IS AMERICA FREE? BRIBES VS. TAXES 🇺🇸

Hello, welcome back to the American English Conversation. This is your host, Joe English, and today we're going to talk about bribes versus taxes. What's the difference? I think a lot of people imagine that the United States, also known as America, we call it America, but it's otherwise known as the United States. You think of it...

We speak about America as the land of the free, and this is supposed to be a place where you're free to do whatever you want, and you're free to run a business, and you're free to work for anyone you want to. But really, we have a lot of restrictions. A lot of restrictions. Probably more than most other countries.

which is why a lot of our businesses end up moving to other countries where they don't have as many restrictions. A lot of people don't talk about this, and Republicans think... get a bad reputation but people don't really ever talk about the reason why so many people vote for Republicans and it's because of all of these rules and restrictions. Fees, fines, registrations, tags, permits, licenses, and all kinds of those taxes which might...

You might as well translate all of these things into bribes. Really, that's what it is. You're paying a bribe. But we have more official sounding words for bribes in the United States. We know we call them licenses and permits. So if you want to start a business in the United States, pretty much 90... 5% of any business that you can start in the United States. It's illegal to start a business unless you have the right permit or the right license.

There's only a few businesses that you're not required to have a license permit. And one of those businesses just happens to be... Creating a podcast. Why is creating a podcast something you can do for free, or relatively for free? It's because we have the First Amendment of the Constitution which protects the freedom of speech. So this is why there's no permit yet required to create a website or an internet business or a podcast.

People of my generation have been so attracted to the internet because it's still protected by the First Amendment and you can start a business without having to... Get all kinds of permits and licenses and things Any other business in the United States you will need some kind of a permit or a license Or you might have to be a member of some kind of association and these things are very restrictive, very expensive. For example, you can't just sell alcohol.

in most of the United States without having some kind of special, they call it a liquor license. And all of your employees need to be trained. need to have special training and special certifications. In Texas we have something here called the TABC and they're responsible for Making sure everyone that sells alcohol has training and a license which allows them to sell alcohol.

But this is for any business, not just, you know, anything. Like, for example, let's say you're good at cooking. You think, oh, I'll move to the United States and I'll open a restaurant. Now, this is a really good example because you see a lot of Mexican restaurants in Texas, but people don't realize it's not easy to open a restaurant because you're... It's a law that your restaurant needs to be handicap accessible. So in the United States, you cannot open a business without it being accessible.

to wheelchairs which means you're going to need an expensive ramp to get your wheelchairs into the restaurant. Not only that, you're probably going to need handicap accessible restrooms. So you're going to need to do a complete renovation very often to renovate your restrooms to be accessible. to people with handicaps, and I don't even know what the politically correct term for that is, wheelchair accessible restrooms.

And that's just the beginning. So you're going to have property taxes. You're going to need permits to serve food. You're going to have to pass health codes. All of your employees will need to have special food handlers, training and certifications. Going to need a tax certificate If you have a restaurant in a state with income tax All of your income will be taxed not just by the state government, you'll also be paying tax to the federal government.

And you'll be paying tax for the property, the property tax that you're on. And you'll probably be paying money for sewage, your sewer. You'll be paying money for trash cleanup. And the list goes on and on. So I call it blood in the water for the sharks. Once you set up a physical address for your business. All the sharks know where to find you and they can come in your business and say, okay, you need to give us money or we will hurt you.

I don't want to go into more detail, but I've heard this happening, and it does happen. I've heard there can be people that they just claim to work for the government and try to confiscate your property from your business. One time. I was just working for a street vendor because I just happened to be selling my artwork on the side of the road there. And I just needed a special permit.

I needed two special permits from the government just to sell my artwork on the side of the road. I needed to have a parks and recreations certification and I needed to have a state tax permit. And on more, you know, and the police do come by and they will check your permits. Make sure that you're, you know, legal there. So I was out there actually and there was a guy selling hot dogs.

He was, I won't get into his background, but he had to do some errands and he said, hey, can you watch the hot dog cart for me?

Um, you know, he showed me how to do the hot dogs and everything. So that was fun. I could sell my art and my hot dogs at the same time. But one day I was out there and this guy just came out of nowhere and he started, um, harassing me and he started like throwing the hot dog cart around and he's saying oh you know this is uh you know this area is like off limits or something he's just trying to scare me but um you know there are legitimate threats

to businesses and once you have that address you know there's a lot of things that can happen to you so this is why In Texas at least, I don't know about other states, but you see now a lot of food, they call them food trucks or food carts, or you see food buses where people will sell.

food out of their vehicles and this is really popular in downtown Austin and the reason why this is so popular is because like I was saying before you don't have handicap restrictions They can't tell you to put a handicapped restroom in your food truck because there's just literally no room to put a, you know.

