In Germany you need 25k$ and 6-12 months to establish the equivalent of an LLC. This is because Germany hates limited liability. It would prefer you to operate as a sole trader with unlimited liability, and then not do things that generate liability. Needless to say, this is scary for programmers.

Indeed, I can't speak for how other European countries work but if the Labour/Conservative/Whitehall nomenklatura is producing better results than your political system, something is very very wrong

First I've heard of this - which anti-corruption reforms?

"hey why'd you make that bid?" is a valid question that must be answered during a game of bridge..

> This is the case in Britain’s former colonies (USA

The USA was never a colony of britain. The american colonies were.

> The primary draw of a city like London is economic prosperity

Then tokyo or singapore or dubai would have been even greater draws. But they are not.

What becomes a "tech capital" is primarily a political decision. If london is a major tech center, it's because of political decisions within britain but primarily outside of britain ( the US ).

To add on this, ethnic heterogeneity (and ethnic enclaves) is one of the shallowest forms of diversity. If you examine the diversity regarding district characteristics and architecture, shopping options, subcultures, etc, many homogenous cities like Tokyo or Hong Kong are far greater and accommodating than London in diversity.

And I would say that one reason for that is the elements I mention is something an individual can take seriously and integrate into their own world, while enclaves stay perpetually from the vantage of exoticism rather than integration.

Is it really coming down? Only in London, UK, Europe, or more or less globally? Where are you getting this from?

I am not sure everything else is reasonable if groceries alone have been going up by as much as 100% throughout the world, heh. Maybe on an SWE salary it is reasonable, sure.

I think the "Exactly equivalent to Americans panicking about Spanish" comparison is good. Thanks!

Yes! This is partly why I brought it up. I remember that video from Kurt Caz.

There are shops elsewhere in Europe with Arabic signs. You can go there and buy things. They're not outside of the ordinary statistical distribution of shops.

Certain people would rather fearmonger though.

I have done a lot of social work with Bangladeshi community. What many people don't know that the Bangladeshi wives who come as dependants speak better English than their husbands and sometimes as good as the natives.

I was surprised the first time I got into volunteer work. Figured that these wives have never spoken English in their home country. So when they moved to London, they learnt English from scratch and picked up the local accent and speaking style. Their grammar may not be perfect sometimes but whose is?

Yes, as I have said, over 10 years.

I do not use Twitter nor Facebook. I watch YouTube videos. These YouTubers have >1M subscribers.

I am not making any points. I have just heard this take a lot of times and I have not been around London for over 10 years. If there is a point, it is not mine.

As for its relevance: "native speakers on English", etc.