Some of these small business owners' stories make me feel sympathetic frustration for them. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I were actually in their shoes. Some jurisdictions really seem to be in the profitable business of choking businesses for fees until they disappear, all the while holding their power to shut the businesses down as their pass to continue making "withdrawals" from the companies. Just one highlight from the article:
A guy who tried to start a business buying and selling high-end cars said:
I sat down with my manager and we did a list of all of the regulations that we had to comply with. It turned out to be 25. Some of them had fees as high as $25,000; certain violations carried years of jail time. And all of them seemed complicated.
I spent more than $100,000 trying to comply with all those regulations and I was open only six months.
Good job, government. You made $100,000 in six months just by threatening a guy who wanted to sell cars with jail time and other various punishments.
Hrmm, I'm not entirely convinced. This certainly wasn't a good cross-section of businesses (many were from the same industry, and most were from industries that are notorious for their regulation.) I'm also a bit confused, as some of the regulations they complain about don't apply to small businesses. The article and the government must be using different definitions of the word "small." Lastly, it seems like the main complaints are over minimum wage laws and lawyers fees, not specifically about government costs.
Are you supposing the possibility that if a business has a revenue cap above a certain point and ceases to be definable as "small," the taking of more monies by the government changes from bad for the company's success prospects to good? The limo rental company that has to pay upwards of $10,000 to each county its limo's tires touch and can only put approval stickers on limos less than five years old, even if perfectly maintained, do you not think that if they didn't have to hand over that wad of cash to bureaus X, Y, and Z, they could spend it on other things like better maintenance on their fleet (more money for mechanics to put back into their business or take their families out to dinner, again putting money back into the economy), better pay for high quality and more motivated employees (who are highly competent and can be depended on to keep your business in compliance with the moving target of government regulations) increasing the value of their services, eventually enough for resources to expand their business (putting money into businesses selling everything from limos to office supplies), advertisement (letting advertisers do just like the mechanics and limo dealers and merchandisers), and 100 other things?
Last edited by Digit on Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I think the main question here is context. Sure there are industries that need regulation reform. But a lot of people will read this article and think "less government regulation everywhere!" would be a good solution. Some areas are broken, and some areas are working fine. I don't see the solution in terms of "more" or "less" regulation across the board—but better, more efficient, regulation in targeted areas.
I feel sorry for the limo business owner. "Keeping compliant is a full-time job for me. ... It is not something that you can pass on to staff members because if they mess up, you can get fined for not being in compliance." Poor guy doesn't trust his employees to do anything right. Seems like he needs to hire some better staff members.
Waldorf and Sauron wrote:I think the main question here is context. Sure there are industries that need regulation reform. But a lot of people will read this article and think "less government regulation everywhere!" would be a good solution. Some areas are broken, and some areas are working fine. I don't see the solution in terms of "more" or "less" regulation across the board—but better, more efficient, regulation in targeted areas.
I feel sorry for the limo business owner. "Keeping compliant is a full-time job for me. ... It is not something that you can pass on to staff members because if they mess up, you can get fined for not being in compliance." Poor guy doesn't trust his employees to do anything right. Seems like he needs to hire some better staff members.
Agree on the first paragraph (though I'm sure EVERY sector has superfluous regulations - while I believe only some suffer from under-regulation). Focusing on the last part though, it's not about hiring better staff members, it's about the economic consequences for each. His staff members aren't internalizing the cost of a fine (and we might be angry if he did try to make individuals internalize the cost of the fine by say, suing them and putting them in financial ruin or firing them) and often times the regulations you have to keep up with are so intricate that it's difficult to distribute them amongst a large group while keeping the checks in place.
