From Nick Drandakis, Greek entrepreneur and founder of the company Taxibeat, an app that provides passenger ratings on taxi drivers:
Fear of failure is less of an issue because the whole country is a failure, and most of us are out of business or have a hard time paying our bills.
The Wall Street Journal, “New Entrepreneurs Find Pain in Spain,” 11/28/14
The crumbling European economy is forcing many Europeans to rethink their historical disdain for entrepreneurship, small business, and capitalistic enterprize; other opportunities are scare or nonexistent. However, Southern Europe’s infamous bureaucracy and red tape present daunting obstacles. Gerard Vidal, an unemployed Spanish physicist, said his business launch was delayed for months by what he called an “illogical, inefficient, and totally frustrating” process. The European Union just announced a $400 billion fund to provide seed capital for private ventures, but if that runs true to form, it will take years for proposals to work through the bureaucracy, and non-politically connected capitalists need not apply. If there are any European politicians sincerely interested in helping entrepreneurs and small business, here is a policy that, if followed, would be far more helpful than legions of EU bureaucrats with unlimited funds: leave them alone and get out of their way. Entrepreneurs and markets make capitalism work, not politicians, bureaucrats, and their ever-expanding volumes of laws and regulations.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 