Free Republic

Start-up mania hits San Quentin prison as inmates turn entrepreneurs One by one, the entrepreneurs, clad in crisp blue jeans and armed with PowerPoint presentations, stood before a roomful of investors and tech bloggers to explain their dreams of changing the world. For these exuberant times in Silicon Valley, the scene was familiar; the setting, less so. With the young and ambitious flocking again to northern California to launch Internet companies, there were signs one recent morning that start-up mania has taken hold even behind the faded granite walls of California's most notorious prison. 'Live stream has gone mainstream. Mobile...

A third of all small business owners in a recent survey say their family life and their relationships have improved as a result of owning their own business. Small business owners also are more likely to be married than other workers are, researchers found. Sixty percent of the 1,100 small business owners in the poll say they are married, which is 10 percentage points higher than the national average. Small business owners also place a high emphasis on their personal relationships. Eighty-seven percent say they value their personal relationships at least as much as their business. And 80 percent say...

When I was in grade school, I remember going to birthday parties at the local bowling alley. Before the games would begin, the workers would install bumpers inside the gutters in order to prevent gutter balls and avoid "failure." When I was growing up, it was common for sports teams to award trophies to all the players so no little kid would have his or her feelings hurt at the end of the season. Today, there are school districts which no longer give out "F'" grades, and hundreds of high schools have removed class ranks so that my generation...

“…What the hell is he doing asking for another four years?”

Dagny Taggart is not just the entrepreneurial heroine of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus novel, Atlas Shrugged. She is the inspiration of real women everywhere who are taking up her shield and fighting her battle for freedom using the weapons of entrepreneurship, education and free speech. The media continually talks about the “war on women.” What the media never admits is that the government is waging a war against women through unjust force. The government’s “weapons” include: domestic drones that violate women’s private property rights; unconstitutional taxes and regulations that make it nearly impossible for women to achieve their dreams; healthcare...

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When Washington gives you lemons, make lemonade and don’t forget the rum. D.C. lemons make it challenging to remain upbeat. “Lemon legislation” coming out of Washington, D.C. is effectively shredding the Constitution (think Obamacare or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Defense Authorization Act and President Obama’s executive order to expand the use of domestic drones). And presidentially-appointed lemons make life miserable for the common man and businessman alike. Ben Bernanke is our lemon “economist,” Timothy Geithner is our lemon “treasurer” and Lisa Jackson (head of the unconstitutional EPA) is...

President Barack Obama's recent business-related comments in Virginia ("If you've got a business -- you didn't build that; somebody else made that happen") sounded more communistic than capitalistic, especially because the "somebody" to whom Obama referred was in fact the U.S. government. Progressives and the mainstream media were quick to come to the aid of the president by stating that similar statements have been said by other entrepreneurial moguls, such as Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Andrew Carnegie and Walter Chrysler. Others excused Obama by saying he "borrowed" his business verbiage from Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. No one...

For decades, the threat of “peak oil” has hung over policymakers of the developed world. The basic premise of peak oil is simple and difficult to argue with: At a certain point, we’ll extract as much petroleum as possible, and after that “peak,” our rate of extraction will inevitably decline. Since it takes so long for petroleum to develop naturally, there’s for all intents and purposes a finite amount of it on Earth. So, our rate of extraction can’t possibly continue rising forever. At some point, we will hit peak oil. Of course, that’s not the whole theory. Nearly all...

In the late Fifteenth Century, an Italian in a puffy shirt pitched a business plan. Again and again and again. Until finally somebody bit. What’s remarkable was not that this Italian wore a puffy shirt; it was the style in those days. And there was nothing strange about his pitching his investment ideas at the royal houses of Portugal, or Venice, or his hometown of Genoa. It wasn’t even that odd that he pitched his business plan to the king of England, and finally to the king and queen of Spain. All these monarchs heard investment ideas all the time....

“Take a look at this black belt I’m wearing people. You think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearin’ this bad boy?” It’s time for unemployed Americans to embrace capitalistic martial arts. It’s time to talk like Rex from Napoleon Dynamite. It’s time to give socialism a roundhouse kick to the face. If you aren’t already one of 14 million unemployed Americans, you’re probably concerned about joining them. The U.S. economy netted no new jobs in August. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Consequently, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in the first full week of September...

