generator for…

> which leads to the US government saying stuff like “well we don’t know if you’re married but you can sign an affidavit in front of us”. The American Empire, barely capable of a proper census! How would a census help? That's just you declaring your marital status in front of them, without having to sign anything; it has even less probative value than what you're presenting as a stopgap measure that wouldn't be neces…

No, you’re right. Census is the wrong word. Just… having a list of residents and marital state seems pretty table stakes for an administrative state

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#972

Post by jonathanstrange »

Baguette5242 wrote: post #963
jonathanstrange wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pretentious to trust officially published statistics more than anecdotal opinions from random strangers on the internet, and since we're talking about a difference of several orders of magnitude no further arguments why the comparison makes no sense are needed in this case.

What is pretentious however is to judge without having experimenting it. "no lessons can be learned from Chinese bureaucracy about how to deal with immigrants." is quite a bold statement... But you go ahead, state that the way other countries are doing things are irrelevant because of almighty statistics etc. (in absolute numbers, 0.07% of immigrants in China represents more people than the population of either Franc…

The absolute numbers are irrelevant. It's almost bizarre to me that you don't see that. But even though I haven't experienced it myself, I do have plenty of anecdotal evidence against your statement, e.g. I watched serpentza's Youtube channel for a long time and heard many other first-hand accounts of people working in China. A colleague of mine is also working in China. Some have no troubles, others have to report to a police station every week for no reason. It's overall not good for immigrants in China, especially for black people. In any case, contrary to what you insinuated the duties for foreigners and how easy it is to live as an immigrant differ vastly from city to city.

Now even if I was completely wrong about this assessment (which I'm sure you think I am), it wouldn't make sense to presume that anyone would just take your word for it and allow themselves to be called pretentious when they disagree with you. That rude behavior is not increasing your credibility.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#973

Post by thaumasiotes »

rtpg wrote: post #971
thaumasiotes wrote: post #953

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which leads to the US government saying stuff like “well we don’t know if you’re married but you can sign an affidavit in front of us”. The American Empire, barely capable of a proper census! How would a census help? That's just you declaring your marital status in front of them, without having to sign anything; it has even less probative value than what you're presenting as a stopgap measure that wouldn't be neces…

No, you’re right. Census is the wrong word. Just… having a list of residents and marital state seems pretty table stakes for an administrative state

They can't function without it, so the list does exist. The IRS keeps records of residents and their marital state (a required piece of information on the form).

But those records aren't really fit for the purpose of certifying that someone is not currently married, because (a) they do not include people who don't need to file taxes; and (b) they are only updated once a year.

For pretty much every other administrative purpose, it doesn't matter whether you're married or not, so I don't really see why you'd want the tax records updated more often.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#974

Post by gunsle »

shiroiushi wrote: post #956
pezezin wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan is also somewhat difficult for foreigners to live in because of the language barrier, but Germany isn't that different here In the case of Japan, you also have the insanely difficult writing system, probably the most difficult writing system in current usage. The German language might be difficult, but at least it uses an alphabet with a somewhat consistent spelling.

The writing system isn't that big a deal. For daily life, it's more important to be able to converse in basic/conversational Japanese, not to be able to read literature, and you don't have to read kanji to talk to people. Just learning katakana is enough to read all the foreign loanwords (which are everywhere these days), and knowing hiragana + some basic kanji is really plenty to get by. For reading anything more di…

You’re correct, but as a foreigner that lived in Japan for 3 months, it gets very old constantly having to use google lens or translate just to go grocery shopping. In most European countries, people will know a tiny bit of broken English at least, and most of the words you can figure out on packages/signs by their roots.

I loved living in Japan, but even where I lived in Shinagawa, it was very rare finding someone with any English skills at all unless they were young and college educated in the states.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#975

Post by gunsle »

bluecalm wrote: post #733
nicbou wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a growing frustration about asylum seekers who moved to Germany and did not adopt German values, a theme you will find in every country. It's scary because the party that complains the most about it is gaining traction, and it convinces centrist parties to change their stance on immigration. It's not a pearl-clutching minority anymore, but a politically advantageous position. As an immigrant, I feel…

Well, when you come to a country you should make an effort to adopt the country's values and customs. If you stay for longer you should also make an effort to learn the language. If you are not doing any of that is that really that surprising that people are getting fed up with it?

Agreed, but even here in the states that has been considered a “racist” position for decades, as has securing the borders. Which after doing a lot of international travel confuses me. I wouldn’t illegally move to Japan, expect them to not deport me, allow me to use social services, and also not mind if I brought my own culture with me without attempting to assimilate on some level.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#976

Post by mbrain »

nicbou wrote: post #114

I document German bureaucracy for a living,[0] and everything is like that. Every life event - immigrating, getting a job, getting married, having a child, buying a car - is mired in slow, paper-based bureaucracy. It is a constant, significant impediment to life in the country. Just last week, I was telling people that the best way to get married in Germany is to get married in Denmark. I cannot overstate how terribl…

Moved in 2018, looking forward for leaving soon!

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#977

Post by pezezin »

shiroiushi wrote: post #956
pezezin wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan is also somewhat difficult for foreigners to live in because of the language barrier, but Germany isn't that different here In the case of Japan, you also have the insanely difficult writing system, probably the most difficult writing system in current usage. The German language might be difficult, but at least it uses an alphabet with a somewhat consistent spelling.

The writing system isn't that big a deal. For daily life, it's more important to be able to converse in basic/conversational Japanese, not to be able to read literature, and you don't have to read kanji to talk to people. Just learning katakana is enough to read all the foreign loanwords (which are everywhere these days), and knowing hiragana + some basic kanji is really plenty to get by. For reading anything more di…

I strongly disagree. Yes, speaking is more important than reading, but being illiterate in a modern society is not fun. And as the other comment said, having to use your phone all the time gets old really fast.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#978

Post by andrepd »

Log_out_ wrote: post #889
andrepd wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just consult a report like this one https://www.transparency.org/en/gcb detailing the percentage of people who said they had to pull favours / personal connections to access public services... You can only begin to imagine how incredibly damaging it is to everything, from economic efficiency to the perpetuation of the culture of caciquism.

That inefficiency is how a open hand looks like

?

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#979

Post by mnau »

sternchenfee17 wrote: post #965
usr1106 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

Try building a house in germany. We've been arguing with authorities, send hundreds (not an exaggeration) of papers to different involved parties, but still, one and a half year after purchasing a bit of real estate, we are not even allowed to start building. This includes dozens of funny anecdotes, an example would be changed rules for the width of your fence gate - meaning that you have to scrap the old one and hav…

> doesn't really help if it takes six weeks for the clerk to actually react.

Neighbouring country here. The clerk has to react within six weeks, but to satisfy the letter of law, the reply is "we received your requeat and it's being processed"

The actual reply takes ~6 month.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#980

Post by [deleted] »

iacvlvs wrote: post #704
mharig wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a person number and authorities store everything centrally. A big brother nightmare for Germans. Should be a big brother nightmare for all humans. Your number is 666.

Why? There’s always a lot of hand-wringing and FUD around giving people ID numbers, but never a coherent rational argument. What makes it a big brother nightmare for all humans?

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