Thoughts at The American Thinker:
For many decades, the American dream has been undergirded by the faith that regardless of its current state, the economy would come back around thanks to the greatness of ordinary people being free to do extraordinary things. Thus the bold gunslinger mentality many business owners have had in previous recessions, refusing to participate, and even expanding cheaply to grab market share in the next recovery.
But it’s different now, and there is no denying it. The dream itself is being killed by legal and regulatory micromanagement. Washington is determined to employ policies to cure something that can be cured only by government getting the hell out of the way.
A small business summit in the White House will accomplish nothing unless the invitees include unions and lawyers and bureaucrats, in which case it will be devastating. When did a union or a lawyer or a bureaucrat ever start a business? How many times a day do they kill one?
And that’s the climate entrepreneurs see. Unions, lawyers, and bureaucrats gain more power and leverage every day. The big opportunity now is to spend government money: an eighteen-million-dollar government contract to create an awful Recovery.org website, SEIU union jobs in ObamaCare, bankruptcy lawyers, and perhaps carbon credit trades coming. There are ACORN-style crony contracts to be had, not to mention all the jobs created by the David Axelrod astroturfing media escapades. If you are connected or if your dream is to enrich yourself by killing the dreams of others, then the field is ripe for you.
Ayn Rand saw this coming.
More unemployment means more wards for the state and thus Donkey voters — mission accomplished!
Ayn Rand saw this coming.
Yes, she did.
Hey now! Some of us lawyers see our jobs as helping businesses get started! Attracting capital, hiring good employees, drafting partnership agreements that promote cooperation and innovation, etc. are not easy, and a good lawyer can help that along.
All I’m saying is that Liberal Fascism and Entrepreneurialism are attitudes and philosophies, not job descriptions.
Heck, even many Chinese Beuecrats are pro-business. Much more so than most American ones. They see their job as helping business hire people.
Er… do you have any, you know, actual… what’s the word I’m looking for… oh, yes, EVIDENCE, that this is the case?
Looking at the Seattle Start Up scene, for example, while there’s a reduction in VC spending, there doesn’t seem to be a reduction in entrepreneurs.
Seatle 2.0 has a growing list of start ups, there was a Start Up day this weekend and so on.
As a start up owner myself, one of my major problems in these times is being able to supply healthcare to experienced people who I’d like to hire who’s wives are looking at the normal risks of a startup and at the benefits that, say, Microsoft provide and saying no f-ing way.
How do you propose I complete? Stock Options?
As a start up owner myself, one of my major problems in these times is being able to supply healthcare to experienced people who I’d like to hire who’s wives are looking at the normal risks of a startup and at the benefits that, say, Microsoft provide and saying no f-ing way.
Balls. The problem the wives are seeing is that if your little start-up goes under, there go her benefits, and those of the children, until your employee can find something else. There’s zero risk of Microsoft going under. So it has zip to do with the quality of benefits, so long as they’re above a certain level, and everything to do with the stability of your operation.
How do you propose I complete? Stock Options?
Er…have you thought about higher salaries? Just thinking outside the box here.
Besides, Daveon, the fact that a start-up owner like yourself — particularly one steeped in the narcissist leftism of the Seattle area — would support something like universal health care is no surprise at all.
Clearly any rational start-up owner would love to be able to offload the entire problem and cost of employee benefits onto the taxpayers. That’s one giant cost taken out of your bottom line right away. Very profitable, at least over the short run, and that’s all you can afford to think about when you’re just getting started.
You can’t just do it now, because no one (or at least no one with a family) would work for you if you didn’t offer semi-decent benefits. But if the law changes, and there is a public option, and lots of your competitors just punt to the public option, then you will, too, and gladly.
The mystery is actually why any start-up or small business owner would not support universal health care. Maybe they fear the taxes necessary to provide it, or maybe they’re thinking of their own personal health care, which they like, and would not be happy about turning over to the Federal Department of Health.
By the way, the answer to your question about data is: (1) the unemployment rate, (2) the savings rate, and (3) the lack of inflation despite a system awash in money and credit. All three indicate that there is a dearth of new hiring from new business, which typically borrows or uses savings to get started.
Carl’s point is one of the very few bright lights to a real universal health care system. It would break down the barriers to many good people leaving BigCo. for a startup, and could foster long term innovation.
Of course, so could a real free market in health care insurance at the individual level, and without all the downsides of government run care. But who am I kidding? That’ll never happen.