Thom's latest hobby horse is the decline of the middle class, unfortunately he is using poor terminology, thus obscuring his point. By definition the "middle class" are those who earn an income in the middle of the range. So there is always a "middle".
What he is trying to discuss is the existence of a entrepreneurial class. This is the group of people who either have enough capital, or have access to enough, to start businesses. If you can't do this then you are a member of the working class - a wage slave.
When you are a member of the working class if you don't work you don't eat. What has happened is that a larger fraction of families are just running in place or even taking on more debt.
So while people have a high standard of living by world standards they are becoming more locked into the socio-economic class of their parents. The opportunities for upward mobility have decreased noticeably in the past few decades. So has the degree of risk that the working class is exposed to. With a decline in lifetime employment, union contracts, employer health care and retirement plans those who lose or change jobs may find their income sharply reduced. The variability is much higher then their parents.
The imbalance between the super rich and the rest of us has also widened. It isn't necessary to look at theories of government to see this.
So we need to talk about classes from a sociological and economic point of view separately. The economic classes could be listed as: poor or lower, lower middle, middle, upper middle, upper, wealthy and super wealthy. Most people put themselves in the "middle", but in fact you are only in this class if your family income is between about $40,000 - $70,000.
The sociological classes could be: marginalized, working poor, blue collar, white collar, professional/technical, entrepreneurial, managerial, investor and the plutocrats.
What has happened in the past 40 years is that the working poor, blue collar and some of the white collar have seen their standard of living stagnate or decline slightly. Those in the professional and managerial have done slightly better than average while the investors and plutocrats have seen their net worth rise at rates not seen since the first Gilded Age.
The entrepreneurial class may have stayed about the same size as a percentage of the total population (I haven't seen any stats), but the amount of capital required to go into business has increased and the funds available from traditional lenders like banks has declined. Thus most new businesses are modest affairs like hair salons or working-from-home enterprises. Their numbers may be great, they may employ many people, but the economic benefit to the entrepreneur is modest.
No one, including Thom, has made any realistic proposals to correct these economic trends, however.
No one, including Thom, has made any realistic proposals to correct these economic trends, however.
I did, my recommendation, which I relayed to Bernie Sanders, happens to be on the finance committee was to outlaw a fed fund rate of higher than 3%. This would force our leaders to look for realistic long term solutions to inflation, rather than the "slap a band aid on it" method of raising rates every time there is a spike in inflation.
quote:
What he is trying to discuss is the existence of a entrepreneurial class. This is the group of people who either have enough capital, or have access to enough, to start businesses. If you can't do this then you are a member of the working class - a wage slave.
There is the existence of the pseudo-entrepreneurial class as well. Those folks who have spent their life savings or leveraged themselves to the hilt buying into commercial franchises that ultimately offer them far less reward for their efforts and in most cases, with startups they lose everything.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
The entrepreneurial class may have stayed about the same size as a percentage of the total population (I haven't seen any stats), but the amount of capital required to go into business has increased and the funds available from traditional lenders like banks has declined.
How much of this higher capitol required to start a business is a result of overbearing government regulations?
"Although America has problems, America is not the problem"
Posts: 986 | Location: Humboldt | Registered: 09 November 2005
Bill: I did, my recommendation, which I relayed to Bernie Sanders, happens to be on the finance committee was to outlaw a fed fund rate of higher than 3%. This would force our leaders to look for realistic long term solutions to inflation, rather than the "slap a band aid on it" method of raising rates every time there is a spike in inflation.
Do you honestly think that 3% rate high is a good idea? Do you think that would be enough to control inflation? And if this tool is essentially taken away then what do you propose to control inflation? Why do you consider it a band aid?
As far as spike in inflation, they actually look at the core inflation rate more than the total inflation rate. So they are looking at a longer time frame than just a spike. And they change only a quarter of a percent each time so are trying to make small changes to steer the economy in a stable manner.
quote:
There is the existence of the pseudo-entrepreneurial class as well. Those folks who have spent their life savings or leveraged themselves to the hilt buying into commercial franchises that ultimately offer them far less reward for their efforts and in most cases, with startups they lose everything.
Yes we should feel sorry for them. And to prevent this from happening, I recommend that all entrepreneurs be subject to a means test based on their projected ability to be successful. We would also need them to report to the US government all their finances so the government can decide their financial ability to handle a loss of income.
