The town is no longer friendly for business

http://swombat.com/2012/2/19/friendly-for-business

by mikeleeorg • 14 years ago

135 108 14 years ago

dav-id3• 14 years ago

An absolutely massive issue I am having is getting insurance to trade with the US. As soon as insurers hear I will do 40% of my business with the US they say sorry you are too risky for us to even quote on.

I am in the retail industry selling home furnishings and although the US are more friendly (than the UK) with their duty free rate of $200 the legal system is making me consider whether I can even do business there from the UK.

It is too big of a risk to take selling physical products to the US when one legal case can take me out of business.

If anyone can recommend me a UK based insurer who will even quote on a product importer to the US I would be delighted to know.

jacquesm5• 14 years ago

Aren't you a product exporter? Your counterpart in the US would be the importer.

As a bit of a counterweight, yes, the US is 'sue happy' but being abroad typically takes a good part of the wind out of the 'I'll see you in court' attitude. It takes a lot more from the litigating party to set up a lawsuit with an overseas party, on top of that the courts in the UK are much less likely to award idiotically high damages.

As a first stop, before talking to insurers I think you should talk to a UK based lawyer that has experience defending a UK party from a US party suing them to get a good idea of the lay of the land and the likely hood of such a lawsuit.

As soon as you incorporate in the US your chances of being sued will go up enormously, and so will the cost of your defense. In the UK it will be manageable, in the US it will likely put you out of business. As one friend who runs a consumer electronics company said "The US is a very large market and we can not ignore it. But the cost of doing business there in terms of legal hassle is something that we simply pass on to the consumers in the US, which is our way of dealing with it.".

dav-id3• 14 years ago

We ship direct to customers in a way similar to how you might buy from ebay an item from a seller overseas and they will send the item. We want to make the process as easy for our customers as possible so we through our couriers will take care of all customs clearance and duties if they apply.

Our biggest advantage of not setting up in the US apart from the legal aspect is being able to avoid a lot of the taxes.

When I spoke to the insurers here they told me that should someone in the US sue us it would be in a US court and not a UK court where as you mention the damages are potentially extortionately high!

As we are a very young company our exposure to the US is low but it is something that I cant ignore as a risk. Intuitively I would agree that the likelihood of being sued is greatly reduced not being registered in the US but it is a market I would like to grow into.

I think seeking advice from a lawyer with experience with US defense is a good advice and I will do this, thanks.

wavephorm9• 14 years ago

The United States is very quickly becoming an ever more scary looking country. From the outside, it appears to be converting itself into a full-on fascist regime, hostile to insiders and outsiders alike. The walls are going up, the spy-cams and wiretapping are springing up. The SOPA/PIPA powered nation-wide firewall is being constructed. Local authorities are increasingly becoming subservient to a centralized federal authority (DHS). And it's all being fueled by propaganda politics, big businesses lobbying, and the rich. The country appears to be going completely crazy.

shareme• 14 years ago

I think you better re-read what is happening in Australia, what you describe better fits their situation than the US one.

wavephorm9• 14 years ago

This trend appears to be happening in Canada, UK, and EU simultaneously. The G8 are coordinating their authoritarian efforts in a way that is completely unprecedented. Like a lot of things the US is probably the one pushing for this on its "friends".

nextparadigms• 14 years ago

It could be, but US has much more influence on the world, and it used to be the beacon of freedom. So all this is happening in the country that was supposed to be the most free in the world. Whether it's more fascist or less fascist than other countries, that's besides the point. They are already fascist enough, and the trend is going up, not down. And the fact that this is happening, while it's still the most powerful country in the world, scares the hell out of everyone else.

Aramgutang2• 14 years ago

I's sorry, what? Can you please provide some examples of developments in Australia that in any way match what the parent was describing? Or have you been misled to believe that our Internet is filtered in any way?

Australia has the sanest political climate of any developed country I've lived in, in large part thanks to compulsory and preferential (ranked) voting. Sure there's things like the manufactured boogeyman of "boat people", the lingering spectre of racism, and increasingly vocal tea-party-like factions, but not nearly to the same extent as in the US, UK, or even Canada.

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

I particularly enjoyed the all-male congressional panel on the morality of contraception they had the other day. One woman tried to testify but was deemed "unqualified." Well played.