a bathroom in a vehicle like that to sell food but these food trucks do have restrictions i knew somebody that had was selling some japanese food out of a food bus and every so often he would have to move the food bus to get it inspected and and so on and that was a big

uh problem for him in particular because the venue that where he had the bus was surrounded by a lot of um by a lot of other tents and and fences and things like that so we had to take down the fences and move the tents around just so that he could get his uh his his food bus inspected so um

A lot of people, I think, that are just coming to this country, they're probably looking for opportunities like that where there aren't so many rules and restrictions. for you to start a business and I was just thinking about this today because somebody posted on Instagram saying you know there are a lot of hidden costs for

Working, just for getting a job, it's not free to get a job. There are a lot of costs. For example, a lot of times you're going to need a car, transportation, just to get a car to get to work.

You're going to have all kinds of fees. There's going to be your registration, your tags, your car insurance. It's illegal to operate a vehicle in the United States without car insurance. So if you think, oh, I'll just... buy an inexpensive car there's it's very likely your car insurance will cost more than the actual car you'll have

And of course you have to pay for gas and oil changes and brakes and tires and all these other things. You can have a lot of times toll roads. If you don't pay for the toll road.

You're going to have to spend a lot more time in traffic. It's going to take you longer to get to work. And so you probably are going to need some kind of toll tag. And these toll tags charge you... in advance like you don't just get to pay what you spend they charge you in advance in order to um get through the toll road and they'll find you they will find you if you don't pay the toll uh they will find you they will hunt you down

One time, I was briefly staying in California, and I had moved some of my things to California. And when I moved back to Florida, they were... They found me right away. They knew where I lived. They knew where I relocated to. I don't even think I notified anyone. And somehow they found out money that I owed them for something. So they'll find you.

Let's just, you know, and maybe some of you, because I know we have a large international audience. So some of you are thinking, well, maybe I'll just... I have someone that will hire me and he'll just pay me under the table. They call this under the table. This is a phrase in English where it means nobody has to know about this money. You'll just pay cash.

They call it under the table, which means you're not paying taxes on that. Well, the government can find out. And if they find out that you're not paying taxes, you can go to jail. You can be put in prison. for not paying your taxes. Um, and not only that, um, was I just, oh, okay, let's say they catch you. Now they can do something called garnishing your wages, which means they can just take your whole paycheck. They don't just tax you.

They just take your whole paycheck. It's called garnishing your wages. That's the phrase of the day. So, yeah, just...

So a lot of people think, oh, America, it's the dream come true. It's going to be so great. But they don't realize we don't have warlords and we don't call them warlords or we don't call them... bribes but we still have the same gatekeepers that are preventing you from doing things for example my friend she was staying staying in Africa and she was saying okay you know in order to buy some food

In order to buy some meat, we had to cross six different areas. And for each area that we crossed, we had to pay a different bribe to a different warlord or whatever. And you think about it, if you start to think about it, we have the same thing in the United States where you have to pay various gatekeepers. You can't just buy raw meat in the United States because...

You have to have a permit to sell meat and you probably have to be certified and so on. So you can't even, a lot of times you can't even open a food market. In your neighborhood, they have a lot of these farmers markets. But from what I've heard from various people such as Peter Schiff, there's laws where you can't just sell food. without having a permit. Another thing is you can't transport milk across state lines without this being a really big problem.

There's actually a law against transporting milk across state lines. And somebody, I don't know if they were arrested or what happened, but you can Google this yourself. We have the same bribes in the United States. We just call it by more official sounding names. Which is unfortunate. I think a lot of people are coming to the United States thinking, oh, this is going to be better. This is going to be a utopia or something.

And I've heard that this happens a lot of times in Europe where people come to Europe and they think, oh, it's going to be better in Europe. And then they get to Europe and they find out, oh, wait a second, this is not what I expected. I can't really do anything here because I need to.

You know, there's so many restrictions and rules and I just don't have the resources to get everything that I need. So, you know, I've been living here my whole life and I can tell you it's very difficult to just... For example, just rent an apartment. There's all kinds of background checks. There's a lot of different background checks that people don't even realize. For example, just in order to work for a minimum wage job, they will do a background check on you.

just to, for example, work on a cash register. Because if you're going to be handling money, they want to know that you have good credit. So you're going to have to work on your credit score. just in order to get a basic part-time job. So I think I could spend hours talking about... the cost, the real cost of just getting employed. I think this is especially harder for women because the expectation a lot of times for the dress code...

