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> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part This is by design. It’s the same all over the world. The wealthy are not going to

> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part This is by design. It’s the same all over the world. The wealthy are not going to just let you compete

bpodgursky 1mo ago
The US is wealthier, has more billionaires and has fewer of these barriers for small entrepreneurs. So no, this is not the monocausal explanation that applies equally everywhere. (YES, the US has regulatory capture, YES the wealthy attempt to use it, YES we should try to eliminate it here too, but it remains true that it is easier to run a small business in the US, while having more billionaires. There are other explanations to the differential here).
- 21asdffdsa12 1mo ago
  Agreed, europe has a culture of "stability" first. The fear of disruption and chaos is larger after two WW and it outsourced the risks of disruption to the US. Basically, use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity.
  - petcat 1mo ago
    > use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity What actually happened, and continues to happen, is that Europe and the EU became entirely dependent on US tech and other foreign industry. It wasn't just a matter of "see what works and then copy it domestically". It oursourced basically everything.
    - trinix912 1mo ago
      To be fair, it was mostly outsourced to China, at least in Slovenia with our electronics development and manufacturing (Iskra and Gorenje). US stuff has also always been more expensive in every category except software.
  - watwut 1mo ago
    Is fetishizing disruption good for USA? It did helped to create a billionaire oligarch class, but that class is literally intentionally destroying it. I mean, it may end up destroying Europe and the rest of the world too, but the US democracy seem to be their first target.
    - 21asdffdsa12 1mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil at best - organ at mid - cancer when bursting out of the role at worst
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- corford 1mo ago
  I'm not sure I agree. I find the Delaware & IRS forms and systems archaic/byzantine compared to e.g. the UK system.
  - bpodgursky 1mo ago
    Why do you deal with any of it? As a small business use Stripe Atlas or whatever.
    - corford 1mo ago
      Doesn't that kind of prove my point?
argentinian 1mo ago
Laws are voted by politicians. Do you mean that most EU politicians are puppets of EU corporations?
- yturijea 1mo ago
  That might be one reason they refuse to be open about their financial supports in their various organizations yes. it is very well known unfortunately..
- monegator 1mo ago
  It's usually US corpos that are lobbying all over the EU, it's unlikely that the EU automakers would have lobbied for their destruction
- Lutger 1mo ago
  Its not as bad as in the US I think, but yeah, most of the laws are actually (literally) written by corporations. I wouldn't call them puppets, but EU corps have an outsized influence on the outcome of the process.
  - runarberg 1mo ago
    I don‘t know about EU laws specifically, but national law in Europe is often written by lobby firms in favor of their corporate sponsors. In Iceland for example the main corporate lobby is called Viðskiptaráð, and they brag about the high percentage of laws they write passing at the parliament (in 2007 it was like 90%). I don‘t think things are much different in the rest of Europe (maybe just less obvious due to size differences).
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
  EU politicians seemed to be fairly captured by corporations generally. Less so than politicians from the countries themselves. Voting turnout for EU representatives is very low compared with voting for local officials. I think its because people know that who they vote for as their chancellor or prime minister can make a big impact on their lives. They see the EU parliament as this distant thing and don't follow it so much. EU representatives therefore don't have as much accountability and can more easily be swayed by lobbying. How else can you explain the whole chat control thing which everyone hates but still keeps getting pushed through. Like who is voting for this a-holes.
HeyLaughingBoy 1mo ago
Dunno about that. I live in the US. I can start a small business today and the only thing I'd have to do differently is file an additional form on my taxes next year. Yes, that's a simplification that doesn't apply to every situation, but it is still completely accurate.
- tengwar2 1mo ago
  That's pretty much the situation in the UK if you are a sole trader. If you set up a limited liability company, that's a separate entity and has its own tax reporting requirement, but nothing onerous. I am a sole trader, and manage a small company separately from that. One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence". I'm not sure what that is or whether it applies to all businesses, so I'm not sure what it would correspond to in the UK. Neither of my businesses needed any licences or permissions to start trading.
  - Gormo 1mo ago
    There's no standard concept of a "business license" in the US either. Generally, the corporate registration / LLC filing is all you need to start doing business as a limited liability company, and you don't need to do anything special as a sole proprietor. Sometimes state and local governments have special requirements for particular types of activity, and require registration to begin operating in a regulated field. City and county governments sometimes have a business tax that you have to pay if you're operating a facility open to the public, and may require the tax receipt to be on display on your premises.
    - corford 1mo ago
      Same with UK LLPs
  - dudul 1mo ago
    > One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence" Where have you heard about that? Because there is no concept of universal business license.
polski-g 1mo ago
Oh no. It's the mysterious "they"!
sleepyguy 1mo ago
That is the issue across the entire world. Large corporations can easily bear the cost of regulatory laws, environmental requirements, rules, and regulations. They can also go to great lengths to promote an environment that is almost nightmarish for a smaller company or entrepreneur trying to enter the game. They create barrier after barrier through their lobbying efforts. A good example is having to pay $50,000 for an inspector to come and determine whether your automatic door opens and closes properly, or to verify that your facility does not have a chimney. A friend of mine who owns a business in Niagara Falls, Canada, had to pay around $10,000 for a wind assessment to determine where chimney exhaust would go once released. He didn’t even have a chimney. They ended up having to have another inspection to verify they didn't have a chimney. Many of these environmental laws are intentionally created and applied to small businesses as well, even when the cost of meeting the requirements is greater than what the business could realistically generate in sales. The result is that large corporations can absorb these costs, while small businesses and entrepreneurs are often priced out before they even have a chance to compete.
kingleopold 1mo ago
well said. like WB said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
Aurornis 1mo ago
It is not the same all over the world. Starting a small company in the US is a breeze compared to what I’ve watched peers in the EU fight against.
- formerly_proven 1mo ago
  Interstate commerce also seems to be vastly easier inside the US in comparison to the alleged single market of the EU. The most companies seem to deal with is California-specific regulations. Meanwhile, most companies in the EU eventually opt to create a ton of subsidiaries, basically one per state, to handle all the localized duties that the EU requires.
  - kccqzy 1mo ago
    Yup the Constitution here has rightly prevented each State from adding regulations that burden interstate commerce. Sometimes that has resulted in overly broad federal oversight (CFTC versus state gaming boards) but most of the time that’s a good thing.
  - corford 1mo ago
    Not sure if you are referencing something else but in the case of VAT (sales tax) this is simply not true, see: VAT one stop shop / moss. There are also no customs duties on inter-state shipments. Employment regulations are different - if you have a lot of people working for you in another member state you'll need a branch office or subsidiary there (or you can easily outsource it via services like https://www.playroll.com/ https://www.playroll.com/)
- skylurk 1mo ago
  Back in college (USA) friends would spin up LLCs for the summer just to buy mowers or vans to do yard work. They would hire all the students who didn't get summer jobs. Those hired students would make about 3x a STEM intern makes in western europe today.
  - kccqzy 1mo ago

> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part This is by design. It’s the same all over the world. The wealthy are not going to just let you compete

bpodgursky 1mo ago

The US is wealthier, has more billionaires and has fewer of these barriers for small entrepreneurs. So no, this is not the monocausal explanation that applies equally everywhere. (YES, the US has regulatory capture, YES the wealthy attempt to use it, YES we should try to eliminate it here too, but it remains true that it is easier to run a small business in the US, while having more billionaires. There are other explanations to the differential here).

21asdffdsa12 1mo ago
Agreed, europe has a culture of "stability" first. The fear of disruption and chaos is larger after two WW and it outsourced the risks of disruption to the US. Basically, use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity.
- petcat 1mo ago
  > use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity What actually happened, and continues to happen, is that Europe and the EU became entirely dependent on US tech and other foreign industry. It wasn't just a matter of "see what works and then copy it domestically". It oursourced basically everything.
  - trinix912 1mo ago
    To be fair, it was mostly outsourced to China, at least in Slovenia with our electronics development and manufacturing (Iskra and Gorenje). US stuff has also always been more expensive in every category except software.
- watwut 1mo ago
  Is fetishizing disruption good for USA? It did helped to create a billionaire oligarch class, but that class is literally intentionally destroying it. I mean, it may end up destroying Europe and the rest of the world too, but the US democracy seem to be their first target.
  - 21asdffdsa12 1mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil at best - organ at mid - cancer when bursting out of the role at worst
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
corford 1mo ago
I'm not sure I agree. I find the Delaware & IRS forms and systems archaic/byzantine compared to e.g. the UK system.
- bpodgursky 1mo ago
  Why do you deal with any of it? As a small business use Stripe Atlas or whatever.
  - corford 1mo ago
    Doesn't that kind of prove my point?

argentinian 1mo ago

Laws are voted by politicians. Do you mean that most EU politicians are puppets of EU corporations?

