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a developing country will not have the miles of red tape and bureaucracy that has developed over the centuries in the US

Poor countries are poor because they have MORE red tape and bureaucracy than rich countries.

India is rated 130th in Ease of Doing Business Index, and 185th specifically in dealing with construction permits.

The United States ranks 8th in doing business overall and 39th for dealing with construction permits, for example.

Is there another kind? I mean, outside the classroom?

Of course. It is too bad, the US is slowly sliding down on the ease of doing business measures. It was not always that way, and it can get better again. One hopes...

Books are just a symptom of the underlying problems in Uganda. Considering the country's ranking on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index (near the bottom on several important factors), an average person getting books at a reasonable price is just one of many issues plaguing this country: http://www.doingbusiness.org/r... I don't think Amazon on-demand access is at the top of their long-term solutions list...

You can tax too much - and you can tax too little. Taxation of zero ends up without enough infrastructure to support multi-national corporations. Check out the Laffer Curve; perhaps most of those big countries are too high? Especially for the US. Not only do we have the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the developed world, and the second highest effective corporate tax rate in the world. I surmise if the US corporate tax rate was down around the OECD average, you'd have a lot less offshoring of profits and operations.

The issue is that business people are still "the enemy" in Spain. See Start a business in Spain: mission impossible?. There is the difficulty of legally starting a company, employment regulations (25% night pay, 22 weeks paid vacation, weird "labor contract" rules, 3 weeks severance pay for someone even if you lay them off after one year), high business taxes. Then there is the difficulty of getting any credit, and it takes nearly two years to enforce a contract through the courts.

On the other hand, there are new labor reforms going into place in Spain that may reduce the burden on employers, good info here on entrepreneurism in Spain.

Also the only first world nation with a brain drain, of more educated people leaving than arriving, mostly because of lack of opportunity in a corrupt and over regulated economy. In the ease of doing business rankings, Italy is below Mexico and Colombia, and only a few notches above Russia.

This. It's sad to watch Italy going down the drains, although I am lucky I am beyond it's northern border.

The Western European champion for having the largest part of GDP as undeclared "underground" economy.

Also the only first world nation with a brain drain, of more educated people leaving than arriving, mostly because of lack of opportunity in a corrupt and over regulated economy. In the ease of doing business rankings, Italy is below Mexico and Colombia, and only a few notches above Russia.

So regulation is required to facilitate a healthy market.

But in Greece, too much regulation has destroyed the economy. The World Bank Doing Business Index had Greece's "distance to frontier" (a measure of 0-100 where 100 is scored by the countries easiest to do business in) was 62.0 (compare with the US at 85, or Azerbaijan at 62.8). This measure is not just about tax rates, but more about the bureaucracy required to run a business. Even high-tax countries like Norway and Sweden scored in the 80's.

The Heritage Index of Economic Freedom scores Greece at 55.4, behind Senegal at 55.5. Again, Norway, Sweden, and the US score in the 70's.

Here is some text from the Economic Freedom index regarding Greece:

The process for launching a company is fairly streamlined, but licensing requirements remain burdensome and time-consuming. With rigid restrictions on work hours and high non-salary costs to employ a worker, the labor market remains stagnant...The judicial framework is weak, and the rule of law has deteriorated. Protection of property rights is not strongly enforced. The law provides severe penalties for bribery, but enforcement remains lax. A high level of perceived corruption in the public sector and rampant tax evasion in the private sector contribute significantly to Greece's current economic and financial predicament.

