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devoish (98.71)

Free Market Mythology.

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August 14, 2009 – Comments (9) | RELATED TICKERS: UNH , WLP , CI

We proudly call ourselves the party of small business because small businesses are where national prosperity begins. Small businesses such as Main Street retailers, entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and direct sellers create most of the country’s new jobs and have been the primary means of economic advancement by women and minorities.1

–2008 Republican Party Platform

We honor the entrepreneurs and small business owners who are the engine of our economy. Their ingenuity and hard work are critical to our Nation’s prosperity... Small businesses will lead the way to prosperity, particularly in today’s challenging economic environment.... Our Nation’s success depends on America’s small businesses and entrepreneurs.2

–President Barack Obama, May 15, 2009

Uh oh....

Despite our national self-image as a nation of small businesses and entrepreneurs, the United States small-business sector is proportionately not as large an employer as the small-business sectors in the rest of the world’s rich economies. One interpretation of these data is that self-employment and small-business employment may be a less important indicator of entrepreneurship than we have long thought. Another reading of the data, however, is that the United States has something to learn from the experience of other advanced economies, which appear to have had much better luck promoting and sustaining small-business employment.

One plausible explanation for the consistently higher shares of self-employment and small-business employment in the rest of the world’s rich economies is that all have some form of universal access to health care. The high cost to self-employed workers and small businesses of the private, employer-based health-care system in place in the United States may act as a significant deterrent to small start-up companies,12 an experience not shared by entrepreneurs in countries with universal access to health care.

How many small business's have closed because an owner could not afford healthcare?

The whole story here, with scarey charts and everything.

9 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 15, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Tastylunch (29.93) wrote:

Thanks devoish this is good stuff as an SBO myself I'm watching healthcare trends very very closely.

I don;t claim to ahve an asnwer but what we have now is not working for small bsuiness that is 100% for sure.

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#2) On August 15, 2009 at 7:43 AM, devoish (98.71) wrote:

Tasty,

Thank the folks who did the research.

I will say this. There are a lot of words that come out of the "small Gov't" advocates mouths that just do not ring true to me when I look around.

It seems to me the only thing you get from a small government is the inability to enforce its laws, whether those laws are good or bad.

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#3) On August 15, 2009 at 10:08 AM, whereaminow (58.64) wrote:

I love the tortured logic of The Joker's supporters.

Bush in 2000 and the 1994 Republican revolution promised small government but instead delivered crappy big government.  That's bad.

The Joker in 2008 and the 2006 Democratic revolution promised wonderful big government.  Instead they delivered the crappiest biggest government you've ever seen. That's somehow good.

True believers in the supernatural powers of their dear leader.

David in Qatar

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#4) On August 15, 2009 at 10:15 AM, whereaminow (58.64) wrote:

LOL and I forgot to add that all this crappy government is the fault of the free market mythology;

See, it's all MY fault.  LMAO

There's one simple way to show you that The Joker's supporters are clueless.  Ask them 'what is insurance?'

You see, the Private Insurance that they rail against is neither private nor insurance.  Insurance is the trading of present goods for future goods.  We have Mandated Care.  And since this Mandated Care was cartelized by the government in 1973, it's also Fascist Care, not Free Market Care.

So call it what it is. Be honest and I might have just an ounce of respect for you.  It's Fasict Mandatory Care Providers, not Private Insurers. Get it right.

By the way, you know who thinks the Market works in Health Care?  Barack Hussein Obama.  He uses the Health Care options that we don't get.  Not the Socialized stuff either.  Just like Congress, BO is able to get real market health care.  They have more options and better coverage of care than the supposed "free market private insurers" that you bash.

In other words, like all politicians, he's a hypocrite.

David in Qatar

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#5) On August 15, 2009 at 5:54 PM, starbucks4ever (99.56) wrote:

devoish,

I wouldn't romanticize small business. I would say about 50% of small business operators are just ordinary crooks who haven't yet been audited.

whereaminow,

Unregulated healthcare market would in any case have emerged as a caricature of classical free market, but it cannot be denied that government officals have made matters much worse. This is not to say that all regulators are bad, it's just that we in America have been particularly unlucky to have the choice between two parties both of which are in bed with HMO executives. If only we imported health care officials from Canada, we could immediately get everyone covered and save something like a trillion dollars a year. I am sure that gradually we'll move in that direction. I won't hesitate to make the prediction that we'll have a functioning single-payer system before 2050.

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#6) On August 16, 2009 at 12:41 AM, ajm101 (33.71) wrote:

Single payer can't happen soon enough.  The system is thoroughly broken.  Too bad the right has collectively lost its mind and can't contribute to the debate outside of crude insults and coded racist slurs.

@whereaminow - what you described is not insurance.

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#7) On August 17, 2009 at 12:39 AM, FleaBagger (32.74) wrote:

Too bad the right has collectively lost its mind and can't contribute to the debate outside of crude insults and coded racist slurs.

If you define "socialist" as a coded racist slur, I guess you can go ahead with your socialist agenda immune from criticism. I wonder why your socialist leaders never thought of that before. Oh wait, they couldn't, because until now they were always too racist to appoint a black man as their figurehead. But it's all right now. Government will take care of us, and Utopian States of America will be the happiest, sunniest, most egalitarian country in history.

 

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#8) On August 17, 2009 at 11:30 AM, devoish (98.71) wrote:

Flea,

I don't define "socialist" as a coded racial slur, but thanks for the contribution.

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#9) On August 17, 2009 at 11:59 AM, ajm101 (33.71) wrote:

@FleaBagger - a straw man that flimsy is totally beneath you.  You just have to watch video and look at pictures from the protests to see what I'm talking about.  The 'socialist' comments, while not constructive or entirely honest in my mind, are polite in comparison.  I shouldn't have even have brought it up, because it's not core to the debate and can only cause distraction, so I'm sorry for that.

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