yturijea 1mo ago
That might be one reason they refuse to be open about their financial supports in their various organizations yes. it is very well known unfortunately..
monegator 1mo ago
It's usually US corpos that are lobbying all over the EU, it's unlikely that the EU automakers would have lobbied for their destruction
Lutger 1mo ago
Its not as bad as in the US I think, but yeah, most of the laws are actually (literally) written by corporations. I wouldn't call them puppets, but EU corps have an outsized influence on the outcome of the process.
- runarberg 1mo ago
  I don‘t know about EU laws specifically, but national law in Europe is often written by lobby firms in favor of their corporate sponsors. In Iceland for example the main corporate lobby is called Viðskiptaráð, and they brag about the high percentage of laws they write passing at the parliament (in 2007 it was like 90%). I don‘t think things are much different in the rest of Europe (maybe just less obvious due to size differences).
Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
EU politicians seemed to be fairly captured by corporations generally. Less so than politicians from the countries themselves. Voting turnout for EU representatives is very low compared with voting for local officials. I think its because people know that who they vote for as their chancellor or prime minister can make a big impact on their lives. They see the EU parliament as this distant thing and don't follow it so much. EU representatives therefore don't have as much accountability and can more easily be swayed by lobbying. How else can you explain the whole chat control thing which everyone hates but still keeps getting pushed through. Like who is voting for this a-holes.

HeyLaughingBoy 1mo ago

Dunno about that. I live in the US. I can start a small business today and the only thing I'd have to do differently is file an additional form on my taxes next year. Yes, that's a simplification that doesn't apply to every situation, but it is still completely accurate.

tengwar2 1mo ago
That's pretty much the situation in the UK if you are a sole trader. If you set up a limited liability company, that's a separate entity and has its own tax reporting requirement, but nothing onerous. I am a sole trader, and manage a small company separately from that. One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence". I'm not sure what that is or whether it applies to all businesses, so I'm not sure what it would correspond to in the UK. Neither of my businesses needed any licences or permissions to start trading.
- Gormo 1mo ago
  There's no standard concept of a "business license" in the US either. Generally, the corporate registration / LLC filing is all you need to start doing business as a limited liability company, and you don't need to do anything special as a sole proprietor. Sometimes state and local governments have special requirements for particular types of activity, and require registration to begin operating in a regulated field. City and county governments sometimes have a business tax that you have to pay if you're operating a facility open to the public, and may require the tax receipt to be on display on your premises.
  - corford 1mo ago
    Same with UK LLPs
- dudul 1mo ago
  > One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence" Where have you heard about that? Because there is no concept of universal business license.

polski-g 1mo ago

Oh no. It's the mysterious "they"!

sleepyguy 1mo ago

That is the issue across the entire world. Large corporations can easily bear the cost of regulatory laws, environmental requirements, rules, and regulations. They can also go to great lengths to promote an environment that is almost nightmarish for a smaller company or entrepreneur trying to enter the game. They create barrier after barrier through their lobbying efforts. A good example is having to pay $50,000 for an inspector to come and determine whether your automatic door opens and closes properly, or to verify that your facility does not have a chimney. A friend of mine who owns a business in Niagara Falls, Canada, had to pay around $10,000 for a wind assessment to determine where chimney exhaust would go once released. He didn’t even have a chimney. They ended up having to have another inspection to verify they didn't have a chimney. Many of these environmental laws are intentionally created and applied to small businesses as well, even when the cost of meeting the requirements is greater than what the business could realistically generate in sales. The result is that large corporations can absorb these costs, while small businesses and entrepreneurs are often priced out before they even have a chance to compete.

kingleopold 1mo ago

well said. like WB said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Aurornis 1mo ago

It is not the same all over the world. Starting a small company in the US is a breeze compared to what I’ve watched peers in the EU fight against.

formerly_proven 1mo ago
Interstate commerce also seems to be vastly easier inside the US in comparison to the alleged single market of the EU. The most companies seem to deal with is California-specific regulations. Meanwhile, most companies in the EU eventually opt to create a ton of subsidiaries, basically one per state, to handle all the localized duties that the EU requires.
- kccqzy 1mo ago
  Yup the Constitution here has rightly prevented each State from adding regulations that burden interstate commerce. Sometimes that has resulted in overly broad federal oversight (CFTC versus state gaming boards) but most of the time that’s a good thing.
- corford 1mo ago
  Not sure if you are referencing something else but in the case of VAT (sales tax) this is simply not true, see: VAT one stop shop / moss. There are also no customs duties on inter-state shipments. Employment regulations are different - if you have a lot of people working for you in another member state you'll need a branch office or subsidiary there (or you can easily outsource it via services like https://www.playroll.com/ https://www.playroll.com/)
skylurk 1mo ago
Back in college (USA) friends would spin up LLCs for the summer just to buy mowers or vans to do yard work. They would hire all the students who didn't get summer jobs. Those hired students would make about 3x a STEM intern makes in western europe today.
- kccqzy 1mo ago