This is a great argument in favor of higher taxes on large enterprises and wealthy individuals. Small businesses aren't being victimized by government, they're being victimized by large companies that compete with them for customers and resources, and that offload their real costs on the public, all while shirking the taxes that would pay for infrastructure like public healthcare and transportation, and eliminate much of the burden on small-to-medium businesses.
>My partner and I had a ready response when employees hinted that we must be raking in big bucks: here's the keys to the front door, payday is on Friday. That shut them up in short order because they could see we meant it: it's all yours, including meeting payroll in a bad month out of your own pocket.
Gee with a management style like this I can't imagine why the author is struggling to turn a profit
They might—but someone will replace them. As long as there are needs going unmet, there’s money to be had, and people willing to believe they’ve got it figured out. That’s why industries like game dev are so shitty—no shortage of people who want in.
I really don't think these are valid complaints. First, if you work for a boss there's always a big overhead you pay (for your boss, HR, the company building, trips for management and senior coworkers, etc). Second (correct me if I'm wrong!), I think the USA is one of the places where the government taxes for entrepreneurs are quite low, compared to many other developed countries.
Haha. "Multiple of base year" on the y axis, starting with 1950 when industrial output was very large, and the cold war (responsible for much of the public increase) was just getting started? Nice try. Business owners need to stop voting up so many extreme idealogues, that's the problem.
This is the exact attitude that's the problem—the idea that we don't live in a society, but we should all be self-sufficient individuals. Islands unto ourselves.
The whole point of living in a society is so that we can get together and make things better. That includes things like technological progress and mutual defense, but also taking care of those who have difficulty taking care of themselves.
We may not be fully in a post-scarcity society yet, but we're producing enough today, in terms of food, necessities of life, and basic luxuries, that it would be totally realistic to provide these things to every American for free and still be fully able to turn a profit. The idea that everyone should have to earn the right to live is both ludicrous and horribly callous.
The only way for us to progress as a species is to return to an attitude of community—but expanding that community to cover the whole world. None of us are getting out of this alive, so we should be kind, take care of each other, and try to make sure everyone has the best life they can. It just so happens that that's also the way to make sure that we have the most bright, inquisitive minds able to spend time and energy working on solving the rest of our world's problems, rather than being stuck in poverty traps and unable to focus on anything but survival.
So you're basically saying that people live too long and we should reduce average life expectancy back to 50 again? Because that is what happened in the last thousands of years. People simply died before they reached their retirement age. Taking care of grandma is easy when your other grandma and your grandpas are dead already.
> People have 'saved' for retirement and ill health for thousands of years
Have they, though? Unless you were part of the elite classes you probably died in poverty.
If we assume that 60% of the budget supports people because they can not support themselves, what will change that will allow them to support themselves? They're probably paying little if any income tax so how will reducing that help?
The State is also using the private sector for building up its services and infrastructure, and therefore whatever increased costs the State has usually come from the private sector, which overprices its products/services when the customer is the State. The State doesn't mind paying more than what the market pays because it's not their money after all, it's the tax payers' money.
Perhaps the above conclusion is not totally valid in USA, but parts of it are, and parts of it are also valid for various states across the globe.
Isn't it time to rethnink everything? perhaps stop with taxation altogether, and fund public services with their own currency? and maybe put some time limits that the new currency is valid in order to avoid inflation?
I don't know if the above will work, but it could be on the right track.