Posts: 54 | Location: You know where. | Registered: 19 October 2006
Originally posted by bill king: There is the existence of the pseudo-entrepreneurial class as well. Those folks who have spent their life savings or leveraged themselves to the hilt buying into commercial franchises that ultimately offer them far less reward for their efforts and in most cases, with startups they lose everything.
Bill,
I'm curious about your statements "and in most cases, with startups they lose everything".
How could a franchisor stay in business when most of the franchisee's go out of business?
Also, commercial franchises "offer far less rewards for their efforts". ??? Far less than what?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
Theodore Roosevelt, 1913
Posts: 2404 | Location: Redmond WA | Registered: 04 September 2006
What he is trying to discuss is the existence of a entrepreneurial class. This is the group of people who either have enough capital, or have access to enough, to start businesses. If you can't do this then you are a member of the working class - a wage slave.
I'm not sure this is the case. I'm upper middle class, and I'm also a wage slave. I don't think anyone I've ever known has defined middle class by whether one owns their own business or not. It's defined by how much income one has, regardless of the source.
In fact, I've been a small business owner, and I make way more as a wage slave, that's for sure. That's why I enslaved myself. Because really we're all slaves in this system. Money is the master and if we don't serve it we suffer greatly. Or so we think anyway.
I'm not sure this is the case. I'm upper middle class, and I'm also a wage slave. I don't think anyone I've ever known has defined middle class by whether one owns their own business or not. It's defined by how much income one has, regardless of the source.
In fact, I've been a small business owner, and I make way more as a wage slave, that's for sure. That's why I enslaved myself. Because really we're all slaves in this system. Money is the master and if we don't serve it we suffer greatly. Or so we think anyway.
I think you are right Jason. Some opportunities working for someone else are far better than working for yourself. It just depends.
There are so many small business opportunities out there, it is sometimes hard to focus on what you can do. I find the more I do, the more I see in front of me. Reading this thread, it is apparent some think owning a business is not worth it. Maybe for some, it isn't. The really unique thng about this country is that we all have the opportunities to do so if we choose. I'm a little puzzled by the pidgeon holing and terms like "psuedo entrepreneur".
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
Theodore Roosevelt, 1913
Posts: 2404 | Location: Redmond WA | Registered: 04 September 2006
The following assertion is without any data at all, it just seems logical.
One of the complaints about Walmart is that it drives mom and pop stores out of business. Some studies have claimed that the groceries and hardware stores are replaced by other things like restaurants and hair salons so that the net loss is small or nonexistent. My hypothesis is that the mom and pop stores provided an above average income to the owners. Things like a supermarket provide a steady flow of income while niche stores that can fit around Walmart and other big box stores yield a much smaller income.
So small businesses have become smaller. This is why it is possible for a working person to make more money than an entrepreneur. The large number of small businesses is an illusion, what we have in people being essentially self employed and taking on all the risks rather than being employed at a good wage by a traditional firm.
For example a traveling salesman might, in the past, have a salary and expenses paid in addition to commissions. Now people selling out of their homes on e-bay take all the risk themselves.
As to my original point, those who are getting squeezed may be in the middle or lower classes from an economic point of view, but what they have in common is that they are members of the working class. That's why I think Thom's use of "middle class" as a shorthand for these people is misleading. He means working people and that's what they should be called. They are defined by the constraints placed on their options in life more than by the absolute amount of money they earn.
We hear plenty of cases of upper managers getting laid off and being unable to find comparable work. They may have been making $100,000 before, but they are still working class since they depend on the paycheck.
Originally posted by Ron Rutherford: I recommend that all entrepreneurs be subject to a means test based on their projected ability to be successful. We would also need them to report to the US government all their finances so the government can decide their financial ability to handle a loss of income.
The Republican Congress and administration have already obliged you in this regard--in the revised bankruptcy law.
Instead of listening to experts who were telling Congress that most bankruptcies were not being filed by individuals running up credit card debt with an eye toward skipping out on that debt---Congress and Bush touted the new bankruptcy bill as one that addressed the problem of "irresponsible borrowers".
What the bankruptcy revisions really did was to further deepen the problems of those with medical or other family problems such as job loss---and as now apears likely---may well affect those individuals most likely to be part of that entrepreneurial class who will now not have that second chance to start over..
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Bankruptcy Law May Harm Entrepreneurs Congress used grossly inaccurate data, ignored impact By Louise Witt New York Times July 7 2005
Listening to Rick Girard describe his bustling landscaping business outside Orlando, Fla., as one of the state's largest, you might not guess that his first lawn care venture was a bust.
