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Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

nytimes.com

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Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#31

Post by djur »

I don't see any actual evidence cited that entrepreneurs or "creatives" in particular are fleeing France. They might make up a larger percentage of the diaspora, but that's generally true of expatriates from any country.

France has about the same percentage of citizens living abroad as the US, and about a quarter as many as the UK:

France: total population ~63m, living abroad ~2m, about 2.5% US: total population ~317m, living abroad ~6m, about 1.9% UK: total population ~63m, living abroad ~6-12m, about 9.5% or more

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#32

Post by analog31 »

digitalengineer wrote: post #6

> “Generally, if you are self-made man and earn money, you are looked at with suspicion,” > there’s a deep-rooted feeling that you don’t show that you make money > It’s more like, if someone has something I can’t have, I’d rather deprive this person from having it than trying to work hard to get it myself This. A lot of people still don't understand money can me made . They see succesfull men and woman and assume the…

In my view it's reasonable to interpret "self made" as meaning that a person made money within a society that provides an elaborate economic infrastructure. I don't know what it's like in France, but here in the states, we have things like a stable currency, public support of education and research, and limitation of liability for shareholders of corporations. And of course if inheritance is involved, then the "self" is a family and not an individual.

What it's hard for people to understand is that both "stealing" and "making" are simplistic ideals, and that reality is much more complex for most of us.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#33

Post by digitalengineer »

analog31 wrote: post #32
digitalengineer wrote: post #6

> “Generally, if you are self-made man and earn money, you are looked at with suspicion,” > there’s a deep-rooted feeling that you don’t show that you make money > It’s more like, if someone has something I can’t have, I’d rather deprive this person from having it than trying to work hard to get it myself This. A lot of people still don't understand money can me made . They see succesfull men and woman and assume the…

In my view it's reasonable to interpret "self made" as meaning that a person made money within a society that provides an elaborate economic infrastructure. I don't know what it's like in France, but here in the states, we have things like a stable currency, public support of education and research, and limitation of liability for shareholders of corporations. And of course if inheritance is involved, then the "self"…

Let's not forget all those benefits were made possible by the people adding value and selling something (each in their own way, some products, others selling their craft of just their time). This adding of value was then taxed. (I'm not protesting to taxes, just showing all those benefits were made possible by the people and executed by the state).

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#34

Post by markvdb »

crusso wrote: post #30
existencebox wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to play devils advocate here, but let me apply two other possible interpretations: My statistical prior that someone with money did questionable things to obtain it has only been rising with time as I see increasing evidence of illicit business practices among the highest earners. (everything from insider trading to the more recent wage fixing). Secondly, is it reasonable to assume that one might find di…

increasing evidence of illicit business practices among the highest earners Corruption is the core problem. I think that worry about corrupt businesses is misplaced when a corrupt government is 10x worse. everything from insider trading There's a good example right there. Congress can inside trade. It's absolutely extraordinarily corrupt. They wrote a law a while back to prevent it when there was some press on it, bu…

I think that worry about corrupt businesses is misplaced when a corrupt government is 10x worse.

Worrying about private sector corruption misplaced? One shouldn't have to tolerate _any_ kind of corruption.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#35

Post by coulix »

Being from the France tech scene and now living in SF ther are several things we should not forget.

CONS

- Yes you get big taxes, and setting up a company is a pain (RSI/URSSAF), administration is slow and inefficient.

Finding fundings can be hard and investements are generaly smaller than in the US.

French market is smal unless your target is international from day 1.

But,

PROS

- You have a pool of not so pricy talented workers (Well supposing you benefit from “Credit impot recherche” otherwise the total cost of an employee is x2 his salary).

- Fight for some government subsidies (time consuming).

- Leverage the government to pay your salary while bootstrapping. For startupers with previous work experience, you can quit your company in good terms and receive unemployement paychecks for a year or so.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#36

Post by LambdaAlmighty »

coulix wrote: post #35

Being from the France tech scene and now living in SF ther are several things we should not forget. CONS - Yes you get big taxes, and setting up a company is a pain (RSI/URSSAF), administration is slow and inefficient. Finding fundings can be hard and investements are generaly smaller than in the US. French market is smal unless your target is international from day 1. But, PROS - You have a pool of not so pricy tale…

These sound like all CONS to me.

Except the last one, which is just plain disgusting.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#37

Post by LambdaAlmighty »

kybernetyk wrote: post #8

> Taxes, Frustration, More Taxes Uh, that's how I could describe my current situation in Germany. We were a little too successful last year and now the tax advance payments are endangering our liquidity. It feels as if this year I had spent more time reading about taxes and regulations than working on the business. Something is wrong when taxes become such a prominent part of your daily business life ...

My friend, remember the Government Koan and persist. You have a long way ahead of you:

If it moves, tax it.

If it keeps moving, regulate it.

If it stops moving, subsidize it.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#38

Post by mtrimpe »

kybernetyk wrote: post #8

> Taxes, Frustration, More Taxes Uh, that's how I could describe my current situation in Germany. We were a little too successful last year and now the tax advance payments are endangering our liquidity. It feels as if this year I had spent more time reading about taxes and regulations than working on the business. Something is wrong when taxes become such a prominent part of your daily business life ...

