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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Okay, so what are those 92 steps, 22 form in 17 office visits? The article lack any substance and it is pure activist piece, unfortunately.

There's this story about the extremely heavy and complicated French labor laws. The story goes, businesspeople complain that the law is more than a hundred pages long booklet and as a response the French legislators print the booklet in smaller font, thus successfully taking the laws under 100 pages.

It's supposed to show the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy but IMHO it's pretty fair to solve the problem by using smaller font if the complaint is about the number of pages.

Maybe we can have more intelligent discussion if we actually know the context and the content. I suspect that some of those steps, fees and forms are reasonable and some are outdated and only exist because the law was made pre-internet, pre-smartphone era.

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>if the complaint is about the number of pages.

The complaint is obviously not about the number of pages. Printing the booklet in a smaller font is trolling.

'Why did they complain about the number of pages then' argumentation is also trolling.

Semantic argumentation is great for making yourself look clever on the internet but achieves little else.

Don't you think that "opening restaurants takes 92 steps" is just as bad as argument? How do we know if those 92 are too many or too few? It takes 120 steps to setup ReactJS development environment, why would anyone be able to start a restaurant with only 92 steps?

That's really not semantic argumentation at all when the core argument is literally about the number of steps.

Yes, I see that the actual argument is about the complexity of the process but the person who argues that doesn't provide any information for us to judge if those steps are necessary or on. The used stats and numbers don't mean anything. What's the right number of steps for opening a restaurant?

I think that 'it takes 92 steps' in this case is just an analogy for 'the procedure is too complex' and that focussing on the number of steps and the 'correct' number of steps is reading the wrong thing into what's been said.

Basically it's an opinion - from a person that's completed the process - that the process is too complex and involves unnecessary (in their opinion) bureaucracy. That's the gist of the message and that's the intended takeaway. Debating as to whether or not there's a 'correct' number of steps is kinda adjacent to the point being made.

The first link in the article is to a PDF that covers the issue with much more specific information.

https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Barriers-to-Busine...

I skimmed the linked document and I didn't see the actual steps, did I miss those? Can you give me a page?

There are again tables about number of steps etc. I find that ridiculous.

It would be funny if the regulators respond by combining the steps though. Instead of 1. book sanitary checks 2. pay sanitary check fees, maybe it can be solved in one quick step of 1. booking sanitary checks and pay check fees

There is a sort of state by state summary at the end, about all the forms they had to fill in. Boston's is on 98. They're not counted specifically, but general steps.

It seems counter intutive but adding another agency (the "start a business" agency) might help. That group will get fed up with the process and since they're doing it repeatably they can see the issuses and perhaps force a fix. Most people go through this process once and there is little incentive to fix. (I had to go to the historical commision to get new windows a 2 month process.. it was a pain, but now I'm done I've never revisited)

Found it but they don't seem to specify what steps they find unnecessary.

I had to wade through 5 pages of fluff to get to the executive summary.

Then I noticed there are 138 more pages. Finally they actually just list the barriers by state - and each state is 1-2 pages (basically repeated over and over for each of the states) - much more useful.

Included among the heinous barries to freedom to live the american dream are things like "Hand washing regulations" and "Paying Tax".

I would eat at restaurants way less if hand-washing was left up to a restaurant’s discretion. I can’t be alone in this. And I wouldn’t be alone once we saw the rise in salads containing ass-to-hand-to-food-transmitted noroviruses.

But let’s say restaurant-goers power through the higher rate of stomach bugs, because the food is so worth it. There are a lot of jobs that are harder to do when you’re at home shitting[0] or, with some probability, dead.

So, you have to pay the price somewhere: the business pays (fee or lower demand), the government pays (eat the cost or deal with angry citizens or angry businesses), or the consumer pays (health or foregoing restaurants) etc.

But, ofc these folx rarely discuss many of the relevant trade-offs. Unless you were born yesterday, it’s obvious what they’re up to.

[0]: An assumption on my part. As a coder I’d be fine :)

> but IMHO it's pretty fair to solve the problem by using smaller font if the complaint is about the number of pages

How could that possibly be fair, when it clearly violates the intent of the request? If anything that move just shows the maliciousness of the regulators.

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