It’s getting tougher and tougher out there on entrepreneurs, a group SLL is part of. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:
If American Entrepreneurism is in a death spiral, then so too is the U.S. economy and the state that lives off the surplus generated by American Entrepreneurism.
The self-congratulatory rah-rah about American entrepreneurism rings hollow,as the evidence is conclusive: entrepreneurship, new businesses and the source of new businesses, self-employment, are all declining.
Two recent articles describe the trend: American Entrepreneurship Is Actually Vanishing. Here’s Why (Inc)
American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive? (Gallup)
The Inc.com piece is a nuanced look at entrepreneurship that tries to find a silver lining in the abysmal data: perhaps we’re simply not looking at the right metrics. Perhaps entrepreneurship is best measured by self-employment rather than by only counting businesses with employees (which, by the way, includes incorporated self-employed).
This is very sensible, as self-employment is the ground floor of entrepreneurship. If your one-person business takes off, then you hire employees and scale up from there.
Alas, the feedstock of small business–self-employment–has been in structural decline for decades.
To continue reading: The Death-Spiral of American Entrepreneurism
“self-employment–has been in structural decline for decades.”
Since self-employment = a structure of one, I assume he is referring to the structure of the business environment, the self-employed one has to swim and drown in. Thus, are we talking about oppressive ever growing government with increased regulations, taxation, meddling, prosecution, and whatever else–>decreased desire to take a risk, and instead go for security and safety, like work for the government? I can’t rule out that the measurement of all this is missing something, but what? Intelligence/originality/innovation decline?–>I don’t think so, cuz I can not keep up with all the new stuff and ideas (no known little TIAs).