Hello and welcome.

name is Christopher Chandler.

And my name is Chris Schauer.

And we are Generally American.

In our podcast, we discuss events, culture, whatever else we want from a Generally
American perspective.

From our differing viewpoints, our goal is that we can offer others and ourselves nuanced
opinions on fascinating topics related to the US.

We invite you to be part of the discussion and we hope that you'll stick around to see
where the conversation takes us.

So let's dive in.

And we're back after two weeks.

So hopefully we'll be on a steady schedule.

But the year's almost over, so I think we only have about a couple more episodes and then
we'll go on a break again for Christmas.

So.

yeah, that is coming.

Yeah.

So actually, I forgot I got I got an email from from our host because the podcast has to
be hosted for those who don't know.

that we've been on for four years.

So I was actually really surprised.

But wow, I I've been here for what, three of those?

huh.

Yeah.

So I was actually surprised because I didn't really pay attention to that.

And I don't know how many episodes we have, but I think I think it's like 100 or
something.

So consistency.

You know what?

No matter what's going on in our lives, we have that going for us.

definitely.

Yeah, so so there's that.

So to start off with the weather, I think last time we touched on how it's turning into
fall.

I didn't really believe you.

mean, officially, yeah, but now it definitely feels like fall here.

It's pretty cold.

The leaves are all turning brown and I've been getting out more, so I've been doing my
best to walk around the neighborhood and.

and lose some weight.

That's good.

It's hard to do.

Yeah.

The thing is, is every time my wife and I go to the States, we always gain a couple of
pounds because of how much my friends and family love going out to eat and how like

calorie saturated things are.

It's crazy.

And for the weather, last thing is it's been raining a lot here too, which really sucks
because we have to hang up our laundry outside.

So it's kind of hard to hang your laundry when it rains.

yeah, is that.

Well, I can tell you, it's definitely turning here.

I was driving to work a morning this week and I could see a little frost build up in the
grass of a local baseball park.

I was like, it's.

it's here and I should probably take your lead and start taking walks more now that I have
to go to work in person

Going for walks is suddenly not super easy.

I used to go on probably like two hours worth of walks a day, which was working from home.

That's kind of unrealistic for most lives.

And now I kind of work in like an industrial park area.

There's no sidewalks or anything.

It's not the kind of place you'd want to go for a walk.

I did do a little drive around the area once because it's kind of across the river, across
the railroad tracks.

So it's kind of this isolated, weird, almost island kind of area.

And when you drive far enough, you get away from like the industrial warehouse and
manufacturing buildings.

And there's some sketchy stuff on the other half of that island.

So I probably won't be walking that way.

I mean, yeah, I get that.

There are definitely parts of not this town, but other cities I used to visit where I
wouldn't say no go, but I definitely didn't feel comfortable going there.

So, yeah, so now I'm trying to go for more walks, just trying to do more in general
because I said a lot for my work.

So.

I mean, I guess you sit in an office and I sit in my office.

The only difference is you go to your office and my office is in my house.

And it's a beautiful time of year for walking.

At least the air should be crisp and have like a, you know, the seasonal smell to it.

Assuming I'm assuming a lot for something thousands of miles away.

I don't know.

It is.

The air is really nice.

I mean, it'll be it'll be winter in a couple of months.

But unfortunately, we don't really have winter here anymore.

Everyone says global warming.

I don't know if that's true.

It's probably true.

But I've been here for a really long time.

And I think I've only ever seen snow, like a handful of times.

So it doesn't even get cold here.

you of how far north you are?

Yeah, I know.

I mean, we're not in Scandinavia, but you know, still.

Anywho, that is the Bi-Weekly Weather Report live.

So you have something exciting to tell us.

I can't wait.

So, yeah.

We had kind of talked a little bit about it before.

before we went on our last break that I had been added to Yellowstone County's jury pool
for this year.

