No, I don’t mean getting back to whatever normal is from the panicdemic. I mean it’s past time America stopped strangling its businesses. Red tape and regulations serve large corporations, not small businesses. Small businesses, not large corporations, employ most Americans. Overregulation is one of the chokeholds on the Middle Class.
Take your foot off the brake, America.
Oh, stop that nonsense. Sure, there are some valid regulations but that doesn’t make all or even most valid. If you can’t kill or maim someone doing your job, why do we need a license for that job? No, making money for the local government is not a good enough reason. If anything, it’s counterproductive. More businesses, better economy, more taxes – that equals more money for local government over time.
While we’re on the topic, I like local chambers of commerce but only to a point. The Chamber of Commerce can be a great asset and it can be a locality’s worst enemy. Besides stifling competition, they can ‘help’ government to the point that government doesn’t bother functioning without that help. A new business should not need the Chamber’s help getting through the red tape – that is totally inappropriate. Grow your city, but don’t let it turn into a protectionist racket.
That’s one of the many reasons you, Dear Citizen, have to keep an eye on your local government. Governments, like dogs, need training and constant supervision. The dog only makes a small mess; governments make great big messes. No one said self governance was easy.
Well, no one sober, anyway.
But, but, we need regulation! The big mean company will do bad things! We’ll get hurt! The sky will fall in!
Seriously, grow up, people. No good business is going to screw around if you can sue their hides off. See, there’s more than one way to keep businesses on the straight and narrow. Lawsuits are a great motivator for small business that would rather not spend tens of thousands on legal services. Amazingly, most folks have enough sense to not do stupid stuff if they can easily be called on it. Even more so if that call is expensive.
Yes, yes, expensive on both sides. But there are ways around that and we need to improve access to the courts anyway. The courts will hate it but it’s about time they started earning their keep. Sure, it’s a big complicated job but since we have to do it anyway, why not use the courts the way they were intended?
See, the Constitution wasn’t designed to prevent any and all possible bad outcomes; it was designed to give redress to the aggrieved. Fancy for people who have been hurt get their day in court.
Whatever we decide, we need to get this country moving again. Information economy sounds spiffy but people need plumbers when the toilet backs up, not computer programmers. They probably flushed a phone down the thing in the first place.
Point being, it takes more than just programmers and office workers to run a railroad. We’ve got a whole generation of college kids finding out the hard way that there are only so many tech jobs as it is. Don’t feel too bad for them – they’ll find new careers in the weirdest places. Well, once they stop panicking, anyway.
Unfortunately those careers won’t involve locking yourself in a bedroom to code. The poor things will have to flip burgers, push brooms, and figure out how to make change. Yep, they will have to start at the bottom like the rest of humanity. Oh, the horror.
That horror is a blessing in disguise. The real world is where all the cool stuff is. Of course, it won’t be fun but that’s okay, fun isn’t what they need. Work is. As they work real jobs for lousy pay, they will do one of two things: move in with you parents or find something better. They’ll figure out what they can actually get paid to do and what they really like doing to get paid. It’ll work out.
Faster if you kick them out of the basement. Just sayin’.
The disgruntled college student of today will be the entrepreneur of tomorrow. How long you are without a basement depends on how long we cling to useless or anti-competitive regulations. It doesn’t need to be the Wild West but we do need to be a LOT friendlier to new business.
No business should spend more on licensure than it does to put out a shingle. Most business licensure is a scam – it serves only as a cash cow for government. Getting that red tape out of the way of the grand opening benefits the entire community. It also opens the door to regrowing the Middle Class.
And you get your basement back.