I'm not sure it's the same in Germany as in the Netherlands, but I'd recommend getting a good tax lawyer.

Our tax company generally tends to lay down strong demands (which makes sense,) but becomes very lenient when it's clear they're more likely to recover the full amount by being patient.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#39

Post by crdoconnor »

argonaut wrote: post #9
crdoconnor wrote: post #7

This is pretty clearly a knee jerk reaction by the New York Times to Hollande's wealth tax: >He had taken that job after his attempt to start a business in Marseille foundered under a pile of government regulations and a seemingly endless parade of taxes. The episode left him wary of starting any new projects in France. Yet he still hungered to be his own boss. > >“A lot of people are like, ‘Why would you ever leave…

The 75% wealth tax point was only a minor point in an article that expressed many many other points and anecdotes, and whose greater argument was that the entrepreneurial climate in France was poor. The fact that your argument focuses on this minor point in order to dismiss the whole point is rather telling about what consent is being manufactured here...

>The 75% wealth tax point was only a minor point in an article that expressed many many other points and anecdotes, and whose greater argument was that the entrepreneurial climate in France was poor.

Yes, the greater argument was that "the entrepreneurial climate is poor" because they wouldn't get very much sympathy saying "stop taxing the ultrawealthy so much. We don't like it!".

Nonetheless, it's pretty obvious what they thing the 'fix' for this supposedly poor climate of this is when you read stuff like this:

>Some wealthy businesspeople have also been packing their bags. >While entrepreneurs fret about the difficulties of getting a business off the ground, >those who have succeeded in doing so say that society stigmatizes financial success. >The election of President François Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party who >once declared, “I don’t like the rich,” did little to contradict that impression.

Or this:

>“It is a French cultural characteristic that goes back to almost the revolution and >Robespierre, where there’s a deep-rooted feeling that you don’t show that you make money,” >Ms. Segalen, the recruiter, said. “There is this sense that ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ >means that what’s yours should be mine. It’s more like, if someone has something I can’t have, >I’d rather deprive this person from having it than trying to work hard to get it myself. >That’s a very French state of mind. But it’s a race to the bottom.”

Essentially, this article is emphatically NOT about entrepreneurs, particularly not struggling entrepreneurs. It's basically a good old whinge by the French elite.

Re: Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

#40

Post by jedrek »

Silhouette wrote: post #28
nraynaud wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is quite some bullshit in this article, because the current government has not changed any law about creating a company (so we are exactly in the same state as before). Moreover it's merrily intermixing entrepreneurs problems with banking problems. And there is a little detail here: banking salaries are higher in London than in Paris and bankers are driven by money, so they emigrate massively in the pursuit of…

Moreover it's merrily intermixing entrepreneurs problems with banking problems. This is a big problem with current envy-driven politics surrounding wealth. A lot of people don't like seeing bankers with big bonuses after they trashed the economy for everyone else. They're suspicious of old money children who have inherited a fortune but seem to have contributed little of value themselves. They're envious of highly pa…

> This is a big problem with current envy-driven politics surrounding wealth.

It seems like most of the envy is more perceived by the ultra-rich (or wannabes) than actually exists...

> I like to think that if the people supporting these high rates of tax for those with some above average level of wealth realised who they were really targeting, we'd have a different attitude to taxation today.

You realize the 75% tax rate is on year income exceeding one million euro, right? One million euro is 34x the average salary in France, which means that anybody hit by that tax makes more money in less than two years than the majority of their countrymen will earn in their entire lives.

I make way more than an average salary where I live and I don't really have any problem paying higher tax rates. Sure, I work harder than lots of people who work 9-5 jobs, but I don't work any harder than friends I have who work two jobs. There is no question, in my mind, that people who work harder and take risks should reap greater potential rewards... the real question we need to answer is how much higher those rewards should be.

It's time to stop pretending that the doctor who spent years training, working as an intern, etc did it in a vacuum. It was tax francs that built the hospitals, that created the institutions that taught them and made them the best of the best. The entrepreneur sells a product shipped on roads built with taxes, over an electric grid built with taxes and might very well bill people using letters sent by mail... well, you get the idea. Not to mention the employees they hire, who were educated with what? Was it taxes? You betcha.

Besides with progressive taxes, that doctor will always make more, because progressive taxes do not penalize you for earning more. If you're making 100,000€, your after-tax income is ~62,500; if you're making 200,000€, it's ~133,000€.

> usually they are people who have reached those positions not through good fortune or family connections but through a lot of hard work over a long period of time.

You're a little delusional. France has a pretty high level of social mobility because of it's high taxes, not in spite of them. Having access to free higher education is a massive boon to lifting people out of poverty. France has the second highest birth rate in the EU due do a generous social safety net. These things cost money, but they're excellent long-term investments.

People don't exist in a vacuum, economies are wonderfully interconnected things and acting like the people who take risks and succeed are some kind of superheroes who shouldn't give back because of some deranged notion that they "did it themselves" is myopic, dishonest and, to be frank, total bullshit.

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