Firms for dummies

Essentially, there are 4 types of firms:
Very soft, soft, firm, very firm.

#1. Soul proprietorship
A soul proprietor is in the business of collecting souls. Essentially, this means you can do more or less whatever you want, as long as at the end of the day you are accountable for your own actions. Death doesn't let you keep what is rightfully his right?

#2. Partnership
This means that 2 people get together and do whatever they want. However, since they can do whatever they want they are also answerable for their own actions. A firm of more than 2 partners is called an orgy, however for the sake of convenience most people refer to all such types as a partnership. Most localities limit the number of partners one can have. In Singapore, although monogamy is supposedly practiced, apparently the legal number of partners allowed is 20, at the same time. Critics of Singapore's closed-minded approach may wish to note that this has been in place since like forever and certain areas even allow UP TO 50 PARTNERS AT THE SAME TIME! But of course, its not really 50 is it? It would be actually 49 partners per person, which is probably mindboggling to the most of you.

#3. Privates Limited Company
This gets slightly confusing, but apparently the bottomline is that you can do whatever you want and yet escape blame for it. However, this type of firm is slightly unwieldy as there are restrictions on the number of people allowed to be involved in your privates, which in most cases are admittedly not very large.

#4. Public Limited Company
The "Limited" here is to throw a veneer of respectability on the type of firm. Essentially, Public means that you're literally up for grabs and any Tom's, Dick is or Harry will be able to sink their grubby fingers into you. The good news is that you can also do whatever you want without being held to blame for it. You may get fired but there's usually a generous severance package. Also, you get paid a helluvalot and are usually quite large. The process by which a small firm enlarges and becomes a large firm is called an IPO.

Essentially, those are the 4 major types of firms. Certain smaller hybrids have spawned recently, including the Limited Liability Partnership (Orgy up to 20 people without being held accountable) and REIT (Really Exciting and Interesting Thingie), but the 4 are the tradisional ones that you'll find in any law textbook.