It might be higher. In certain jobs, you might have to spend a lot more money on clothing in order to work at certain jobs. Also, child care can be very expensive. But, you know, of course... But here's the other thing. You can't, like I was saying before, you can't just walk to work. A lot of times you can't just walk anywhere in the United States. A lot of cities have physical barriers or there's...

posted signs saying, okay, you know, no pedestrians beyond this point. So you think, well, it's a free country. You're free to roam and go anywhere you want. But that's not true because there's a lot of... The roads that connect the various towns, the signs will say no pedestrians. So if you're just walking on the side of the street, police will harass you.

there might not even be any sidewalks so there's really no physical way to walk from one town to the other without getting run over you'll see a lot of drivers In their cars, I think they're thinking to themselves, hey, no fair, that person's walking for free and they'll honk at you and try to run you off the road. They call this road rage. So you really, especially in a place like Texas, you really need to have an automobile and just because of the heat.

And Texans are generally unfriendly to pedestrians. They don't like pedestrians. And they don't walk anywhere, which I think why a lot of Texans are overweight. But that's a...

That's a whole other subject. Let's just say you are coming to the United States and you're just starting your life.

um you know it can be done like we had a family friend that was living in her car when she first came here right off the boat she escaped her country she just got off the boat through some you know very dangerous travel I don't know the whole story but it sounded like it was very dangerous they were living in their car and now her daughter doctor so it can be done but um it's it's very difficult so here's my suggestion if you if you want to start out

and a new town and you're looking for somewhere to get started, I would highly recommend looking at college towns. Okay, now first of all, I would pick a college town that doesn't have a state income tax because a lot of states...

have a state income tax which means the state government takes your paycheck too so i would pick a state that doesn't have a state income tax but you know it just depends on your your preference and maybe maybe the state income taxes is not so bad and you and you can survive on that on that money even after the state income tax and the federal income tax, I would pick a college town. The reason why a college town is because a lot of college students don't have much money.

So they have the expectation that food will be affordable and that accommodation, rent will be affordable. And so a lot of times college students are... willing to live in conditions that are very poor conditions. Sometimes you might even see apartment complexes where things are falling apart. And the landlords, they're like, well, we don't care. We're going to get paid regardless. I mean, a lot of apartments in college towns will be okay. But a lot of them are pretty terrible.

And so, you know, I think in a college town, you can find somewhere to live without having a job necessarily because there are a lot of...

Most apartment complexes in the United States, they will require that you have proof that you have a job in order for you just to get... in order for you to rent there and a lot of times now apartment complexes will do a background check on you they'll do a credit check on you so if there's any kind of negative information or you know if you're lying about your information

You probably won't be able to get an apartment because the apartment complex will check on all of your financial information. And they require security deposits. You're going to have to come up with a nice... chunk of money because they're gonna ask a lot of times first month's rent last month's rent security deposit you're gonna have to have proof that you've already signed up for electric

service, electricity service, water service, and so you're going to have to have proof that you have good credit with the water company and electric company. and so on and so on in order to just rent an apartment but if you're in a college town the college towns tend to be a little bit more lenient with all of the rules because they know college students a lot of them don't have jobs

A lot of them don't have great credit yet. And another thing about college towns is there are a lot of people in college towns that are sharing apartments. there's a good chance you'll be able to find a roommate in a college town and then you could save even more money. And this is quite common. And I would say, try to find, maybe if this is a pro tip, I would say,

try to find an architecture student or some kind of student that's never home. Because there are some, you know, at certain schools, like for example, my school at the University of Florida, It was well known. that the architecture students never came home because they were always working in the architecture studio. So they often slept in the architecture studio and they were very rarely at home. So in that kind of a situation, if you're splitting rent...

With an architecture student, you'd be getting a really good deal because the person would almost never be there. And another great thing about college towns is, like I said, affordable food. And affordable transportation. You'll probably be able to walk to a lot of your...

You'll probably be able to walk to a laundromat. You'll probably be able to walk to the grocery store. You'll probably be able to walk to your job. So that's a rare... combination of factors where you're getting a really good value there for the money by going to a college town and you probably want to choose a college town that's not near big city because you know college towns that are here's another thing you don't want to pick a college that's a commuter school

A commuter school is a school where everyone drives to get there. So it's better to find a college town where you can walk everywhere and where everybody is walking or riding their bicycle. On the other hand, if you don't really fit in, if you don't really look like a student, and if you're not trying to blend in there, you could be targeted.

because you know that the campus police or the police or the other students might be saying like okay what's this person this person doesn't belong here so you know that But, of course, who's going to serve the college students? The college students consume a lot of things. So there are going to be jobs basically serving these college students. Of course, a lot of the college students are serving the other college students, but there will be jobs there for people to serve.

college students and word of the word is all that money come from it comes from the government because the government is giving the college students these great big student loans And a lot of these students, they don't know how to manage their money yet. And so they're spending their money without really being so careful about it because they're thinking, well, I have the rest of my life to get a job and to pay back everything. So they're not being very cautious.

about how they're spending their money so in a way it's a good opportunity for someone who is a hard worker and someone who's frugal with their money and so i would think My recommendation is to do that if you were just coming to the United States. College towns will tend to be probably a lot more diverse. There will be a lot of people from a lot of different countries at universities, and they tend to be very open-minded.