A great anecdote about doing business in Athens can be found here:

A friend and I met up at a new bookstore and cafe in the centre of town, which has only been open for a month. The establishment is in the center of an area filled with bars, and the owner decided the neighborhood could use a place for people to convene and talk without having to drink alcohol and listen to loud music. After we sat down, we asked the waitress for a coffee. She thanked us for our order and immediately turned and walked out the front door. My friend explained that the owner of the bookstore/cafe couldn't get a license to provide coffee. She had tried to just buy a coffee machine and give the coffee away for free, thinking that lingering patrons would boost book sales. However, giving away coffee was illegal as well. Instead, the owner had to strike a deal with a bar across the street, whereby they make the coffee and the waitress spends all day shuttling between the bar and the bookstore/cafe. My friend also explained to me that books could not be purchased at the bookstore, as it was after 18h and it is illegal to sell books in Greece beyond that hour. I was in a bookstore/cafe that could neither sell books nor make coffee.

He can chide all he wants. Given that Russia is one of the most protectionist states on earth it's hard to have sympathy.

I worked for a British engineering firm a few years back and getting anything into Russia was hell. They'd stall our shipments of equipment at port for months and months preventing us getting paid, then sometimes let it through, and other times just refuse it, and sometimes even seize (steal) it.

So you'll have to excuse me if I can't help but feel it's getting it's just desserts here. Maybe if Putin thinks it's a problem he should looking at tidying his own backyard up first given that he's grand dictator of that nation and can do what he wants and has done for many years, which also implies that if it's difficult to do trade with Russia that he's also responsible for it being that way.

To put numbers on it, Russia ranks 162nd out of 185 in terms of ease of trading across borders, and is the 112th worst country in the world in terms of ease of doing business:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

Even China is an absolutely breeze for doing business with compared to Russia. Honestly, we should do more of this until it's as difficult for Russia to trade with the West, as it is the West to trade with Russia, maybe then Putin will wake up to the stupidity of it, but much of Europe is dependent on his oil and gas, so we don't.

Either way, he can't whinge when this sort of thing bites him on the ass given that it's exactly what he does to most other countries in the world that try to trade in his backyard.

Having lived in Brazil for nearly two decades, I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a good place to live or work.

It is one of the more difficult country to do business (126th place), high in the Perceived Corruption Index (75th place), and the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are the twelfth and thirteenth most expensive cities in the world for ex-pats to live (and the two most expensive cities in north and south america).

If you plan on using the internet at all, don't forget that Brazil is the world champion in content removal requests for Google and YouTube content. Just last week, a judge to order the blocking of Facebook in all of Brazil for 24 hours (although that order has been rescinded at the moment).

I love living in Brazil - I really do - but I would not consider it anything like the developed world, such as Australia or New Zealand if you want to start a business or do some serious work.

But how is this possible, Mexico has such light regulation, it should surely be a utopian land of opportunity devoid of sprawling slums!?

I think I see the logic here. Mexico is a disaster, hence, it must be a libertarian paradise!

It's interesting to compare the costs of various sorts of business transactions such as the World Bank has done (I gather they looked at a sample of businesses to get appropriate figures). Mexico fares much worse than its neighor, the United States.

For example, it takes about 6 days and an average of $675 to start a business in the US versus 8-10 days and a bit over $1000 (at current exchange rate) for the Mexico business (the purchasing power parity seems to be 1.3 to 1.4 for Mexico relative to the US (since the US is a more expensive place to be), giving an effective cost of around $1300-1400).

A particularly bad example is registering property. Takes 12 days on average to do it in the US. No less than 45 days (and as long as 105 days!) to do it in Mexico. Cost in the US is almost $10k plus 0.4% of the value of the property. In Mexico, it's $24,169 at current exchange rate. The property has to be worth more than roughly $3.5 million before the US rates exceed the Mexican ones in absolute cost.

Doing taxes for a business is easier and cheaper in the US. It's averages about 187 hours of work to fill out the paperwork versus Mexico's 347 hours. Profit taken in taxes is a bit less in the US at almost 47% (interestingly, a considerable portion is New York state-specific taxes, which I gather is averaged over all businesses, not just the NY-based ones) versus almost 53% in Mexico plus a VAT which gets paid by the buyer not the business.