So that basically means for a year I can be called up, you know, with notice basically any
time.

And that if I am ever going to leave town or go on vacation or something like that, I
think I technically have to like send a notice so that they don't, you know, select me for

a real case.

If that would happen.

Anyway, about five weeks ago, something like that, I was sent a notice.

did get selected for a case and that case was six days ago.

So I got to do the whole thing where they give you all these instructions.

You have to email someone basically acknowledging you received it.

and

there's a website you can track the status of your case, because most cases don't go to
court.

They settle outside.

I was in the...

Yeah.

But so as we got closer and closer, I started researching more of the specifics of my
situation, because to be honest with you, at my new job, there really was no way things

were going to be OK if I had to be gone.

And we really didn't have any other options.

So I was really...

stressed over it.

So I was looking into it.

So was the Montana State District Court and it was the Yellowstone County District.

So Montana or State District Courts are generally handle cases a little bit higher in
severity than like County Courts.

State Courts will handle, for example, State of Montana, they would handle any cases where
the state itself was being sued.

or slightly higher criminal charges, things like that.

But I have no way, they don't tell you what you're going into at all.

They legally can't.

Because people always want to know how long their jury duty is going to be.

And they're like, some cases could be more than a week, some might just be a single day.

But depends on the case, but we can't tell you.

So fast forward to this last Monday, I drive downtown to the local courthouse, park in the
designated parking garage so I can park for free.

And we go in.

They basically sign you in, make sure you show up.

If you do not show up for jury duty, I can't remember the exact number, but I think your
subject, like up to three days of imprisonment and like,

a $1,000 fine, something like that.

I don't think it happens very often because I think they're just gonna keep bugging you
and try and throw you on another case.

I mean, that's not really the kind of thing I think anybody should be playing with anyway.

So just show up.

And now I'm signed in.

They actually lead us right into the courtroom, which I wasn't expecting.

I guess the order of operations of things is so they take you into the courtroom and
everyone kind of sits there for about 45 minutes.

They tell people to get there early so that if people are running late, they're on time,
you know, like we were told to show up at 830 and the judge was supposed to be there at

nine.

And the way it's supposed to go is the judge shows up.

sits down, explains to us how this is gonna go, the rules, maybe some details of the case.

But unfortunately, we didn't quite get that far.

The judge ended up showing up about 15 minutes late.

And the reason for that was she was giving time for the defendant to show.

He decided not to show, and she did tell us it was for a criminal case.

So now whoever this person is has a warrant out for their arrest and they will be forcibly
brought before the judge.

But that was the end of my day at jury duty.

It was good.

It was pretty good that I was able to get out of there early.

I only lost about two hours of my workday because like I said, we didn't really have the
manpower and we couldn't really afford me not being there.

And there was really no plan made for it.

But on the other hand, was kind of, I had kind of accepted the situation, you know?

And I was like, all right, I'm here.

Like, let's do it.

Let's be a part of, let's see what it's like.

At the very least, I have something to talk about on the podcast, which I guess is still
true.

But yeah, that was my experience.

Yeah, no, so that's very interesting.

So a couple...

I'm just always double checking.

So in July, we talked about civic duty and I believe we brought up jury duty.

And I think we've talked about jury duty a couple of times, but I think it would help the
listeners to kind of reiterate like what basically in the context of the US, like what the

jury is, like what it was, what's its function, like why do we have it?

mean, the jury is it functions as a panel of defendants, peers.

And it's more of a robust system than I originally believed.

Again, because I looked into it so much to kind of deal with the stress of the situation.

They will, they, I think there was around 40, maybe a little less jurors.

wow.

the jury selection pool.

there is a system.

where after, if this had proceeded to trial, the judge would have basically explained the
details of the case to us or instructions in a broad sense.

And then I believe we would have been instructed to go to a jury selection room and we
would have been given paperwork with a questionnaire.

And these questions, I believe, are mostly from legal counsel, the lawyers of either side
of the case.

