[3pt14159]

Canada is a clear win. Set up a corporation in a single day. Fairly straightforward taxes (not the lowest around, but still fairly simple). Technical cities (Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa). Zero corruption, unless you're in the construction industry, but effectively nothing. Easy employee termination (2 weeks pay without cause, 0 weeks pay with cause). Low occurrence of lawsuits, especially medical, and much smaller settlements (highest medical suit I've heard of in my personal circle was $100k, and it was clearly deserving). Technocratic politicians usually win elections. Only about 1% of GDP on the military (vs 2+% for most of the developed world, and 5% for the US). Easy access to American products and markets.

[muhfuhkuh]

To add to the win (and part of the reason why I'm planning to leave the US for Vancouver ASAP):

* Tax breaks (such as the federal SR&ED[1]) for high-tech businesses. I believe Vancouver has the largest by province, especially if you're in entertainment technology (like special effects) or video games.

* They consider themselves not a melting pot but a mosaic of people; i.e., there is no jingoistic pressure from the bumper-sticker patriots for foreigners to join the suburban zombie horde and conform conform conform, aside from at least learning english or french. Plus, you can sort of feel a fondness (rather than a passing, almost aloof acknowledgement) of their natives (deferentially called "First Nations"). The culture is one of acceptance, rather than impatient urgence to adapt.

* There is an odd reluctance to trusting outsized corporations, especially from what I've seen in Vancouver. Maybe it's just me, or perhaps it's their culture, but where I am now in the US, there are miles upon miles of strip malls with the same 30-40 chains and/or big box stores (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath Beyond, TJ Maxx/HomeGoods, Olive Garden, Dollar Tree, etc.) and small business storefronts (aside from family-run ethnic restaurants) are almost non-existent. I see alot better mix of corporate behemoth vs. mom-and-pop shop in Vancouver. Could just be a big city thing (although, last I checked, NYC was looking more like a concrete version of a big-box store suburb rather than its "if I can make it here..." bootstrappy romantic past).

[1]Strategic Research and Experimental Development - http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/sred/

[jarek]

Re: third bullet point, it is definitely a big city thing. I haven't seen Vancouver suburbs, but those of Toronto are not substantially different from you would see in rest of North America, though perhaps not as bad as the worst examples.

Hope you enjoy Vancouver!

[rdl]

I assume he's actually trolling us.

Canada is a great choice. Singapore or Hong Kong would be ok. Various Eastern European countries, or Ireland, or Australia or New Zealand -- all great.

The only reason I would put a small business in China is a manufacturing business, or a services business focused ON CHINA. A services business focused outside China based in China is utterly insane. You have the language issue, the undeveloped legal system and business support system, the high cost of top-tier expats, and all sorts of political risk.

[hga]

There's also the "can I connect to this outside Internet service today?" risk.

As I recall, people said companies can generally VPN out, but that adds to your costs (paying the external VPN site, plus latency, another single point of failure, etc.).

[lisper]

But the weather sucks.

[minsight]

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/caon0441

[lisper]

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&#...