falsestprophet

Thanks, good to know. What are the options for banking and card processing for a HK company? Why did you choose HK?

If I was setting up a SaaS company outside of the US, I'd be concerned with tax rates, acquiring a bank account and processing credit cards.

It is worth noting that you don't necessarily have to have your bank account in the same jurisdiction that the company is incorporated.

There are many zero tax offshore jurisdictions (like BVI and Cayman Islands) and at a large scale you can get bank accounts and process credit cards anywhere. But, starting from zero I think it's a lot easier to use Stripe or Braintree.

I've listed several jurisdictions that are compatible with Stripe and Braintree by corporate tax rates. You may be able to achieve a lower rate by paying yourself a salary.

Stripe & Braintree

  Ireland (12.5%)
  Singapore (17%)
  United States (~35%)
  United Kingdom (~20%)

Braintree

  Lichtenstein (12.5%)
  Isle of Man (0%)
  Jersey (0%)
  Guernsey (0%)

So, I would consider Ireland and the above Crown dependencies.

Sources: https://www.braintreepayments.com/country-selection https://stripe.com/global

It's not like getting a cervical exam isn't totally sensible for women having unprotected sex, which is often an of those taking birth control pills.

A lot of the minimum income people are also for open borders and I rather doubt you can have both.

Does this statement risk a tortious interference with business relationship suit?

You have published a statement that could reasonably interpreted as Jason Calacanis mistreats founders by bullying them, changing offers, sharing their confidential info and other things.

That intentionally obstructs Mr. Calcanis from entering into valuable business relationships with startup company founders.

It seems very risky unless you have at hand specific evidence that Mr. Calacanis had done each of "bullying them", "changing offers," and "sharing their confidential info."

Of course I totally believe you and wouldn't be keen to do business with him. But, that's exactly the point.

The largest users of H1Bs, the big outsourcing firms like Tata and Infosys, don't sponsor permanent residency. The two largest ones had something like 13,000 new H1Bs in 2013 and sponsored 7 people for permanent residency that year.

"These 44 companies, the study says, are collectively valued at $168 billion and create an average of roughly 760 jobs per company."

Firstly, that's 33,000 jobs or about 0.0003% of the US workforce, so hardly the backbone of the economy.

Secondly, the H1B program, the subject of the article, is not an immigration program but a guest worker program. Generally, H1B workers leave the country and don't go on to start companies because the visa is limited to six years.

Does my landscaper deserve his job when I'd rather hire a peasant from the Congo to do the job for a handful of rice?

Is having and enforcing immigration laws prejudiced and hostile to Mexicans?

If it is prejudiced and hostile at all, then every country is prejudiced and hostile to almost every other country. That includes Mexico to central American countries.

Roy Philipose

"Nobody really has the power to do this"

The State of California has the power to fix this and, presumably, the motivation to lift this albatross from the neck of the economy.

Yes, of course, but you knew that already. I also asked a supermodel out, but in the end we both agreed it wouldn't be a good fit.

edit: Just to be clear, my point is that it's correct, rational decision on the part of the hypothetical supermodel.

Approximately 30% of all women in Africa use birth control, although over half of all African women would like to use birth control if it were available.

Many cannot afford contraception in any case.

"You could spend spend 1000 or whatever it costs on this thing that vacuumes up paint and put the job in the red or you could spend 10 bucks on some paint scrapers and get shit done in the same amount of time."

Ideally, you would reuse the vacuum for other jobs in the future.

This is a common misconception.

Only 20% of state and federal prisoners (those serving more than a one year sentence) have drug crimes as their most serious conviction.

80% of prisoners are serving time for violent (47.7%), property (17.1%), or public order crimes (13.8%) that no one would argue are victimless.

While some of the other crime is related to drugs, the point is that 80% of the prisoners in the US have grievously victimized our fellow citizens and residents and are not innocent "[people removed] from society in order to address the 'drug problem'" as the parent comment stated.

Source: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...

"Coders" just write instructions for computers. What use are they? Other people do the real work.

What do truck drivers do? They just move the wheel. Other people do the real work of building the truck and designing it and telling it where to go.

What do truck dispatchers do? They just tell it where to go. Other people do the real work of actually driving the thing, building it and designing it.

What do truck assemblers do? They just put the thing together. Other people do the real work of driving the thing, telling it where to go and designing it.

What do truck engineers do? They just design the thing. Other people do the real work of driving the thing, telling it where to go and building it.

Okay, have fun building a profitable social media business serving subsistence farmers.

"Should an accident of birth(place) be the most import decider?"

There is a school of though that it shouldn't. Many countries confer citizenship jus sanguinis (by descent). Is that system easier for you to understand?