So the lawyers get to choose the jurors out of the pool and they're trying to weed out any
bias.

So for example, if it was like a breaking and entry burglary case, if you'd ever been in a
similar situation, you might not be reliable as a neutral.

party to make a judgment, you might get emotional about it and just, you know, want to say
guilty.

So you might, there's a good chance you're going to get dismissed.

so things like that, there's a whole, and they can ask you basically anything.

I've, I've heard some sensitive things have been asked before.

And then after all that, the lawyers do face to face short little interviews or they can,
or they can kind of ask some follow up questions.

That whole process is called voir dire, which I don't know if that's the correct correct
French pronunciation, but according to North Georgia legal in the US, we say voir dire.

OK, I've never heard of it.

I mean, I know what it means in French, but I've never heard of it in the legal context.

Yeah, that is that is the the lawyers selecting the jurors, which.

I had a, it was interesting when I was sitting in that courtroom and we, there's so many
people there.

I kind of understand why court fees can be a thing.

So you have the judge, there were two bailiffs.

There was, you know, the police officer or whoever he was, the armed muscle in the room,
you know, the court stenographer who transcribes everything.

Then there was the lawyers.

And then I think a couple other administrative type people who I wasn't sure what they
did.

And then like 40 jurors.

And the bailiff is pretty much- a lot of people.

Yeah, but the bailiff is pretty much the- I don't want to say like a police officer, but
basically like the guard within the courtroom, isn't he?

Well, they definitely kind of ran the show, but the two bailiffs we had-

And their name tags did say they were bailiffs.

So I do know they were bailiffs.

They were probably 60 or older.

OK.

There was like an armed, like uniformed person in the corner.

So I don't think these gentlemen were going to be tackling any one of these.

You know what I mean?

I mean, yeah, that's definitely true.

But that is a lot of money and resources to just be.

know, wait, I know that's not really a thing on criminal cases, but if someone was making
like a frivolous suit or something like that, that's a lot of people who you were

dedicating to spend a day or more in that room.

Yeah, I mean, that's that's true.

So going back to like jury duty, I would say for a lot of people, that is a lot of
Americans.

Pretty much something that's universally hated.

I would say anyone who's spent any time watching sitcoms has at one point or another seen
some joke made about jury duty.

Either some character has to do jury duty or someone got off of jury duty.

But it's never something that's really looked at as being like a positive thing.

I guess maybe if you're like ultra conservative or patriotic, then I guess.

But as you alluded to at the beginning, you don't always get paid.

So if you miss work to do jury duty, that's a big problem.

I know that some companies will pay.

We're definitely not lawyers, so no one takes this as legal advice.

But I do believe that they can't fire you while you have jury duty, isn't that correct?

No, there's nothing an employer can do about it.

You have to go.

And for the record, I still will get paid.

you will.

In your case, you will.

I $12.

From the state?

So, yeah.

Actually, I think it'll be a little more when I drove in.

They asked me my round trip mileage.

So I'm guessing I'm going to get twelve dollars plus whatever they calculate in fuel
costs.

OK.

Well, I mean, you're getting rich.

of it.

1350.

No.

And if you actually do serve, it's like 25 a day.

wow.

OK.

I didn't know they actually got paid for it.

But I mean, it's not like you're getting paid.

You're just

I guess you're getting money for your troubles, so to speak, but it's not like, you know,
it doesn't replace your income.

no, I think most employers do just pay you.

Okay.

That's good to know.

but it's always as with a lot of things when it comes to work in the U S it's really not
clear cut.

so I was talking for like, talking to my Japanese teacher about

differences between like working in the US and like working in Japan and Germany and she
was shocked to know that there's no maternity leave in the US like on a federal level that

really just depends on like where you work on like your employer or like the state so it's
really just depends on where you are and that's true for a lot of things in the US is it's

really hard to give like a one-size-fits-all answer jury duty is one of those things where
it's

universally, you know, you have to do it.