He started it in 1989, when he was 19, and shut it six years later, letting 30 workers go and filing for bankruptcy protection from creditors. Though his company was growing, it could not pay its bills. Like many young entrepreneurs who lack a track record, he had personally guaranteed much of his company's debt. "Overcoming the stigma of bankruptcy was almost the hardest thing I had to do," he said.
Afterward, struggling on a $32,000 salary, Mr. Girard borrowed $1,000 from his father-in-law, bought a truck, and started another landscaping business with some partners. That one also ran into problems, and in 1998, he formed one with his brother Randy.
Learning from his mistakes, he has since built Girard Holdings into a $16 million operation, with 220 employees, garden centers, landscaping services and a pool-and-patio business. Along the way, he paid off his old tax bills and his debts to his grandfather (who had mortgaged his home) and his cousin.
He even paid back most of his creditors, although his debts to them had been discharged under Chapter 7; some of them are now his best clients. "I wasn't mature mentally to fight myself out of a hole," he said. "Bankruptcy allowed me to get out of that hole."
Mr. Girard's experience is apparently much more common than the policy makers in Washington might think. A study commissioned by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., which supports entrepreneurial education, found that almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses - small companies, home enterprises or start-ups - within two years of filing for bankruptcy.
Many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork, so the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses. In many more instances, the study showed, they had been classified as individuals by a computer software oversight.
The study's findings raise the possibility that the bankruptcy law President Bush signed in April, and which is to take effect in October, may have damaging ramifications for the nation's entrepreneurial culture.
Instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates, the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks.
Editor's note: the biased language about "careless consumers" contradicts data that shows about half of all bankruptcies are at least partially attributable to medical problems, while most of the rest involve divorces, deaths or job loss. Such framing of the issue expected from credit card industry PR flacks, not reporters.
"All laws have unintended consequences," said Robert Litan, vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. "The only question is how significant they are. In the case of the new bankruptcy law, all I can say is that it may turn out that one of the unintended consequences of the law will be to erect roadblocks for new business formation."
Congress wrote the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 based on data from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts showing that individual filings as a percentage of all federal bankruptcies have steadily risen in the last 20 years, while business filings have precipitously declined from a peak of 18.3 percent in 1985 to 2.1 percent in 2004.
But the Kauffman study, written by Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, and Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, concluded that if entrepreneurs and small-business owners had been properly classified, the rate of business bankruptcies in the United States would have remained steady at around 19 percent over the last two decades.
Bankruptcy lawyers and scholars have known that many individuals who file for bankruptcy are businessmen and women. "It's doesn't divide so neatly into consumer and business bankruptcies," said Jay L. Westbrook, a business law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Professor Westbrook's own studies show that as many as 20 percent of consumer filings may be business bankruptcies. "It's not just the Enrons of the world and the Jay Westbrooks," he said. "In the middle, hundreds of thousands of others go into bankruptcy starting their own businesses."
The Kauffman study discovered why the government had undercounted entrepreneurs to such a large degree: a computing error. In the mid-1980's, the bankruptcy court system's records began to be computerized, and the most common software programs defaulted to individual settings. The error often went uncorrected.
"The model that Congress used for writing the bankruptcy law - a growing number of consumers and a rapidly shrinking number of entrepreneurs and small-business owners - was simply wrong," said Professor Warren. "It's bad policy on lots of levels."
The new law will make it harder for all individuals who file for bankruptcy protection to discharge their debts and get a fresh start. It takes away some of the bankruptcy judges' discretion in settling cases and sets up a two-part means test.
Under the test, if a debtor's expenses are considered excessive, and his income is deemed to be high, then he will most likely have to file under Chapter 13 and enter into a five-year plan to pay back his creditors.
If an individual must drastically reduce expenses to pay off creditors, he may have to sell his home, sell his car and stop paying for his children's education. Some states have what are called "homestead exemptions," but they do not usually cover the full value of the house. "It's pretty draconian," said Harry Sommer, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.
That will be especially so for entrepreneurs who finance start-ups with credit card debt or home mortgages, or borrow money from family members and friends. Without profit - or sometimes even revenue - and no business track record, it is often next to impossible for them to secure traditional bank loans.
They often plunge ahead anyway because they hold a passionate belief in their products, a mark of the entrepreneurial personality.
Consider Chris Ashton, 35, and his wife Natasha, 31, who raised money from angel investors and expect to obtain venture capital to finance an insurance program for pets, to begin in October under the name Petplan USA.
