Posted on 05/31/2016 6:54:10 PM PDT by Lorianne
Americans in small counties are much less likely to start new businesses, a trend that jeopardizes the economic future of vast swaths of the country. ___ Americans in small towns and rural communities are dramatically less likely to start new businesses than they have been in the past, an unprecedented trend that jeopardizes the economic future of vast swaths of the country.
The recovery from the Great Recession has seen a nationwide slowdown in the creation of new businesses, or start-ups. What growth has occurred has been largely confined to a handful of large and innovative areas, including Silicon Valley in California, New York City and parts of Texas, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan research and advocacy organization that was founded by the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker and small group of investors.
That concentration of start-up activity is unusual, economists say. In the early 1990s recovery, 125 counties combined to generate half the total new business establishments in the country. In this recovery, just 20 counties have generated half the growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Explanations for this trend:
* business creation and innovation is more likely when you’re young, the rural areas have had a brain drain and youth drain for decades
* big businesses in those small towns import illegal and legal immigrants to keep wages low, depressing the local economy for locals; when half your neighbors can’t find work, there’s no one to sell to
* the underground economy has grown for decades in part from illegal immigration and their under the table wages; thus there is some business but not as much is reported
* government regulations strangle the small operator more than the big one; the lady who wants to run a daycare from her home but is told to get a thousand in permits and inspections first stops while a new Kindercare doesn’t care, the woman who wants to braid hair and is told to get a barber license stops while the new Great Clips franchise doesn’t face that hassle. And when you live in a rural area, you’re less likely to be able to find advice like Institute for Justice to get out from under the red tape.
The silliest one I saw recently was in an area zoned agricultural told they can’t have chickens, because of local zoning.
The view from our place, in rural southern Oregon, is that the only new businesses being started are connected with legal pot: growing, processing, retailing.
A fair number of people who used to be low-level criminals are going to be wealthy soon.
There is a second “industry” which has started up. That is call centers. Companies can hire people who speak colloquial US English for under $15 per hour. No, it doesn’t m,watch the rates in India, but their customers can understand what they are saying, which speed things up considerably. But that is a few big shops, not many small ones.
Imagine vacant lots more than 35 acres each, far from the power grid and no people as far as the eye can see. No camping for more than 14 days without a permit (permit posted at the entrance to the property with a driveway permit—even on a private road—30-day limit). Every building larger than a 120 sq. ft. shed for storage only must be permitted with an engineered design by a licensed, PhD. engineer (greenhouses, barns, septic systems, all). No automotive work allowed on any residential property in the County. No manufacturing business—no matter how small—anywhere in the County except in the designated “industrial” area (can you say “rent-seeking” to the umpteenth power?). Nearly $1000 impact fee for the fire department before any building permit. And NIMBYs regularly patrol every empty development to scour it for activity and take photos. And most of them moved during recent years from New York, New Jersey and places like that. Backhoe rental? Thousands of dollars for a backhoe many miles away. Excavation contractors charge $120 or more per hour.
All of that, in an area that looks and feels much like Mars—one of the most brutally cold and windy micro-climates in our country.
Government regulations are much less of a problem for immigrant entrepreneurs. They just ignore the ones they don't feel like obeying...and the government looks the other way.
And Obama is happy that small business wont be helping the economy.
Or the govt agencies or military comes looking for stuff.
“You didn’t build that!”
“I see a new taco wagon around here about every week.”
Me too. There is one near my house. I saw them struggle for about a year. Then they moved there location about 100 yards and angle so that you can see it from the freeway exit ramp and their business has taken off. I figured,while I was waiting in line, they must be grossing at least $30,000/week.
“The government’s war against the middle class started 50 years ago.”
It might be better to position it the way it actually is - government theft from the class that has the most people, therefore the greatest total amount of money to steal.
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