You don't really have a choice.

There are plenty of people who try to get out of jury duty.

I saw some of some things on like true crime or sometimes people will lie or I don't know,
like the defendant is African-American and the juror might say that he's racist.

So and because of that, he can't he's not fit to serve.

So there are some things that we do to.

to get out of jury duty.

was gonna say the lazy joke is always, yeah, just go in and be super racist homophobic.

All the awful things you can be and it'll get you out of there.

Which I don't think I have it in me to do.

But I think what's worse is that you could actually be held in contempt of court because
it's not necessarily true.

So you're lying.

So that's perjury.

Although if they're doing jury selection, are you under oath?

Or does that come later?

I wasn't sworn in for, I mean, you I didn't get very far, but I wasn't sworn in for
anything yet.

I know it does happen eventually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So for those who, so if you're, if you serve as a juror or as a witness, you get sworn in
and if you lie in court, it's referred to as perjury for whatever reason, which is a

crime, and then they'll hold you in contempt of court, which basically

Yeah, I don't what's the best way of describing contempt of court?

I always think of it as like there's a you know, the social contract in society.

Mm I would say that's elevated in a courtroom.

There are rules and a certain modicum of respect for the whole procedure.

if you violate that in a particularly egregious way, you could be held in contempt of
court like

If a I think this is probably the thing we've seen the most.

If a defendant started getting belligerent with a judge and just yelling at them and, you
know, not referring to them as your honor and all these things.

I mean, that that you could be found in contempt of court.

And that's just I'm pretty sure the way that works is the judge just slaps it on you.

There is no.

There's no jury for that one.

If the judge thinks you're in contempt, you're in contempt.

Yeah, that's that I understand that to be really funny.

That's a good word to use, by the way, belligerent.

It's not a word we get to really say or hear a lot, but basically it's a fancy way of
saying you're being rude for those who didn't pick up on that.

But yeah, going back to what you just said, if the judge does find that you're in contempt
of court, there's really not like any mode of recourse.

You're just kind of out of luck now.

I think if the judge is being extremely unfair and it's blatantly obvious that he's
holding you in contempt of court for an illegal reason, then obviously you can kind of

appeal that.

But other than that, you're just on your own.

I know most of my legal knowledge comes from TV shows.

I mean, I've been in a courtroom a couple of times.

once, I think for like a speeding ticket and then I think a couple of times for marriage.

But so I don't have nearly as much experience as you do because I've never been a juror.

But it's definitely not a fun place when you compare it to like TV shows.

You know, it's kind of funny.

I was having so I probably had to sit there for like 40 minutes in the courtroom while we
were waiting for the judge to show.

Mm And it was it was kind of nice in a way.

So I feel like in our at the risk of getting too out there in modern day life, there's
just so much noise.

There's so much stimulus.

We're always listening to a podcast music.

Watching something doing work like we have things coming at us from all angles at all
times.

know what I mean?

Yeah.

But in that courtroom.

It was quiet.

People were whispering, but it was like, it wasn't like restaurant whispering where it was
like a dull roar.

was like actual whispering and everyone kind of like had a solemn move with purpose.

It wasn't like a downer attitude.

was just serious, but in like a calm, everyone's just going to be quiet kind of way.

And while I was sitting there, I was like, you just don't get this very often anymore.

And I kind of let my mind wander and I'm like, this is kind of like church in the sense
that, you know, I'm sitting in a pew.

And if you've ever been in like, you know, an American church, there's like a certain kind
of carpet I feel like they all use.

And, you know, there's a certain way the floor feels, you know, that hollow kind of
springy floor feeling.

And I.

I don't know if I'm describing it very well, but I was like, it would not be a huge
shocker if, you know, courts were just modeled off churches, however many hundred years

ago, and then they kind of just kept with that design decision.

