Just who are you calling rich? Anyone who owns a mom and pop business is rich? The guy with the gas station? Or any of those businesses around town, those are rich people? The guy with a Subway shop is rich? The electrician or the heating and air guy who wants to add a crew and grow, they are rich?
I think they all would like to be and they all would spread a lot of wealth around getting there, but most aren't close to rich.
Makes me wonder, where does all the hostility to ambition, to working hard and getting ahead come from? Have we so demonized the old work ethic that got us this far? We really do have a bad attitude to go with our sense of entitlement and our enhanced self esteem.
Yet another reason to avoid starting a business here.
“Just who are you calling rich? Anyone who owns a mom and pop business is rich? The guy with the gas station? Or any of those businesses around town, those are rich people? The guy with a Subway shop is rich? The electrician or the heating and air guy who wants to add a crew and grow, they are rich?”
Nope, those people are middle class, upper middle class at best, and are being crowded out by their larger competitors every day. I’m all for small business; the problem is when the government cuts taxes most of the tax cuts go to the owners and CEOs of large businesses who need the tax cuts far less, who are putting the aforementioned small businesses out of business, and who, coincidentally I am sure, contribute far more to politicians’ campaigns than small businesses do.
“Makes me wonder, where does all the hostility to ambition, to working hard and getting ahead come from? Have we so demonized the old work ethic that got us this far? We really do have a bad attitude to go with our sense of entitlement and our enhanced self esteem”
I’m not hostile to the value of hard work; I’ve just lost faith that hard work alone gets you anywhere unless you were born into one of the “elite” families, attended the “right” schools, and moved in the “right” social circles. Of course, all else being equal, a person who works hard will do better than one who slacks off. Sadly, in the real world all other things are not equal, and a person’s economic success is determined more by the circumstances he/she was born into than by how hard he/she works. If Paris Hilton had been born into a poor family she would been just another common tart. Instead, because she is a member of the elite class, she is fawned over as a celebrity and leads a far easier life than those small business owners you mentioned who actually have to work for a living, all without producing anything of value. Meanwhile, small business owners all across America, who have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into their businesses, have seen their businesses fail and continue to slip closer to poverty. The American dream is dead and both parties killed it.