Enforcing contracts via the court is another interesting measure. It takes roughly 300 days in the US versus 415 days in Mexico to file a successful court case with most of the delay in the enforcement of the court's decision (90 days versus 183 days). The cost of the court case is another factor. Court-related payments are 14% of the US claims, but 32% of the Mexico claims.

In other words, we see that this "light regulation" in Mexico results in greater cost and delay than the regulation of the US.

But how is this possible, Mexico has such light regulation, it should surely be a utopian land of opportunity devoid of sprawling slums!?

I think I see the logic here. Mexico is a disaster, hence, it must be a libertarian paradise!

It's interesting to compare the costs of various sorts of business transactions such as the World Bank has done (I gather they looked at a sample of businesses to get appropriate figures). Mexico fares much worse than its neighor, the United States.

For example, it takes about 6 days and an average of $675 to start a business in the US versus 8-10 days and a bit over $1000 (at current exchange rate) for the Mexico business (the purchasing power parity seems to be 1.3 to 1.4 for Mexico relative to the US (since the US is a more expensive place to be), giving an effective cost of around $1300-1400).

A particularly bad example is registering property. Takes 12 days on average to do it in the US. No less than 45 days (and as long as 105 days!) to do it in Mexico. Cost in the US is almost $10k plus 0.4% of the value of the property. In Mexico, it's $24,169 at current exchange rate. The property has to be worth more than roughly $3.5 million before the US rates exceed the Mexican ones in absolute cost.

Doing taxes for a business is easier and cheaper in the US. It's averages about 187 hours of work to fill out the paperwork versus Mexico's 347 hours. Profit taken in taxes is a bit less in the US at almost 47% (interestingly, a considerable portion is New York state-specific taxes, which I gather is averaged over all businesses, not just the NY-based ones) versus almost 53% in Mexico plus a VAT which gets paid by the buyer not the business.

Enforcing contracts via the court is another interesting measure. It takes roughly 300 days in the US versus 415 days in Mexico to file a successful court case with most of the delay in the enforcement of the court's decision (90 days versus 183 days). The cost of the court case is another factor. Court-related payments are 14% of the US claims, but 32% of the Mexico claims.

In other words, we see that this "light regulation" in Mexico results in greater cost and delay than the regulation of the US.

Former USSR republics are relatively free from corruption and prospering rapidly http://doingbusiness.org/rankings

Georgia - 12,
Estonia - 17,
Lithuania - 23
Latvia - 24,
Kyrgyzstan - 44,
Armenia - 48,
Azerbaijan - 54,
Kazakhstan - 59,
Belarus - 68,
Moldova - 90,
Russia - 123,
.
.
INDIA - 134 (China 79)
.
Tajikistan - 139,
Ukraine - 145,
Uzbekistan - 150.

I live in Brazil and you can't even begin an auto repairshop with this money here

Moreover, doing business in Brazil is tough. To register a company takes an average of 120 days and a cost of 6.9% of income per capita. Construction permits average 411 days and 50% of income per capita. Fixed-term employee contracts are prohibited for permanent tasks. Required paid annual vacation for an employee with 20 years of service is 26 working days. The notice period for redundancy dismissal after 20 years of continuous employment is 4.3 weeks, redundancy pay would be 33.3 weeks of pay, and the penalty for redundancy dismissal is 8.3 weeks of pay.

In Mexico, it is easier to start a company than in Brazil, but the restrictions on firing workers is much tougher.

In the US, there are almost no regulations on hiring or firing workers (as long as you are non-discriminatory). I hope the rest of the world doesn't boycott us until we get their level of labor regulations!

Pakistan (85) is a better nation to do business than India (133)
http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/

Georgia is #11 in the "Ease of Doing Business Index", and generally has very lax economic regulation across the board. There have been some sweeping social and political reforms since 2004, and the guys at helm are die-hard economic liberals, with all that implies - very little bureaucracy, and tendency of government to keep its nose out of business affairs for as long as all taxes are paid.

