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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

#571

Post by Grombobulous »

marc wrote: post #562
TacticalCoder wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain also smashes foreigners owning a property in Spain. They see tourists and foreigners (even if they're from the EU) as a gigantic target to squeeze and screw as hard as they can. That's what you get when your economy is based on tourism and rich foreigners owning property there: you have to squeeze those hard for it's basically all you have. Officially tourism is "only" about 15% of the GDP but Spain is a servic…

> “Spain also smashes foreigners owning a property in Spain.” In which way?

Usually when people say stuff like this it translates to “the tax rate is slightly higher than [insert less desirable location here]” or "my marginal tax rate seems really high since I have a very high income"

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#572

Post by reillyse »

svobodamartin wrote: post #566
reillyse wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little hysterical no? Everywhere has their problems, I think Europe is doing fine. Where do you think is a model society ?

Its a frustration and seeing things, that cant be unseen, speaking.. I don't know where model is, but what would be ideal: valuing own history, values, societies over not own, being strong outwardly and soft inwardly/on own people (not vice versa as is now), being practical and forward thinking over posing as a "leader in regulation" with suppressing everything meaningful hangover. There are tons of examples of strat…

What country in Europe are you referring to? Your objections seem to be quite broad and lack focus but seem to be alluding to the specific. Give me an example of what you mean?

I think leadership is hard. I’m not sure I buy the idea that a group of countries should be “hard” on anyone.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#573

Post by fleroviumna »

gmueckl wrote: post #227
carlosjobim wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I hate it when politicians are useless and incompetent, since it just validates the false populist propaganda that politicians can be useless and incompetent, which is clearly not true (even in cases when politicians actually are useless and incompetent, which they of course cannot be, since that is evil propaganda).

Politicians can be quite evil, but in a functioning democracy they need to be at least competent at gathering support and navigating the occasional backstabbing plots to make it to the highest ranks of government. So I'm hesitant to call them totally incompetent.

[dead]

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#574

Post by avereveard »

not all regulation is bad regulation. micro packaging is waste, and waste is an issue in europe. the problem stem when you get conglomerate unfairly competing from deregulated countries, applying maximum legal optimization to skirt regulations that smaller player cannot evade. THAT is the problem to fix.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#575

Post by flaunf221 »

drnick1 wrote: post #533
WarmWash wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations The politicians are protecting the working class from corporations destroying society for profit. Lets not kid ourselves that the EU isn't endlessly praised for "having a backbone". Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The thing is that people generally don't understand that everyth…

> Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The same "protections" also means that the E.U. has no major AI player at all. It seems like all the E.U. can do is tax and regulate what is invented and produced elsewhere.

> has no major AI player at all

So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? Or is it coming along with AGI which is why it should be the most important to every citizen? Or maybe EU citizens should all band together and stop being lazy and go to having 0 mandatory vacation days?

Reminds of me very old USSR joke which was basically "we have rockets in space, and don't have sausages in stores".

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#576

Post by eptcyka »

rwyinuse wrote: post #507
danielovichdk wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be much higher. The amount of shit that gets shipped from China to Europe (world) is fucking ludicrous, and people should be taxed heavily for the stupid shit they often don't need.

Unfortunately, if you want to fix electronics more often than not China is the only place you can buy spare parts. I don't think buying spare parts to devices counts as "stupid shit".

If you were to interpret the comment you’re responding to charitably, you’d understand that electronics components are a minuscule minority of all of Chinese exports.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#577

Post by cm2012 »

runarberg wrote: post #154
charlieyu1 wrote: post #121

Is it actually a bad thing? From Asia I definitely see so much shady business practices from small businesses. Customer protection is non-existent. Keeping small businesses in drive prices down, but also drive wages down. I don’t think this is a compromise that many people would be happy with.

I am from Europe and I think this complaint is misplaced. Europe is currently speeding towards neo-liberalism at lightspeed and shows no sign of slowing down. The beneficiaries are primarily the CEOs and big corporations. The workers are certainly not the ones benefiting from the status quo, especially if you look at the stripping down of consumer protection which is starting to look like completely absent in the con…

Is europe liberalizing its labor laws at light speed?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#578

Post by worik »

cm2012 wrote: post #448
schubidubiduba wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comforting to believe that actual voters have that kind of political influence over these things, but really it's about a million little talls, primarily driven by lobbyists commanded by big companies

You are about 20 years out of date. Modern politicians get almost all of their funding from small donations, in other words, from passionate partisans who care about culture war issues.

I find that difficult to believe, having been involved in political campaigning (not in EU or USA).

Have you evidence?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#579

Post by anigbrowl »

petra wrote: post #392
bambax wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I used to sell objects on Amazon in Europe. You can sell from just one country, but then each sale outside of that country is an "export" that triggers high fees. For sales to be "local", products need to be stored in warehouses in each country. But that in turn means the owner of said products (the seller) has to be registered for VAT in that country, and submitting annual reports in each country's language. I…

Let's say I'm a German small business owner. Tomorrow Europe becomes a single market. How do I compete with a similar business but from a country where business costs are significantly lower ?

You boast about the superior quality of german manufacturing. Or move your manufacturing to eastern Germany where costs are lower.
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