They have been able to get nothing from the banks, however, and to cover expenses they have racked up $60,000 in debt on their credit cards.
"The reason that I'm prepared to do that is because I believe so strongly in the business, and I think that we'll be able to pay off the credit cards before we go bankrupt," Mr. Ashton said.
Greg Jordan, a bankruptcy lawyer with Dykema Gossett Rooks Pitts in Chicago, spelled out the implications of the new law for people like the Ashtons. "It's not going to stop people from starting their first business. Entrepreneurs tend to believe that they will beat the odds," he said. "But it will stop them dead from starting a second one."
It probably would have stopped Tom Lange from getting back into the game. To escape the debt he held after he and his brother sold two funeral homes to a Canadian company for stock that later became worthless, Mr. Lange filed for Chapter 7 protection against creditors six years ago.
With the debt written off, the move enabled him to start another funeral home, in Centerville, Iowa, in 2000. If he had been forced to pay off all his debts, Mr. Lange, 51, said he probably would have had to uproot his family to find work.
Today he has a full-time funeral director and seven part-time employees, and his business is thriving.
"If it wasn't for the bankruptcy law, I don't know what would have happened," he said. "I was able to clear off my debt and get back on my feet."
Originally posted by Common_Man_Jason: A lot of it. And guess who wrote and lobbied for those regulations?
< ....gasp..... >
You mean that corporations and businesses would lobby Congress to write legislation and adopt rules and regulations that would have the effect of erecting entry barriers for any potential new competitors in their industry..?
I'm shocked....
< .....snicker..... > .
Number of Americans killed by foreign terrorists during presidential term of:
Reagan/Bush 1.... ~ 448 Bush 2...... ~ 3,000 in USA, ~ 3,300 in Iraq Clinton.... ~ 45 .
Posts: 638 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: 16 October 2006
I've started or helped start a half dozen small businesses. I'm working on another one now. Of the six I started, two were sold, one is in operation and three closed. Two of the three were restaurants that someone else ran. They didn't close because they were regulated out of business, they were cash starved or a poor concept. The business I own was started on a shoe string. Government does more to encourage an individual to get into business than it does to hinder them. What closes most small businesses is rent and utilities.
Where government becomes intrusive is after you achieve some success. Government regulations closed every plywood plant but one in the country and forced them to relocate to the Far East. The EPC has strict regulations about how much trash an industry generates. The way they monitor it is by how much raw material you buy. When you hit established limits you hit levels of permitting that are increasingly bureaucratic and costly. The highest levels are so expensive it's not worth going through the time and expense. The regulations you're talking about are found in the ADA or administered by EPC and EEOC.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
...iLevel is Weyerhaeuser’s integrated residential structural frame business, designed to provide builders and dealers with easy access to quality products innovative services.
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Oriented strand board:
Arcadia, La. Drayton Valley, Alberta Edson, Alberta Elkin, N.C. Grayling, Mich. Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan Miramichi, New Brunswick Sutton, W. Va. Wawa, Ontario
.
Number of Americans killed by foreign terrorists during presidential term of:
Reagan/Bush 1.... ~ 448 Bush 2...... ~ 3,000 in USA, ~ 3,300 in Iraq Clinton.... ~ 45 .
Posts: 638 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: 16 October 2006
Originally posted by Sawdust: The regulations you're talking about are found in the ADA or administered by EPC and EEOC.
Also--I am curious--why would a regulatory requirement that exists under EEOC significantly impact a corporation financially---outside of required reporting requirements necessitating an HR department--which the corporation in all likelihood would have anyway..?
Even under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), the types of requirements to have accessible facilities really only applies if the disabled person can do the job with his/her disability.
Someone in a wheelchair might be able to do office type jobs which would require accessible buildings (ramps) but not much more than that if the requirements for doing the job were all on the ground floor of a building.
I doubt that a manufacturing area would be impacted by such ADA regulations because a wheelchair bound person would not be mobile enough to do that kind of work..
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Number of Americans killed by foreign terrorists during presidential term of:
Reagan/Bush 1.... ~ 448 Bush 2...... ~ 3,000 in USA, ~ 3,300 in Iraq Clinton.... ~ 45 .
Posts: 638 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: 16 October 2006
Government does more to encourage an individual to get into business than it does to hinder them. What closes most small businesses is rent and utilities.