Society will survive and law and order will prevail. And it is within the realm of possibilities that some extremists will propose draconian measures requiring, for example, that offenders be corralled in their own neighborhoods behind concrete barriers and chain linked fences. This would be a pretty ugly America.

There are over 81 million young people unemployed worldwide. Not to mention tens — if not hundreds — of millions more that are underemployed. In the U.S., youth unemployment is just shy of 20 percent, nearly 40 percent of Gen Y has been either unemployed or underemployed at some point since December 2007 and college graduates are so poor that they are being forced to move back in with their parents and default on student loans in record numbers.

As graduation season rapidly approaches, black college graduates may face a greater burden in the job market than their white counterparts. Black college graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as white college graduates. The recession has only worsened this problem. Unemployment among blacks is disproportionately higher than the rest of the population. Reasons for this trend include black students are not adequately prepared for the job market. They may have the degrees, but they lack the connections or professional skills to be successful in the workplace. Students may have the knowledge, but not the resume; or the resume,...

Meet a banker today, and you can be certain that within minutes he will be complaining about the epidemic of "banker bashing." How unfair it is of politicians and media populists to blame the financial industry for the Great Recession. Don't they understand what it is the bankers bring to an economy? Not just all the financial products, which grease the wheels of global business, but also all those jobs and all that wealth. Take a drive through Greenwich, Conn., the home of the hedge fund industry, and see for yourself what a formidable service the financial sector has done...

Folks, this is something I have been thinking about for a while but need some input from others.. Freedom is a relative term, so maybe the question should be: where is more freedom? My premise is that an entrepreneur wants freedom. Not all businesses are entrepreneurial as some like big govt and regulations. There have been postings here by individuals who have intentionally reduced their business and/or gone overseas. If you distil their actions down to the core, I believe they want freedom. Freedom to risk, fail, learn, help others, make a difference. I have presented to some economic development...

Regulators on Friday shut down a big community bank based in Chicago that has been known for its social activism but racked by financial troubles in recent months. It was the 114th U.S. bank to fail this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over ShoreBank, with $2.16 billion in assets and $1.54 billion in deposits. Urban Partnership Bank, a new institution comprised of several big Wall Street banks and a private foundation, agreed to assume ShoreBank's deposits and nearly all its assets... In an unusual move, the FDIC allowed some of ShoreBank's executives to continue running the restructured bank......

In 2007, a group of Georgia State students traveled to India to answer one central question – “Was the Indian government assisting or halting entrepreneurship?”Our findings were that there were plenty of opportunities to start a business in India, that the bureaucratic process often hindered the speed of a start up, and that the Indian Government’s best policy would be to get out of the way.A recent study on Entrepreneurial levels in India and China confirm these findings and added some very interesting information: Major motivation for Indian entrepreneurs is to be their own boss.Major motivation for Chinese entrepreneurs is to make...

How many Americans will never work again? Perhaps a lot. A close look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey raises some alarming questions about the prospects of significant parts of the American population. Thirteen percent of Americans twenty-five years and over without a high school diploma were unemployed in June (down from a peak of 17.9 percent in February, but much of that decline was due to a fall in the labor force participation rate from 62.4 percent in February to 61.4 percent in June). Ten percent of workers with only a high school diploma, were unemployed...

Schumpeter 2.0 By Richard Swedberg and Thorbjørn Knudsen Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Filed under: Big Ideas, Economic Policy A great thinker’s contribution not only appears in his or her finished works and arguments, but also within the rich intuitions or core ideas that underlie the arguments. During the last decade or so, the theories of Joseph Schumpeter have gone through a revival, and much attention has been devoted to his work. By now many economists and commentators value his work highly, especially what he says about entrepreneurship and creative destruction. While this work on Schumpeter is very valuable, one might...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-press-secretary-visit-president-medvedev-russian-federation-white-house Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 11, 2010 Statement by the Press Secretary on the Visit of President Medvedev of the Russian Federation to the White House President Obama is pleased to welcome President Dmitriy Medvedev of the Russian Federation to the United States on June 22-24. Over the last eighteen months, the United States and Russia have made significant strides in resetting relations between our two countries in ways that advance our mutual interests. Since first meeting...