Also, who else is looking forward to the war with Iran? I hear it's going to be in HD this time.

gph• 14 years ago

Only HD? Damn, I thought I'd get some good use out of my 3D flatscreen.

wyclif2• 14 years ago

Well, the only Presidential candidate in the US who isn't down with the Patriot Act and its provisions, and doesn't believe the US should be engaged in worldwide wars (aka "police actions"), is routinely dismissed as "crazy" by both major parties. Tells you a lot about the USA.

meric• 14 years ago

You better enjoy it when it happens. The Iraq war cost $6300 per citizen.

wyclif2• 14 years ago

The walls are going up, the spy-cams and wiretapping are springing up

You mean like England, the land of ubiquitous CCTV?

regularfry• 14 years ago

The US is supposed to be a shining beacon of hope. I'm not quite sure what the UK is supposed to be.

davidw4• 14 years ago

Can we discuss the deteriorating situation in the US like adults and not sputter out epithets like "fascist regime"?

Have a look at what's happening in Syria to see what a real dictatorship is like.

wavephorm9• 14 years ago

fas·cism/ˈfaSHizəm/ Noun:

  An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of
  government and social organization.
  (in general use) Extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or 
  intolerant views or practice.

re·gime/riˈZHēm/ Noun:

  A government, esp. an authoritarian one.
  A system or planned way of doing things, esp. one imposed from above.

I don't think you can get a more succinct description of what's happening to the United States.

mindcrime3• 14 years ago

Can we discuss the deteriorating situation in the US like adults and not sputter out epithets like "fascist regime"?

Discussing US politics "as adults" means being willing to accept and confront difficult truths... such as the fact that our system is drifting precariously close to what can be best described as "fascist." Placing our hands over our eyes, sticking our fingers in our ears, and pretending that we don't see and hear what is actually happening is to abdicate our responsibility to behave as adults.

neilk3• 14 years ago

The Hobson's Choice blog argues that America is heading towards what he calls a "Falangist" state. This is the kind of government often seen in Latin America or Africa in the 20th Century. Falangism does not regiment society like fascism. It's a loose coalition of business, religious, and government elites, all of them corrupt and often working at cross-purposes.

Falangist regimes usually have grandiose rhetoric, but unlike fascist states their main enemy is their own breathtaking mediocrity.

--http://www.jamesrmaclean.com/archives/archive_fascism_falang...

Simon Johnson, formerly of the IMF, argues the USA has problems similar to an emerging market in crisis, because the government is unable or unwilling to get tough on its elites, particularly finance.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quie...

However, we've never seen a state like this that has the wealth, power, and technology of the USA. Americans are inventive people and I have no doubt we will be adding another -ist word to our vocabulary after all of this is done.

J3L240410• 14 years ago

> full-on fascist regime.

This why you can't judge the world by watching TV. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. Europeans should know better than to throw around the word fascist. I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.

jacquesm5• 14 years ago

> It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense.

> I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.

Indeed. Pot, meet kettle.

nirvana3• 14 years ago

"This why you can't judge the world by reading pamphlets. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. White Rose should know better than to throw around the word "evil." I am so sick of whining White Rose that I would almost support stalling the German economy just to drive the White Rose into a ditch."

jbjohns3• 14 years ago

>It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense.

And nothing seems to make that happen faster than nationalism/patriotism.

a_a_r_o_n• 14 years ago

"My servers are in Germany."

The author's granttree is at .co.uk, but woobius is at .com. My understanding is that the US claims domain over anything serving .com and .org, and that first world countries (do we say that anymore?) will roll over for the US on domain issues.

skrebbel2• 14 years ago

The .com doesn't make random US agencies able to look what's on the servers. Worst case scenario, they could block the domain. Quite a difference, I'd say.

This is my reason for never deploying an app on anything that runs on e.g. AWS (thus incl anything on Heroku). It's like personally, directly, with no notification and no warranty, selling out your users to the NSA.

swombat2• 14 years ago

You can get AWS on european servers, and iirc that falls under digital safe harbour laws, so the US govt can't get access to it.

rmc2• 14 years ago

(do we say that anymore?)

No, we say "developed countries"

swombat2• 14 years ago

I'm not managing the woobius.com domain anymore at this point. swombat.com itself is a dot-com, for sure, and so it is vulnerable to ICE-like shutdown, but not to the level that a GoDaddy domain would be.

colbyh• 14 years ago

Domain issues aside, Germany's own privacy laws (at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the US) are just as likely to cause anti-business sentiment. I would hate to build a product that collects user data on German servers.