I think differently. I've helped a lot of small businesses throughout the years with bookkeeping. What I've found is that most small businesses fail because of poor management, they don't know how to keep, record or interpret the information. They don't know how to separate the business from the personal. Many think that being in business for themselves will be less time consuming or somehow easier, than being a wage slave; and that's not the way it is. Many aren't disciplined enough to put away what will be needed for taxes and/or growth. I can't think of much that the government (state & fed) does that encourages small business. I could give them a few clues on how to help though.
On a side note, I heard on the radio a week ago that (last year or the one before) Boeing was the recipient of the greatest percentage of small business loans from the SBA?! I was surprised to hear that Boeing was a "small business"/
------------------------------------ We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
Posts: 1855 | Location: here and now | Registered: 22 September 2005
Also--I am curious--why would a regulatory requirement that exists under EEOC significantly impact a corporation financially---outside of required reporting requirements necessitating an HR department--which the corporation in all likelihood would have anyway..?
Most large businesses have an HR department and protection from abuse from fraudulant claims filed with the EEOC. Most small businesses have no HR department and are open to abuse of the system. As an example a friend of mine owned a body shop and one of his painters was female. She was aparantly a good painter but during the day used to come into the office and lift up her shirt. My friend got a kick out of it but never had any kind of physical relationship with her. One day she didn't come into work and a few days later he got a letter from an attorney which started the EEOC process for sexual harassment. Sexual harassment litigation is warranted in some situations and abused in others. The litigatation is Federal and defense is fourty grand minimum. Defense attorneys recomend a quick fourty grand settlement, just as a stop loss because that's what a business will spend anyway. For some who know how to work the system, the EEOC is a tool for extorsion.
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Even under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), the types of requirements to have accessible facilities really only applies if the disabled person can do the job with his/her disability.
Again legislation with good intent but open to abuse and stupidity. I owned a night club a few years back and had a building inspector come in and insisted that I put lever handles on my air conditioning room to replace the round knobs which were there. I asked him why. He said it was because anyone who went in to fix my air conditioning equipment who couldn't use their hands would have an easier time with a lever handle. You figure that out.
There are law firms in Miami and California who send inspectors to chain restaurants to inspect ADA compliance in stores which were built before ADA. They then send letters threatening litigation but offering to settle on behalf of their clients for a fee. It's clearly a scam and abuse of the system. That's what Clint Eastwood spoke to Congress about in the last decade because he underwent that extorsion in his restaurant in Carmel.
Lisa, you're right about mismanagement but a large part of that is undercapitalized new businesses. My experience has been that overhead is the bullet that finally kills a mismanaged business.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Originally posted by Sawdust: As an example a friend of mine owned a body shop and one of his painters was female. She was aparantly a good painter but during the day used to come into the office and lift up her shirt. My friend got a kick out of it but never had any kind of physical relationship with her.
If that's the best example you can come up against EEOC regs--I am unconvinced as to their negative impact on business.
Sounds like your friend nurtured an atmosphere and culture at his small business which was not completely--well--business-like...
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Number of Americans killed by foreign terrorists during presidential term of:
Reagan/Bush 1.... ~ 448 Bush 2...... ~ 3,000 in USA, ~ 3,300 in Iraq Clinton.... ~ 45 .
Posts: 638 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: 16 October 2006
If that's the best example you can come up against EEOC regs--I am unconvinced as to their negative impact on business.
You can believe what you want. That was the first thing that came to my mind. I have more stories about big and small business and unwarranted prosecution. I guess you don't know anyone with any experience in the matter. It's not up to me to convince you.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Originally posted by Sawdust: You can believe what you want. That was the first thing that came to my mind. I have more stories about big and small business and unwarranted prosecution. I guess you don't know anyone with any experience in the matter. It's not up to me to convince you.
I'd say it is up to you to support your claim.
I am familiar with many such legal actions taking place in my corporate career. I have no idea whether the claims were baseless or not as the procedings were confidential and I was not directly involved. I know that it has never been a problem in groups or departments where I have been in a position of supervision
But maybe the larger question is---does the government have a role in ensuring equality of oportunity for every citizen..?
Isn't that what this issue comes down to in the end..?
Number of Americans killed by foreign terrorists during presidential term of:
Reagan/Bush 1.... ~ 448 Bush 2...... ~ 3,000 in USA, ~ 3,300 in Iraq Clinton.... ~ 45 .
Posts: 638 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: 16 October 2006
You'll have to forgive me, I don't feel good today and I'm a little cranky.
I'll try it one more time, I don't care what you believe.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
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