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Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

nytimes.com

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Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#161

Post by geezerjay »

maeln wrote: post #124
jdminhbg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of Americans who live in the most abject poverty seen in the developed world.) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States 65 Millions is a bit exaggerated but not too far from the truth.

> 65 Millions is a bit exaggerated but not too far from the truth.

The only objective number mentioned in wikipedia's article is 43 million, but apparently that figure appears to be made up, as it is based on a single citation of an obscure and unavailable document published by an organization that calls itself Talk Poverty.

Nevertheless, even if we take that 43 million number at face value, that means that OP's exaggerated number would have an absurd margin of error of around 50%.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#162

Post by perl4ever »

gaius wrote: post #112
lurena wrote: post #78

I'll go ahead and be 'that guy' and say it: I don't want my country to become a startup nation. I don't want management methods and labor laws to be reformed, or modernized, or to mimic those in the US. I don't want corporation-friendly tax rates to be enacted. I don't want regulations to be lifted. There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of A…

move fast and break thing Especially now we are seeing what that really means: fake blood labs and the brakes on cars disabled. Do we want a world where nothing can be trusted because it was all just a fantasy to defraud gullible investors to start with? I think most people don’t want that.

I don't think it's reasonable to reject some vague concept of American style capitalism based on Theranos and Uber any more than it would be to reject "German-style" capitalism based on Dieselgate.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#163

Post by grumpydba »

pwaai wrote: post #26

I actually looked into this with the local France Business startup organization. At the time, I was young (30, I am now 31) and started learning French with hopes of trying out a alternative to Anglo culture. But reality hits hard. I don't know how I would be able to adjust from living in a multicultural and laws where minorities are protected and enforced to a republic where it is not. Once you are in France, you ar…

This is just outrageous. The republic tries to protect everybody. If you expect us to drop our wit and our views on a proper lifestyle to be more inclusive, indeed please move along. Globally we still despise politically correct as a poison to our freedom. And most of us are fine with that. Little anectode here: in IT I've worked with people of all backgrounds and never saw any issue. Young people's pride can turn them into divas...

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#164

Post by geezerjay »

emmanuel_1234 wrote: post #146
adventured wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of Americans who live in the most abject poverty seen in the developed world.) Your claim about American poverty is beligerently false. The US poverty rate is below both the French [1] and Canadian [2] poverty rates. It's also below the rates of poverty in Spain and Italy. France also has a higher rate…

I don't think this makes a lot of sense. Poverty line is defined as And in France, making less than 60% of median wage certainly doesn't make you rich, but you still get access to basic need (healthcare, even housing in some cases). I'd rather be piss-poor in France than in the US.

> Poverty line is defined as Therefore that indicator doesn't reflect poverty, it only reflects income inequality. Income inequality has absolutely no impact on your ability to meet your basic needs or even having disposable income.

Just because your neighbor can afford to buy a boat it doesn't mean you're suddenly on food stamps.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#165

Post by perl4ever »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #126
jackvalentine wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In economies where minimum entitlements are sufficient to protect workers from exploitation, unions serve no useful purpose at all They serve the purpose of making sure workers get their legal entitlements. For example, Unions right in Australia are tackling the problem of underpayment of legally mandated wages “wage theft” and have succeeded in getting a state government to adopt as policy the treatment of deliber…

>most of the reasonable criticism you could direct at them comes down to enforcement Sounds like you agree with me. In a democracy, unions are just about the least efficient way you could possibly address inadequate enforcement of labor laws. If all you want is a workers lobby group, then why do you think the best way to achieve that is with organisations that exploit people with collective bargaining agreements, and…

I have no first hand experience with unions protecting the rights of labor in the US, but I do see that nobody else is doing it while unions have receded. Forced arbitration seems like a significant problem, which is far more deserving of the visceral outrage you express towards unions.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#166

Post by mantas »

dnomad wrote: post #160
jacquesm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem with France is the employment laws. Start-ups in other countries don't have this problem to the same extent. The secondary problem is that there is a lot of capital floating around in France with 'strings attached', great to get you going, but a huge problem later on.

People like to make a big deal of France's employment laws like there are some extraordinary overwhelming problem that businesses must struggle to overcome. This is silly. France is the 5th largest economy in the world. Finding highly educated, hard-working engineers is straightforwards thanks to the coordination between the government employment agencies and the excellent universities. Just like in America or anywhe…

> And in the worst case scenario you need to fire somebody there are several agencies who will help you "transition" people out of the company

Whaaa? As a fellow european, this sounds too bizarre to be true.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#167

Post by llcoolv »

erikb wrote: post #156
IanCal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "most abject poverty seen in the developed world" needs citing.

Funny how Americans get so shocked about it, while it is quite clear to the rest of the world. Honestly when I was visiting the US the first time, I was shocked how Second World everything was. Most people live in poor areas (of course most well off Americans don't travel to these part of towns so they don't see it). Many non-chain shops are struggling. Food prices are ridiculously high in comparison to the not that…

[flagged]

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#168

Post by perl4ever »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #132
geezerjay wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes because that’s how laws work Again, you clearly have no idea about what you're talking about. It's quite obvious that a law means nothing if you have no way to enforce it or if there are serious repercussions if you try. The moment a lone employee acting alone creates a problem for his immediate supervisors or higher ups, he singles himself out as a target. In jurisdictions that follow an at-will employment doc…

How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation? It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor.

I have always assumed that, since lawsuits and whistleblowing leave public records, that employers can and do blackball employees who cause trouble. Or worse in some cases.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#169

Post by AmericanChopper »

geezerjay wrote: post #153
AmericanChopper wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation? It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor.

> How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation? That's not what I said at all. Please don't attribute to me a claim I never made. > It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor. Again, you…

That is exactly what you have said, you keep trying to imply that the only way for an employ the address labor abuse is to complain to their management. This is in outright lie. There are entire government agencies devoted to enforcing labor abuse, and anybody can file a complaint with them at no cost at all.

In addition to that, it is also trivially easy for an employ to launch a civil suit. Any case with even an ounce of merit will attract lawyers willing to work on commission.

Even further, you have offered no justification at all for why you think unions are necessary to enforce the law, instead only resorting to the fallacious line of reasoning that it is up to employees to argue with their employers for minimum entitlements.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#170

Post by ryanx435 »

lurena wrote: post #78

I'll go ahead and be 'that guy' and say it: I don't want my country to become a startup nation. I don't want management methods and labor laws to be reformed, or modernized, or to mimic those in the US. I don't want corporation-friendly tax rates to be enacted. I don't want regulations to be lifted. There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of A…

" Many of these startups tend to produce services that are superficially useful at best or actively harmful at worst. We don't need them."

says the commenter on Hacker news, without a single ounce of irony.

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