I'd say that, if you're looking for a libertarian paradise, it's one of the places closest to that. How long that will last is a good question, though - there have been some claims recently that Georgian economic growth has all signs of an investment bubble, and it's about to burst.

I'm also pretty sure the US does not have "the world's least strict labor regulations."

According to the Employing Workers section of the World Bank's "Doing Business" Report, the only the USA and the Marshall Islands have all zeros in all the indexes: Difficulty of hiring, Rigidity of hours, Difficulty of redundancy, Rigidity of employment, and Redundancy costs (weeks of salary).

There are places in Africa where slavery is still practiced;

And probably in the US as well, but slavery is illegal in all the world's countries.

Indeed, many of the labor regulations in developing countries are not followed in the informal sector, so informal sector "companies" must avoid growing to a size where they may be found out and prosecuted (or they must give bribes), reducing the returns on scale and leading to severe inefficiencies in the economy. In some developing countries, the informal sector is 50% of the labor force.

The US has a large informal sector of illegal immigrants as well.

If not, you need to educate yourself. This is simple, just Google the words "Jizya" and "Dhimmi"....we need to fight these people.

Before my fellow Republicans get too wrapped up in the Holy War, check this out... the total tax bill on corporate profits in the UAE, or United Arab Emirates, is 14%. This is compared to 40% for the USA.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreTopics/PayingTaxes/?direction=Asc&sort=7

Notice too, that the USA only has a 2% lower tax rate than Iran, and that's before Obama / Pelosi tax increases kick in.

So... I mean, I guess you have to decide... are you a Republican, or not? If you are a genuine anti-tax Republican, Shariah is a lot more appealing than liberalism, for sure.

I mean, for a tax cut of 1/3 of what I'm paying now, I don't necessarily want to rule out growing a beard and facing Mecca. Beats the shit out of worshipping every damned cricket and insect that the liberals would have us do.

Your way of thinking is unclear and employs the untenable American dichotomy of less taxes = better government.

While I'm moving to Socialist Europe (those commies in Denmark will LOVE me), you move to the low-tax-rate Mexico. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg Hmmm. It seems Mexico's a bad place to do business. http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/

While I'm in Denmark where the Socialists have one of most business friendly climates in the world. Shocking isn't it.

NY has one of the largest education budgets on a per student level in the nation (over 20,000 per student in my area), and the education our children get has not justified the cost.

So, cut the budget in half. Go ahead. Will students be MORE qualified after the budget cut? Maybe you'd like to fund schools as little as they do in Tennessee? http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Z89OYuyGr5cJ:www.jobseducationwis.org/263A%2520Education%2520Week%2520Quality%2520Counts%25202005.doc+educational+achievement+ranking+by+state&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Whining about taxes and big budgets and doing nothing about it is is a favored pastime of the well-off and stable countries worldwide.

Move your bottom-of-the-barrel magical thinking to Mexico. I'd be happy to hear how that works out for you... Oh, wait. It won't.

How about building an argument on facts first?

Wanna know why they are poor:

http://www.transparency.org/

http://www.doingbusiness.org/

Taxes--we all pay our part. I'm not quite an insane libertarian, but the roadbuilders are not volunteering their time for me. Teachers are not selflessly volunteering to teach me. Doctors, private industry, etc are DEFINITELY not leaping at the chance to volunteer for me.

My point is only that even if you pay taxes and so on, there was a lot of capital, public and private, around before you started working, which was built up by earlier generations. You're benefiting from their efforts, both through the public sector and the private sector. The welfare state is just one of many ways of doing this.

The Nordic states are a good bit different in part because of their small populations and enormous wealth through oil--if anyone is the model for a succesful social state, it's them, though from reading a large number of blogs, it seems to me as if recent immigrant surges have shown some cracks in the social welfare state.

