Conservative Daily

The Socialist Left just got whacked in the French elections.

One of France's biggest problems is its business-hostile economy...

Overcome By Government Bureaucracy and Heavy Taxes, Entrepreneurs Fleeing France


By Caroline Schaeffer 17 hours ago



The New York Times featured an article Saturday about the mass exodus of aspiring start-ups from the country of France titled Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs. According to the article, around 1.6 million of France’s 63 million citizens live outside of the country. That represents a 60% increase since 2000.
The story follows Guillame Santacruz who moved to London to escape France’s massive bureaucracy and heavy tax burdens. Santacruz is working on an Airbnb-style business called Zipcube, which rents office space online. But after his initial attempt to build the company “foundered under a pile of government regulations and a seemingly endless parade of taxes,” he left the country.
A one-month wait for a license turned into three months, then six. They tried simplifying the corporate structure but were stymied by regulatory hurdles. Hiring was delayed, partly because of social taxes that companies pay on salaries. In France, the share of nonwage costs for employers to fund unemployment benefits, education, health care and pensions is more than 33 percent.
And it’s not just the bureaucracy that’s to blame for the rising numbers of people leaving France. French actor Gerard Depardieu famously moved from France to Russia last year to get away from the 75% tax burden on millionaires. And he’s not alone.
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 Francois Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party who once declared, ‘I don’t like the rich,’ did little contradict that impression.
Sound familiar? It was two years ago that President Obama told America that if you owned a business, you didn’t build that. For awhile, the Occupy Movement had much of America convinced that the top 1% of earners in America ought to be vilified.
While we can hope that it’ll never get as bad in America as it appears to be in France, we need to stop letting the Left and the media tell Americans that personal wealth is a bad thing. Democrats are ramping up efforts to take down the Koch brothers, and the family’s wealth is their prime target. We should be celebrating people like the Kochs, who employ thousands. If we continue to stifle business and denounce success, we may end up like the country of France.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/1233...leeing-france/