A decent comparison can be found here: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html#privacy

neilk3• 14 years ago

SOPA claimed dominion over any domain served with an ARIN-allocated IP address. So that also includes .ca (Canada) and Caribbean domains.

If I had a time machine, after I killed Hitler, I'd go back and fix DNS so it didn't map to geography or institutional type. There is just no reason for it.

maeon3• 14 years ago

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Ffeature%...

powertower2• 14 years ago

I live in the US.

I don't know a single person that's in prison.

I don't know a single person that's been charged as a terrorist.

I don't know a single person whose business has been adversely affected by the government (such as the above).

Seriously!

But they keep telling me that it's happening all around me. They tell me it's a fascist police state.

ht_th2• 14 years ago

It could be also a form of social segregation you're experiencing. For example, people charged with terrorism acts nowadays are found mainly in extremist religious circles and extremist right wing anti-government circles. (In the 1960s/1970s it would be extremist left-youth and extremist black-emancipation circles) The background of people in prison is often a weak economical-social position coupled with bad childhood experiences or psychological problems. If you do not grow up in these social circles (or you've been out of them for a long time) you just won't interact with people in prison or that are charged as terrorist.

That does not mean that these reports aren't exaggerated -- I often wonder about the agenda of these journalists/news outlets--, but it does neither mean you're anecdotal experience is un-biased in measuring the situation.

powertower2• 14 years ago

Where's the evidence that what happened to JotForms was a malicious act designed to shut them down? From what has been made public, it was most likely a blunder. Mistakes and oversights happen.

> I often wonder about the agenda of these journalists/news outlets

Headlines sell.

> That does not mean that these reports aren't exaggerated.

Out of the 300 million people living here in the US, half on the edge, I'd say if the sentiment you're trying to protect was even remotely true, every other person would know someone that's been affected by the police state.

> but it does neither mean you're anecdotal experience is un-biased in measuring the situation.

If my lack of terrorist friends makes me anecdotal, then you've already formed a seriously biased view of the US.

F_J_H• 14 years ago

As far as I know, I don't personally know anyone who:

- has AIDS or is HIV+

- is being restricted from enjoying a freedom due to religious dogma

- who has been a rape victim

- who has been bullied in school for being gay

- who has been discriminated against because of their race

- who has been abused as a child

However, I have no doubt whatsoever that there are many, many people out there (even in my city), who have suffered in one of these ways. And I'm grateful that there are those who support causes even when they don't know anyone personally effected.

*Edit - typo

rythie• 14 years ago

People who have experienced the above don't tell everyone the meet about it. So, it's still possible you know people who've experienced the above, especially since many of things you list are quite common.

jacquesm5• 14 years ago

How many people do you know? Do they make up a reasonable cross-section of the US population?

mbateman• 14 years ago

We definitely do not live in a fascist police state. However, there are elements of the cultural and political scene that can be accurately described as fascist.

To put it another way, it's certainly true that it is still possible to live a happy and basically free life in the US, and many other countries. However, it's also true that unjust laws has seriously negative effects that make many people less happy and free.

These aren't contradictory. It's also possible to be basically healthy but have an illness, basically financially stable but have unexpected expenses, for a team to have good fundamental teamwork but still have some coordination problems, etc., etc.

Despite an overall good state of affairs there can be bad things that are important to consider, especially when the trajectory seems to be that things are getting worse.

pessimizer• 14 years ago

I live in the US.

I don't know a single person who works in construction.

I don't know a single poet, or truck driver.

I don't know any chemists, or anyone who has worked in a nuclear power plant.

In fact, I've never even met a dog groomer.

Seriously!

But they keep telling me that it's happening all around me. They tell me that there are people that exist that I haven't met yet, and may never meet.

mixmax• 14 years ago

I take it that you're not a black man living in a rural area, because if you were statistically 13% of your friends would be in prison.

GFKjunior• 14 years ago

Very true, but more shocking is that more than 1 in a 100 Americans are behind bars.

It actually costs more to send a person to prison for one year than tuition at Princeton!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/chart-on...

rshigeta• 14 years ago

how many people do you know? have you asked everyone you do know? i know all of these people. After 9/11 a friend and I were taking texture pictures of rusted steel on a public road near an oil refinery - its 3 blocks off a major metro interstate and they offered to put us in prison.

