Ky Leads Nation in New Business Creation

[Ohioan58]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Aside from that, no, a private business is not obligated to hire anyone nor should be.

I completely agree with you in this one isolated point. But someone has to hire somebody in order to have a functioning economy. Henry Ford explicitly grasped this early in the last century, and the story of the last 30 years of the US economy is that employment is always the other guy's problem.

If everyone becomes a sole proprietor and "follows their dream" you have a monoculture of undercapitalized "fun" businesses that don't have economies of mass scale or institutional wisdom in their back pockets. How many food trucks or web design agencies or dog walker businesses does a society need?

That's why startups are a dim feeble fraction of a complete solution for the economy. And I don't put the burden of solving unemployment on the backs of startups. It's the fault of our government, our institutions and our trade policy and it's amounted to a short term dismantling of a system that kept Americans employed for almost 100 years.

So, no, it's not a problem I put solely (or even incidentally) on startups. But they're pikers when it comes to providing for more than themselves.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

I completely agree with you in this one isolated point. But someone has to hire somebody in order to have a functioning economy. Henry Ford explicitly grasped this early in the last century, and the story of the last 30 years of the US economy is that employment is always the other guy's problem.

If everyone becomes a sole proprietor and "follows their dream" you have a monoculture of undercapitalized "fun" businesses that don't have economies of mass scale or institutional wisdom in their back pockets. How many food trucks or web design agencies or dog walker businesses does a society need?

That's why startups are a dim feeble fraction of a complete solution for the economy. And I don't put the burden of solving unemployment on the backs of startups. It's the fault of our government, our institutions and our trade policy and it's amounted to a short term dismantling of a system that kept Americans employed for almost 100 years.

So, no, it's not a problem I put solely (or even incidentally) on startups. But they're pikers when it comes to providing for more than themselves.

Necessity is the mother of invention. A free market will lead to services and products that are in demand.

The problem is that government legislation and regulation or should I say restrictions on businesses has led to the demise of manufacturing and the outsourcing of jobs in this country. They've created an unfriendly country in which to do business that most have shut down or in some cases, companies moved to places where the cost of doing business was lower and taxes would not destroy the profit i.e. incentive for creating the business in the first place. There may be some local or state governments that can help to create a better environment in which to do business but I would not count on it happening in DC.

[Ohioan58]

I've heard that restrictions and regulations mantra and I agree with it partly - but NOT that it's the only reason for the drain of value added production jobs. The major theme of offshoring is labor cost reduction - overseas scab labor, to put it bluntly.

[SWOH]

Yep, at the end of the day it is all about who can make "it" (good, service, etc.) better. Some stuff is a lot easier to offfshore than other stuff. For instance, making electronic chips abroad makes more sense than making potato chips abroad because the shipping cost is drastically cheaper per dollar of value for electronic chips than potato chips. factor in regulatory concerns, tariffs, taxes, supply risk, etc and it becomes obvious there are a fair number of items which are moronic to produce in this country and a fair number of items that are moronic to produce outside of this country.

Also, some stuff makes up an organization's core competency and can never be outsourced, while some stuff organizations couldn't care less about and honestly SHOULD be outsourced. People get their backs up the second the word outsource comes up, but is really a very good thing. It is the basis of trade, and it simply means that organization 1 contracts the services of organization 2 to complete organization 1's tasks which lie within organization 2's core competency. For instance, would you go to General Motors to complete your taxes? No you would not, and they don't go to themselves either. Likely they use a team of accountants and consultants from a third party like a big four tax firm. Similar to how you go to an accountant to complete your taxes instead of doing them yourself.

Same with off shoring. Who does computer chip manufacturing best? Last time I checked the most skilled engineers, production workers, and management is in Shenzhen, China. So as an computer manufacturing organization it is in your best interest to go there to buy computer chips, not the Podunk startup in cowtown USA. So they do. In turn, look at what southern and central Ohio does well - advanced manufacturing, military support, logistics, IT services, marketing/retail services, and to some extent commercial banking. So lets stick with it and make it better. We can become the Silicon Valley of it with enough work and foresight - no reason to fear off shoring if we don't directly compete in those industries

[SWOH]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

You can't be serious. Closely monitor a business? Unless they are involved with some kind of illegal activity and are under suspicion for such, or if they are bound to a legal contract to a level of government tied in with tax payers subsidies then the government has NO BUSINESS sticking their nose into the day to day operations of that business. This is a fascist concept if I ever heard it. Most of these businesses take little or no money from the government and are funded by venture capitalists or even the owners own money.

Unfortunately I am serious. There are a ton of quasi-legal businesses out there that suck money out of stupid people every day. Look at any multi-level marketing company.

And beyond that, how many times have you heard about failed startups with inflated balance sheets that implode coating their investors thousands? I've heard it more times than I care to remember. Government needs to hold all business accountable so they are serving the best interests of ALL of their stakeholders.

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by OHKID

Unfortunately I am serious. There are a ton of quasi-legal businesses out there that suck money out of stupid people every day. Look at any multi-level marketing company.

And beyond that, how many times have you heard about failed startups with inflated balance sheets that implode coating their investors thousands? I've heard it more times than I care to remember. Government needs to hold all business accountable so they are serving the best interests of ALL of their stakeholders.

To an extent it's been tried, as in the case of utilities. The Public Utilities Commission was established to hold companies like DP&L accountable. The companies may dutifully refer you, but that never amounted to "better service" or a respectable company in the past.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by OHKID

Unfortunately I am serious. There are a ton of quasi-legal businesses out there that suck money out of stupid people every day. Look at any multi-level marketing company.

And beyond that, how many times have you heard about failed startups with inflated balance sheets that implode coating their investors thousands? I've heard it more times than I care to remember. Government needs to hold all business accountable so they are serving the best interests of ALL of their stakeholders.

We already have laws on the books that cover these alleged improprieties. Unfortunately we now live in a society where good ethics is down the tubes.

Back in the late 1990's I read a great article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press from the owner of Hubbard Broadcasting i.e. KSTP TV 5 in the Twin Cities. I still have the original stored away somewhere. More or less in it he said that times have changed so much that when doing business in 1955 he could do a business deal on a handshake and everything would be done above board and ethically. Nowadays he went on to say, even getting a deal in writing would not guarantee that the deal would be done above board or that appropriate ethics were going to be used. My Uncle said the same thing 20 years ago while we were at my grandparents house doing some work.

I found some examples of how well the government handles these problems. Not very well. If anything they are contributing to the problem.

Former top aide to Obama pal Whitaker indicted in state grant kickback scheme - Chicago Tribune

FBI raids solar panel company hailed by Obama - Washington Times

President Obama's Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

[WILWRadio]

Looks like area government in NKY may work on creating a more friendly environment to attract more and keep existing businesses happy.

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB...er-tax-credits

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Looks like area government in NKY may work on creating a more friendly environment to attract more and keep existing businesses happy.

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB...er-tax-credits

If it's the same Cunningham (and it sort of looks like what I remember him looking like), he "maintains contact" with Kentucky but lives and did work in Ohio.