Question: How much does it cost to get a business going? How much intrusion is the government going to have in it with regulation? How much is the government going to confiscate via heavy taxation? How easy would it be to offend some low-level functionary who will thin go out of his way to make things unnecessarily difficult for you?
When the game is stacked enough against you, the smart thing to do is not play.
The Golden Rule
of gambling is this: never gamble more than you're willing to lose
— and while nothing in life is a sure thing, with the amount of taxes, regulations, pettiness/cruelty of government, and the new reality that the government can (a) pick winners and losers [X is 'too big to fail', but you aren't.
] and (b) violate the established rules [like w/ GM's bondholders].
There no argument that government intrusion is a barrier to business creation and growth. It’s been that way for a long time, during which some people have done fantastically well, often by working around the barriers. Success has always been difficult. Making excuses not to try is sad.