I just think you don't get out much.

trustfundbaby• 14 years ago

Just to confirm. Are you're saying that, if you don't see it ... it's not really happening?

neilk3• 14 years ago

I understand your skepticism.

But, understand that, even if the USA was a fascist state, you wouldn't notice a thing. Check out this excerpt from They Thought They Were Free. This should be required reading for every citizen of a democracy.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

That said, I think we impoverish our understanding when we label everything we don't like as fascist. There's a vast array of horrible ways to run a country. In the 20th century alone we've had all sorts of variations, from Hitler to Honecker to Pol Pot. If you ask me, Americans aren't headed towards fascism, but something more like a banana republic.

sedev2• 14 years ago

Assume that the US is a fascist state and you're one of the beneficiaries: you'd see the same thing that you're seeing now. You would also see the same thing if we assume that the US is not a fascist state. So that argument is of null import.

locusm• 14 years ago

This is knee jerk reaction bullshit. How many domains representing commercial entities are there in the States? How many have been closed down?

csomar• 14 years ago

No, it shouldn't be measured that way.You should measure the damage caused by taking these domains down, and how many comapnies went oit of business because of this.

DanielBMarkham• 14 years ago

There are some general trends that are worth noting.

The right seems to generally want to support a new military-industrial complex focused more on immigration and monitoring the population and less on building aircraft carriers. The left seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.

The left seems to generally want to support a class warfare us-versus-the-corporations narrative which seeks to make more and more laws about all companies, 10 employees or a 1000. The right seems fine with this, although they'd never openly admit it, aside from a bunch of pundits complaining, as long as they keep and energize their voter base with their issues.

The political debate itself seems to be in a spot where the trick is not to get holding the bag. Do only as much as it takes for voters not to blame you. It's much more crisis-driven than it ever has been.

These trends don't look well for conducting international business. I don't think there's any disaster coming, but I think the complex social and political systems we've created will actually become less and less stable the more we try to over-manage them.

Right now my money is on "friendly for business" but the situation is slowly and inexorably changing for the worse. So if I were a foreigner looking do do a startup, I'd probably be in the states -- and probably would not plan on staying there. (insert long discussion about qualifiers that might change that plan, such as requiring a large, trained workforce or special infrastructure issues.)

EDIT: This "instability in complex systems" I brought up is exactly illustrated in the JotForms case. The law over-allocates power to an agency, registrars bend over backward to comply with whatever the agency wants (lest they get on the shit list too.), then some pencil-pusher kills several man-years of work. Not out of malice or evilness -- just by simply not being aware of the implications of her actions. The most frustrating thing is that there are no nazis or evil political parties required here. For the most part it's just good, smart, clever, and responsible people all acting as best they can. That's the real tragedy. It's not some kind of comic book, good-guy-versus-bad-guy situation. It's a bad system created by a bad dynamic, and it looks to get even more bad as that dynamic keeps reinforcing itself.

ido• 14 years ago

    So if I were a foreigner looking do do a startup, 
    I'd probably be in the states

And how would you get there, assuming you didn't marry an American (H1-B is for employees, not startup founders, in case that was your answer)?

nahname2• 14 years ago

Can I ask why you use "right" and "left", instead of democrats and republicans?

nyar• 14 years ago

Can I ask why you assume democrats and republicans are the only two possible choices within left and right ideologies?

draggnar• 14 years ago

I wonder if the residents of Easter Island had a similar dialogue before all of the resources on the island were consumed and they started eating each other. If the dialogue is creationist vs. destructionist, what happens when there are no towns left that are friendly for business?

JumpCrisscross2• 14 years ago

An analogy for the subprime mess may be valid here - if you have 10 000 pies and I tell you there is a finger (or arsenic) in 3 of them, even though 99.9% if the pies are clean, you are liable to refuse to eat a random one.

Similarly, stating that JotForm is a one in many occurrence fails to account for how that type of regulatory uncertainty poisons the well at the margin (when one is deciding whether to avoid US jurisdiction when setting up web infrastructure).

arohner• 14 years ago

Ok. Assume for a second the author is right. Now what? Where would we go?

I recently moved from Austin, TX, to SF. Austin is a better place to live and work, in terms of business friendliness and cost, but is a significantly worse place to start a startup, due to worse investment climate, and lower critical mass of developers, customers and support group familiar with the startup culture.

Even though SF is at the leading edge of the the trends the author describes, it's still a better place to do a startup. I expect that will remain true for a while, even as things get worse.

The town is no longer friendly for business

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