But,

Yeah, I kind of enjoyed it for what it was.

It's not very often I get to just stop for a while, you know?

Well, I mean, I definitely understand that sentiment.

I don't know if I've ever really been in a courtroom that long to really care that much,
but I definitely can appreciate that.

But yeah, I've never been selected for a jury duty.

I've always been kind of worried or scared that I might because I do regularly go back to
the US.

I do have friends and family.

So and I was wondering like, what if I get like a letter?

But I highly doubt it.

But you never know.

But yeah, that's a really interesting experience.

And so you're completely done with it or are you going to go back?

So I am in

for a year, I believe.

okay.

It's unlikely, but I could get selected again.

Mm-hmm.

But I don't think they, like, weigh it or anything.

I don't think it's like, well, this person was selected in September, so we're not going
to choose him again till March.

I don't think that's how it works.

I think it's just your name goes back in the pool and it's all random and...

I think I've heard stories of people going like three or four times in a year.

I certainly hope not.

I guess it'll be okay-ish at work.

I actually trained someone new at work this week, so it's becoming a little bit more
doable.

yeah, it's good.

And you know what?

You kind of owned up to it a little bit ago, so I'm going to own up to something too while
we're kind of on the topic.

I,

I think this was actually before I got my jury duty letter.

I did end up getting pulled over probably like a month and a half ago for late
registration.

Hmm.

for your car registration.

Yeah, my car registration.

I worked from home for a year, so I didn't really, you know, wasn't a high priority.

And I had a change of address.

Once you have a change of address, you can't do it online.

You have to go in person.

OK, I don't like going downtown to the courthouse or one of the courthouses.

There's a few downtown.

So I put it off and I was.

I was no joke less than 60 seconds away from home when I got pulled over.

So I ended up, long story short, I got cited and I was told I had a mandatory court date
because of it.

okay.

Which is true.

So the way that works is when you take ticket to the courthouse and you go to like the,
they're not clerks because legal clerks are different, but you know, like the...

The I guess it is like a court clerk does go up there and you can pay your ticket and and
I directly asked like, OK, I don't have a court date anymore.

Right.

And she basically told me, yes, you paying this off is basically just you pleading guilty.

yeah.

The court and I could argue one way or another, or maybe I could try and argue my sentence
down.

But sure, didn't want to do that.

That's an interesting point.

I completely forgot about that.

and I think a lot of people don't know that.

it's been forever since I've gotten a ticket in the US.

It's probably been, I think last time was when I was 19.

So it's been a really long time.

But it does say that if you do sign or if you do pay the ticket, you do admit guilt and
that you have the right to fight the ticket.

But most people don't.

I don't really see the point though in fighting those kind of tickets because you're
really just biding for time.

I believe in my case, I had like a lawyer go down and do it.

But other than that, yeah, you're admitting guilt.

So I guess you're a criminal now.

Yeah, I sure am.

And I don't really like I could I've heard stories like if you get.

a speeding ticket you can go in and you're probably still gonna pay it, but you can
probably get the money down a little bit, the cost.

But I'm be honest with you guys, my registration was like two or three years out of date,
so.

I that's all documented.

There's a very clear paper trail that I was not registered, so I don't know how you fight
that, you don't.

So, I mean, it was my bad.

It was my bad.

I should not have done that.

I mean, yeah, that is I can agree.

I have to actually get my car registered next week or the week after that.

So and they take that really seriously here, too.

If you don't register your anything here, they they threaten you with fines.

They don't really follow through like they don't really enforce them.

But for example, if you're, if you move to a new city, you have to register with the state
or the, or sorry, you have to register with like the city council or whatever.

And if you don't do it within, I want to say two or three weeks, you can face up to like a
thousand dollar fine.

And I thought that's like extremely high for like being like two weeks late or like being
coming after two weeks.

And I asked the lady.

So this is in Germany, not in the US, by the way.