In terms of, you know, different cultures and different languages. And you'll meet lots of different people from all over the world. So I highly recommend College Towns.

for anyone that's just starting out in the United States. So I think that's, you know, a positive thing. But, you know, getting back to just... ordinary life in the united states like i was saying there are a lot of fees fines taxes permits licenses all kinds of restrictions that you might not have thought about when you first came to this country

And that's why the Republicans are so popular. It's because their platform is to reduce all of these restrictions and all these fees and fines and to make it more affordable to do business. In the United States, that's been the Republican platform for a very long time. And also, libertarians, very often, their platform is to just completely get rid of the government altogether.

which is sort of gets into a whole other area that's even more radical, which some people refer to as anarchy, anarchists. And that's kind of a... That word has a double meaning. But a lot of libertarians, I would say, identify with this whole concept of no government and people just can govern themselves. But I think most libertarians are just...

They want a much smaller government, but I think Republicans want just a more sensible smaller government. I think libertarians are a little bit more radical, but I think overall... libertarians and republicans have a lot in common and that's why they tend to vote together in the elections whereas the democrats they're more in favor of more restrictions more rules more taxes more

collecting more money for the government to have a bigger government to provide more government services. The problem with that is, like I said, crushes the businesses. The businesses cannot afford to do business. They cannot operate because of all the fees and fines and everything. And so, you know, the Democrats like to demonize.

the the businesses but what they don't realize is that the businesses are just a lot of times just scraping by and um like for example the restaurant example this is a real example i heard from someone i worked with before She said that someone she knew in California sued a restaurant. The woman went into a restaurant, pretended to hit her head.

on the paper towel dispenser. She sued I think either the restaurant or the paper towel company and she got over a million dollar settlement from the restaurant. So this is another dangerous part about operating a business in the United States. You can be sued by anyone. Any customer could come in, slip and fall for real or just pretend. They could sue you. and probably your business would go out of business because you wouldn't be able to afford to pay the lawsuit.

Also, your employees can sue you for all different kinds of reasons. So that's why hiring in the United States is such a problem. And people don't like to hire in the United States because it's very expensive and it's very risky.

These employees will sue their companies all the time. And so this is why a lot of jobs end up going overseas to other countries where there aren't as many restrictions. And it's... more affordable to operate your business in a country that's going to have employees that are less likely to sue you for some... you know legitimate or illegitimate reason um so you know overall i just want to emphasize that it's uh there are a lot of hidden

hidden costs that are there and this and these hidden costs will well they'll catch people that are just uninformed If you're just uninformed and clueless, maybe you'll try to start a business before finding out all this information. And that's... That's terrible. But I think more often what happens is people just don't start a business because once they realize how risky it is and how difficult it is and how...

Mathematically, statistically, most businesses don't make it because it's just too expensive, they can't afford it, and that's why most businesses do not succeed. The businesses that do succeed actually are the family businesses. I would say the vast majority of businesses that do succeed. our family businesses. And the reason why that is, if you think about it from what I was just saying with the lawsuits and so on, if you can get your family to work for you, then you're much better off.

Because you don't have to worry about your own family suing. Well, your own family could sue you. And a lot of times people warn you, never do business with your family because it could create problems with your family. Statistically, the fact is most successful businesses are family businesses. So that's just the reality. That's the harsh reality. Another tip, I guess, is it's always better to do a franchise because franchises have figured out a lot of the problems ahead of time.

So instead of trying to figure out all the possible scenarios that could go wrong, the franchise has already figured out all those little hidden pitfalls for you. Maybe you'll lose some creative freedom and maybe you'll lose the fun and excitement of starting your own business by following someone else's formula.

And you'll probably spend a lot of money for just getting that franchise started. But the good thing is that the franchise has already figured out a lot of the problems. And the banks... Banks are much more likely to give you money if you're doing a franchise because they know that, okay, this franchise usually worked in the past. So we're more willing to give you money.

to run your business because we know that this franchise usually works. So it is a less risky investment if you go the franchise route.

So if you have any thoughts about this, post those thoughts in the Telegram. And I think it's... It would be interesting if people maybe shared their experiences of how much did it cost them to start working somewhere because this is something that people are talking about on Instagram. They're talking about what are the hidden costs behind

Working in a job, how much does it really cost you to, for example, get to your job and to... prepare yourself to be presentable and so on and so on how much does that cost you maybe you have to even relocate relocate in order to be close enough to your job to get there That's another cost because it can cost more a lot of times to live somewhere where you can get to the job that you need to do. So I think that about cars that...

In terms of the co-host that I was talking about, I'm still talking to her and I don't know yet. She was on vacation, so I don't know yet what's going on there. I think that concludes this episode. Thanks for listening.