That isn't quite right. Norway's oil wealth is very high, but this is not the norm in the Nordic countries. Denmark's has some small oil reserves, but there is essentually no oil in Sweden, and Sweden is largest of the Nordic countries.

You're right that some immigrant groups are putting pressure on the welfare states. This is to me an argument against allowing immigration from these countries, not an argument against the welfare state.

Data on this? I can't say for sure about social mobility in the Nordic states--which as I mentioned earlier due to small populations, largely homogenous popluations, and great oil wealth are largely unique beasts--but I've always read that when comparing France, Germany, UK, etc thatn social mobility is far higher in the US. I would be glad to look at any studies though.

One study I've read was done by researchers at the London School of Economics. It suggests that social mobility is far higher in the Nordic countries and Canada than in the USA or the UK, and that mobility in the UK has declined in recent decades, although it is still not quite as low as in the USA. (West) Germany was also included, with a level of mobility higher than the USA or UK, but not as high as in the Nordic countries or Canada. However, the German sample size was too small to draw conclusions.

A major reason for the differences in mobility seems to be education. In the USA and UK, educational opportunities are linked to the wealth of parents, and so those from poor backgrounds are less able to make use of their full potential. I don't know how the education system in Canada works, but the Nordic model includes both free education and subsidies to students, and not just poor students, to cover the cost of living. This means anyone can be educated to the limits of their ability.

I would argue that the less the government drags you down and punishes success, the greater the motivation and the greater the chance for ability to shine through. There's a reason for startups being so huge here! My grandparents were factory workers their entire lives. My dad--somehow without going begging to the government--was able to get ahead--and now look at me, here on slashdot.

I think you can separate the welfare state from state attempts to regulate and manage the economy. An analysis by the World Bank lists the top 30 countries for doing business, and all the Nordic countries are in the top 15. Norway is number 5, Denmark 8, Iceland 12, Finland 13 and Sweden 14. This isn't as high as the USA, number 3, but it's higher than most countries in Europe. The UK was number 9, Germany number 19 and neither France nor Italy was in the top 30.

If you look at unemployment, it's 2.7% in Norway, 3.9% in Denmark and 4.6% in Sweden. Taxes in Sweden and Denmark are the hig

Check out this link.
http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/
Places 7, 9 and 13. Cant be many capitalist countries if the "socialist" ones are so pro-business. ;)

Interesting link. And it led to this link, which I'll use to preempt the "Swedish are Tax Commies" talk that's sure to ensue.

The effective tax that a medium size company in the United States must pay or withhold within a year is shown below. Entrepreneurs there must make 10 payments, spend 325 hours, and pay 45.96% of gross profit in taxes." (To wit, not that much less than in Sweden, which provides better public services.)

BTW, I mentioned I was a corporate CEO. Here is how I became one. I filled out articles of incorporation, sent them into my state government with a small fee, and a week later I was a corporate CEO.

According to the Doing Business site, in the U.S., entrepreneurs can expect to go through 5 steps to launch a business over 5 days on average, at a cost equal to 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) per capita. There is no minimum deposit requirement to obtain a business registration number.

In Portugal, entrepreneurs can expect to go through 11 steps to launch a business over 54 days on average, at a cost equal to 13.4% of gross national income (GNI) per capita. They must deposit at least 39.4% of GNI per capita in a bank to obtain a business registration number.

In the U.S., the Rigidity of Employment Index is 3. I can hire or fire pretty much anyone whenever I want to with or without cause (only discrimination on race, sex, old age, and veteran status is prohibitied).

In Portugal, the Rigidity of Employment Index is 58. There are significant restrictions on hiring and firing.

In the U.S., it takes 4 steps and 12 days for a business to register property. The cost to register property there is 0.5% of overall property value.

In Portugal, it takes 5 steps and 83 days for a business to register property. The cost to register property there is 7.4% of overall property value.

All this adds up...regulation by regulation.