And so I asked the ladies that true.

Like, are you going to make someone pay a thousand dollars for for being late?

And she said, well, technically we could.

We don't really do it, but we could.

Usually they just give you kind of like the evil eye for not doing your stuff on time.

But yeah, the same is true, I guess, within the US is that you really have to pay
attention and be on top of your stuff.

But I know people like to fight things just for the sake of, I guess, know, fighting it.

And the best thing is you pay less for your fee, like for your ticket.

But you're not really going get out of it.

And that happens quite a bit.

You know, I there's a very good chance I actually saved money by getting that ticket.

really?

So I think I was.

if I'm three years out of date and I have to pay like.

130 ish dollars to register my car.

So that's two hundred sixty dollars for two years, three hundred ninety dollars for three
years.

I'm not sure.

We fell exactly.

But my ticket was around 250.

So.

wow.

OK.

But I mean, it's like, did I benefit by doing this?

I'm trying not.

I'm not going to get in the habit of doing it because it was a pain to have to go pay the
ticket.

But.

Did I come out like cash positive?

I mean, that's what a lot of people do, especially like diplomats.

That's a common thing with diplomats is that they don't pay their parking tickets.

So they don't have they have diplomatic immunity, which basically means with to a certain
extent, you can pretty much do whatever you want within another country because you're a

diplomat.

And

I mean, you can go online and look at all this, but they'll pretty much just park wherever
they want to.

Like in New York, for example, or in California.

And they won't pay their fines because they don't have to.

And so you can see, like, I don't know, like country A owes the U.S.

$150,000 in parking violations, and they just don't pay them because they don't have to.

So.

Great.

Look, the little petty wins in their lives.

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

I mean, I'm not a diplomat.

Not yet.

But it's definitely one of the, I guess, one of the perks.

And you get to take a bag with you on the plane and you don't have to check it.

So which some diplomats have that sounds great.

Yeah.

I mean, I've heard that some diplomats, if you declare your luggage as being for like a
diplomatic mission, I believe that they're not allowed to search it.

but that's kind of iffy.

And so I know that has been used or abused actually by people to like smuggle things or
for like illegal activities.

So, but you can Google this is all like in the open.

It's not like a conspiracy or anything.

I mean, it's, it's out there, but yeah, I also got a speeding ticket.

I think before we went to the U S

It was one of those like...

recently.

Yeah, it was like two or three months ago in Germany though.

And technically I didn't get a ticket.

My wife did because the car is in her name.

So I've never actually gotten a ticket in Germany, so to speak, because I've never had a
car my name.

Just because when we registered it, I was like, well, you just register it this way and
I'll pay the insurance and blah, blah, blah.

But yeah.

Maybe you can remind me, I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany, if...

If you go over the speed limit, you have, I think, about 10 kilometers, give or take, in
difference.

if like the speed limit is, I want to say 50, that's pretty common.

You're allowed to drive between 50 and 60.

And so anything over 60 will automatically get you a ticket.

And so if you do like 61 and like a 50 zone or whatever, then you'll pay like

the one kilometer fine and then they have like tiers.

So, and I'm just making stuff up.

like, let's say for example, you have one tier from like one kilometer to 10 kilometers
over the speed limit.

Well, then that would be like a hundred euros, for example.

I think in my case, it was like 50, 50 euros.

I can't remember.

I was pretty mad.

But, that's pretty common.

is definitely like tiered charges.

And then once you get like if you're going 80 and a 30 or whatever You're probably gonna
catch like a reckless endangerment or something like that.

Like it can escalate to something pretty serious if you're going insane Yeah, I mean
Germany gets criticized a lot compared to other countries in Europe because people feel

like our driving laws are very lax so to speak like the fines here aren't super

I want to say super high compared to like Finland or Switzerland.

Switzerland is not in the European Union, but it is in Europe, obviously.

And they have insanely high like fees and fines if you don't drive accordingly.

