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How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

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Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#381

Post by cloudie78 »

tchalla wrote: post #341
cloudie78 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, let’s give the EU and its undemocratic system in which policy formation is heavily filtered through a relatively narrow professional political class, ordinary voters have weak or almost no direct control over major policy choices, dissent encounters administrative/economic punishment, and central institutions possess and use powerful financial means to discipline peripheral governments should have even more c…

It seems you have an issue with representative democracy.

Quite the contrary actually. I take issue with systems LARPing democracy.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#382

Post by psychoslave »

tchalla wrote: post #341
cloudie78 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, let’s give the EU and its undemocratic system in which policy formation is heavily filtered through a relatively narrow professional political class, ordinary voters have weak or almost no direct control over major policy choices, dissent encounters administrative/economic punishment, and central institutions possess and use powerful financial means to discipline peripheral governments should have even more c…

It seems you have an issue with representative democracy.

There is no such a thing as "representative democracy", that’s antinomic bullshit throw at people to lower it down to powerless populace.

Either citizens have the power, exercise it continuously in practice and are supplied with everything it takes to assume that role properly with all the duties it implies, or there is no democracy beyond empty words.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#383

Post by xinayder »

pjc50 wrote: post #208
mstaoru wrote: post #190

I don't know if this EU regulation will work or not (most likely not), but I can share how it is done in China (where package volume is orders of magnitude higher). China identifies "choke points" most packages pass: large platforms and logistics companies. Yes, Chinese e-commerce is more centralized on Alibaba/JD/PDD etc, but there are actually much more logistics companies in China than in EU. They also do not intr…

Per downthread, this whole crisis arises because of Chinese companies shipping to Europe. The EU Directives are definitely visible in advance, none of this is dropped on people.

Even then, being allowed to ship and package in Germany may as well be valid for other EU countries? I mean, you register in a single country (ideally where your business is) and then the other countries can just accept your packaging bureaucracy?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#384

Post by iknowstuff »

logseman wrote: post #254
rescbr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that those marketplaces got too mainstream, and the average consumer is too stupid. 10-15 years ago if you were importing stuff from China you'd know that the trade off for cheaper prices is that you'd lose your consumer laws protection and you'd be on your own. If you wanted those, then you'd go to your local retailer and pay extra.

And then everyone started doing it, which meant that your local retailer isn't in business anymore (see local high streets in many countries). The choice you had 10-15 years ago doesn't exist anymore because everyone went for the cheaper price, and now the question is where the extra goes that we used to pay to the local retailer.

What’s with those streets? Any examples?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#385

Post by seydor »

rramon wrote: post #205

They'll get adequate feedback in the next elections If this doesn't get stopped, otherwise every business and their peers will likely vote for EU critic parties which means far left or far right.

The EU executive doesn't hold general elections

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#386

Post by iknowstuff »

Yizahi wrote: post #306
philipallstar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there would no end of "EU is trampling national interests" and similar screaming To just call this "screaming" is to completely dismiss a real and huge problem. The EU is the idea that countries should fuse into economic areas, but the countries are also individual still. Of course there's a lot of friction. For example, because Greece was in the Euro, they couldn't inflate their currency to compensate for the fact…

Do you realize that your example actually counters your point? The Greece's example illustrates that a misbehaving minority shouldn't have an outsized influence on the majority, which is a correct thing to aim for, I completely agree with you on that. But the current EU arrangement actually allows minority entities to veto majority's initiatives and improvements, exactly because EU is not fully federated. 1 member co…

This is too simplistic. Most eu laws pass by simple or qualified majority.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#387

Post by iknowstuff »

nradov wrote: post #303
graemep wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could neither fix the problem with the policy tools a country with its own currency would have, nor did they have the automatic support from a central budget a region or state of a country would have.

Greece could have fixed their problems by cutting spending and collecting more taxes (not necessarily higher taxes, but actually collecting the taxes that were owed). Currency inflation was never necessary.

I think they did? At the cost of very slow recovery, which I think is the problem with austerity measures.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#388

Post by xboxnolifes »

teiferer wrote: post #357
ihateolives wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in your field"? All small businesses and solo enterpreneurs that I know who are hit by this are not "in this field". Their field is making jewelry or knitted toys or something similar. Now many are just not planning to ship EU wide just because it's too high risk for them.

> All small businesses and solo enterpreneurs that I know who are hit by this are not "in this field". Their field is making jewelry or knitted toys or something similar. Are they shipping within EU? Then they literally are in the field of shipping within the EU.

Thats a stretch of the term "field". Are they also in the field of making money and the field of working within European law?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#389

Post by Avamander »

amarcheschi wrote: post #351
mpweiher wrote: post #199

A couple of things to note: 1. The EU commission wanted a single central registry 2. It was the member states, via the Council of Ministers, that torpedoed this. 3. The EU now advises its member states to not implement/enforce this 4. Until the correction, which is on its way, can be fully enacted. So the same old same old: member states do shitty stuff and blame the EU.

I haven't followed the legislative process, where can I find that the eu wanted a single registry but the country pushed for national ones? Because i have never read it. I'm not saying it's not true, it's just that it's so hard to follow these things when one is supposed to have a life as well

You have to use the FOIA-equivalent of your member state to get access to the documents submitted to the EU by your country.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#390

Post by veeti »

pjc50 wrote: post #202
caseysoftware wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very American mindset. I've worked across both the US and EU at a variety of companies with customers, partners, etc and it's a clear pattern: - Americans are usually willing to skirt the rules and figure it out later. This comes with risk but is ideal when you're early stage, low stakes, and you couldn't follow the rules anyway. - Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book and will be shocked if you sug…

The TV license is silly but the detector van situation is bogus, at least in the present day; really they just blanket mail demand letters to every address in the database on the assumption that everyone watches TV. > Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book Again on HN, I don't think conflating Europe and all Europeans into a uniform culture works. This might be true of Germany but as you get further from Berl…

There's a famous website about it, I've been following since 2008: https://www.bbctvlicence.com/
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