Citizenship conferred jus soli (by place of birth) arose at a time when people were less mobile and less likely to acquire citizenship by "accident of birthplace" and when there were few practical benefits to citizenship in any case. It seems entirely outdated.

Modern nations belong to their citizens who are free to vote for representatives that write laws to benefit citizens and their children.

I doubt you'll have any luck convincing the people of the United States to give away their kingdom or taking it by force.

Do Americans "deserve" to write laws for their benefit?

Do you "deserve" whatever wealth you have when it could be liquidated and save one live for every $3,500 [1]?

It's easy to be generous with other people's resources. Being as virtuous as you imagine you are is expensive.

[1] https://www.againstmalaria.com/

"tech is very very white"

Sure tech is generally non-black, but there are load of East Asians and South Asians. It's not exactly the Augusta National Golf Club.

There are a lot of places in corporate information technology in the US where tech is "very very" Indian and a white or black or hispanic person may very well be the only non-Indian (or even US citizen or permanent resident) in the room or on the team.

Is working as a computer programmer economically rational for high performing black and hispanic students in the United States?

Black and hispanic students benefit from preferential admissions standards to medical, law, business and other graduate schools that can lead to higher salaries and higher social standing than computer programming.

Consider the extreme case of black students and medical school:

Black students who are competitive candidates for software engineering at top tech companies could (probably all) choose to study medicine and, very possibly, be admitted to specialist residency programs.

Average specialist pay is $284,000. Average primary care pay is $195,000.

That doesn't preclude Harvey Mudd from lowering admissions standards for women and they did not state admission standards were not lowered.

It is an obvious approach that Harvey Mudd would be foolish to not consider if their aim is to increase the ratio of female students.

Here is some context that all of these discussions about life as a software developer in San Francisco need.

There are about 243k software developers/programmers in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA area: ~12% of the workforce.

There are about 46k software developers/programmers that make over ~$145,000 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA area: ~2% of the workforce.

These numbers seem crazy. Are developers/programmers really 12% of the workforce in the SF area?

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics as of May 2014:

  Computer Programmers
  San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
  Total employment: 48,040

  10%ile: $48,040	
  25%ile: $71,460	
  50%ile: $97,050	
  75&ile: $124,020	
  90%ile: $147,970
  
  Software Developers, Applications
  San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
  Total employment: 70,110

  10%ile: $70,110	
  25%ile: $87,440	
  50%ile: $114,700	
  75&ile: $144,320	
  90%ile: $173,130
  
  Software Developers, Systems Software
  San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
  Total employment: 80,480

  10%ile: $80,480	
  25%ile: $94,320	
  50%ile: $118,720	
  75&ile: $146,620	
  90%ile: $171,140
  
  Web Developers
  San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
  Total employment: 45,320

  10%ile: $45,320	
  25%ile: $64,460	
  50%ile: $87,540	
  75&ile: $119,780	
  90%ile: $145,130

Like everything in life, it is a matter of supply and demand.

At the height of the Iraq war, there was a suddenly increased demand for the services of private military contractors relative to their supply.

Now, the demand is reduced and the market rate for private military contractor services is much less expensive.

$10.

http://www.corp.delaware.gov/Dissolution%20-%20274%20BIS%20S...

Some believe that Saudi Arabia has an agreement with Pakistan to provide nuclear weapons [1].

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has intermediate range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that were purchased from China.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846

Most H1B visas go to average or below average developers working via large H1B sponsors like Tata, Infosys, Wipro and IBM ultimately working for IT departments of large corporations like banks and insurance companies.

Only a small minority go to high level developers at product companies.

Obviously, these visa sponsor companies (which call themselves "consultancies") sponsor visas almost exclusively for people from India. But, you could try to apply for jobs with them (possibly even through their Indian websites).

Once you are on an H1B visa, you can try to transfer to another more exciting company.

Not enough words. Here are more words:

During the 110th Congress, the Democratic leadership of the Senate specifically blocked Republican President George W. Bush from making any recess appointments with the use of pro forma sessions.

In 2012 President Barack Obama attempted to make four appointments during a pro forma session, calling the practice of blocking recess appointments into question. However, on June 26, 2014 the Supreme Court of the United States determined that the President had improperly used his presidential power to make these appointments stating that while the Senate was in recess punctuated by pro forma sessions the period of time between the sessions was not long enough to invoke such power.

Many European countries extend citizenship to distant descendants like Hungary and Italy.

Spain naturalizes nationals of Iberoamerica, Philippines, and Equatorial Guinea after only two years residence rather than ten for nationals of other countries.

One would store a commodity if one thought it could be sold at a higher price in the future.

Companies across the globe are storing oil including on parked tankers. Here is some data for US storage: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/

However, crude and distillate storage capacity is much smaller than consumption and production.