But I would say the fines in the US aren't nearly as harsh or intense as the ones you'll
find in Europe.

So I feel like you can get away with a lot more in the US than you can in Germany.

I feel like, and you can correct me on this, but I feel like in the US it's more of
driving is more of like a right than a privilege, even though it technically is a right,

like you have the right to drive, whereas in a lot of European countries we view it more
as you don't have like a...

like a right to drive.

It's like a privilege, so to speak.

I hope I didn't get this mixed up, but you know what I mean?

I would call it more like a necessity.

That's true.

That's definitely true.

Like I have like a 20 to 30 minute drive to and from work every day.

There's no bus going there.

Like I could catch an Uber every day, but that's still kind of someone's driving and it's
not a bus or anything.

Yeah, it's, it's sadly just kind of necessary.

I'm once again, thinking back to my time in Boston in a beautiful city where it is not
necessary and I miss it.

Yeah, I definitely, I definitely love having public transportation.

Speaking of Uber, it's funny that you mentioned that, because I was ordering a new, like a
new iPad and, I saw Uber on the website and I was like, why is there Uber on this website?

And apparently, I think this has been around for a couple of years, but I just now
realized it.

But like Uber does delivery here.

Like you can't really take like an Uber to go somewhere.

I don't know if that's really a thing here, but they do do delivery.

So you can work as an Uber driver and they'll deliver stuff like from like, I think if you
order off like the Apple website, they'll deliver you like the iPhone or whatever within

like 90 minutes using Uber.

I think it's the same like I think they had like Uber Eats kind of like that thing.

Like we have Uber Eats and like just Uber delivery, but there's like not like Uber
transportation that's only available in like the bigger cities.

And.

on the side of like a lot of the Uber cars will have like a, like a huge sticker saying
like Uber driver, which I thought was really hilarious.

Cause you don't really have that in the U S.

Yeah, that's bizarre.

That's why it's so weird to think the thing that they're like known for doing, they don't
do there.

Although for like Uber and Lyft and door dash and all those other like gig services, you
can get stickers that

and people do put them on their car to like designate that, I'm a door dash driver and I'm
an Uber driver.

A lot of people kind of make fun of them for it.

A lot of people are like, well, if you're going to certain areas, you don't want to look
like you're doing something sketchy or whatever.

And if you have that sticker on, people might not harass you over it.

There's valid reasons for it, but you can buy a sticker to mark yourself as a

as being an independent contractor for those companies.

See, I don't know the ins and outs of like American labor or tax laws or German ones for
that matter.

But what I do know is that the barrier to entry in a lot of these things in the US,
whether it's like Lyft or Uber or like DoorDash or whatever they're called, and you said

the right word, like independent contractor, because you're not a worker.

The barrier to entry is extremely low.

So like you don't really need a whole bunch of certificates.

You don't need like a whole bunch of qualifications to do these things, which is why the
pool of workers is so huge and that drives prices down.

Whereas in Germany, you can't really just do that.

Like they're not just going to let you work as an independent contractor in anything you
want here.

The big, the big reason why Uber

got into trouble here in Germany was basically it's a taxi service.

And so if you want to operate as a taxi driver, you have to have like the proper
certification, you have to have the proper license, and you have to have like the proper

insurance.

Whereas in the US, I don't know if you necessarily need that to be an Uber driver, or to
like do like DoorDash, I would say no.

And so because the bureaucracy in Germany is just so high, it prevents people from doing a
lot of freelance or independent work.

You're just better off working for a company than doing it yourself, so to speak, and then
getting paid peanuts, which is what happens a lot.

Yeah.

The thrills of bureaucracy and business.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's I guess that's one of reasons why a lot of people like the US is because
there is

While we do have lot of bureaucracy in the US, that is definitely true, especially within
the tax area.

For the most part, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want to earn money, provided
it's legal.

Whereas in other countries...

