France: Reluctant to reform

Mr Cohen may be a bit confused.  The success of entrepreneurship is the reward be bigger than if the business owner were employed.  For that to happen, both the entrepreneur and the employee need to be taxed in the same way.  Earnings are earnings, no matter if they come from the government, a private employer or own company.  Moreover, the effective corporate taxes need to reflect the level of service the company receives from the state it operates in.

In spite of his apparent disregard of schooling, Mr Cohen may appreciate his employees and customers have some education and are able to use his company's services due to a good infrastructure.  They sport their phones in relative security provided by les flics.  Perhaps he thinks these should be paid from other people earnings,  not mine, I am a businessman, I am a wealth and job creator, I deserve a statue, without me France would be worse than Syria.  But this is a narrow and selfish view.

I don't buy the patriotic taxation, but I believe in equality, fairness and progressiveness of taxation.  Loopholes need to be eliminated to ensure companies and individuals pay full tax.  They are free to vote for another party in the next election or leave for another country if they disagree with their government policies.

As for his relocation to SF, I wish he stays in rude health and saves for his family.  When the mist of amazement over California's low tax rates and low sales tax, as well as cheap access to capital and to a skillful, workaholic workforce dissipates, he may realize he needs medical insurance, maybe some form of savings for old age (if his business will not automatically provide him with a $30m cheque from PE), and schools are rather expensive.  He'd be indiferent to how are his employees are going to fare in net terms (substracting all these costs) but what the heck, he can fire them at will if they dare to ask for a pay rise.  Oh, it is the free, flexible labour market who fixes these details, I almost forgot...

And how come Mr Cohen is not stepping on the red carpet to London as so many economic refugees will surely do (how many months was the waiting time for one way Eurostar tickets from Paris to London?)  Hoxton is a great place to live and raise a family.

Unfortunately the pigeons have small brains.  Some of them have loud beaks.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da7c763a-2413-11e2-9509-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2B4aBGFY4