It's not that hard to get around it.

Well, that's definitely true.

Like, I'm not talking about like stealing stuff, but you know, it's just a lot of things
that people in Europe would find questionable would be perfectly acceptable in the US,

provided that you can earn money.

and it's not illegal.

like just like for example using your car as a taxi service like no one in the US would
really care if you just did that you know as your side job.

Whereas over here if the government finds out that you're just doing like a taxi service
on your own with like no regulation or like no certificates you're gonna have a huge

problem and so that's that's what I mean.

You know I don't know if I've ever

I'm fairly certain we've never talked about this on the podcast before, but we're kind of
here.

So I figured now's the time.

So that that last remote job I had where I worked at for a year, I was technically an
independent contractor on paper.

legally, and I actually have kind of learned more about this at my current job because we
kind of deal with actual independent contractors.

I was told.

You can ask, but not tell.

As soon as you tell, you've turned that person into an employee.

And I'm like, wow.

it was like super illegal.

I was or I was super misclassified as an independent contractor at my last job.

Yeah, I mean, that's convenient for them.

And that is something that is very rampant within the US is having independent contractors
as opposed to you have.

1099 and W2.

1099 is the tax form you fill out if you're an independent contractor and W2 is if you're
like a salaried employee or an hourly employee.

And so if you have someone on the books as an employee, it's just more expensive, is it
not?

Yeah, because you have to pay, even at the basis level, you have to pay...

What is it, the payroll tax to the workers comp?

Whatever it is, I think that the total tax is something like 13 to 15%.

And when you're an employee, an actual employee, the employee pays half of it and the
employer pays half of it.

If you're a 1099, you pay the whole thing.

I know that because I got to pay taxes on that last year.

And ow, ow, ow, ow.

Yeah, and so that that that's just the problem.

And so you basically put the tax burden on to the person doing the work as opposed to the
company.

And so that's like a nice trick people like to do.

Like a lot of American companies, sorry.

Whereas in Germany, I don't even know if that's possible.

Honestly, it's probably not legal.

in within the context of Germany, if you have a company that's only that only consists of
independent contractors.

So it's kind of sketchy.

And that's actually a trick that some companies will use here.

And these are like companies that are a bit more shady.

And so what they'll do is the and this is just like construction is they'll hire a whole
bunch of people from abroad.

I don't know, from like Eastern Europe, for example.

And

have these people register themselves as companies, basically, as independent contractors.

But the problem is, that the independent contractors only work for one person.

And so at that point, if you're an independent contractor and you only ever work for one
person, are you really independent?

Probably not.

So whereas within the context of the US, it doesn't really matter.

You could be an independent contractor and just work for one company and no one would
really care.

Whereas in Germany, if you did that, it kind of looks like fraud.

But that's a bigger that's a bigger kind of worms that we get into next.

I don't know why they're necessarily equipped for that off the cuff.

No, no.

But it's something that you definitely hear a lot in the news over here, which is why I
brought it up.

But anyway, hopefully that didn't overwhelm any of our listeners, but definitely.

a good dive into legal and technical jargon.

So, but yeah, so that's basically it.

I'm really glad we got to hear about your experience in jury duty.

For me, it was the first time of hearing someone's jury duty because I've never heard
about it before.

So firsthand experience, so to speak, or secondhand.

Yeah, it was interesting for me to even though it got cut pretty short.

Yeah.

Anywho, I have nothing else to add.

I don't know if you want to throw anything in there before we get out of here No, I'm all
good.

All right.

Thanks so much for listening.

Stay safe and we'll catch you on the next one All right.

All right.

Bye

We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our podcast.

We hope that it was informative and that we were able to expand your worldview, even if
only just a little.

Welcome feedback, comments, and constructive criticism.

If you'd like to provide us with any, please reach out to us at our Discord or email
address, both of which will be listed in the description.

Thanks again for listening and until next time.