Bob - I'm kind of amazed by the comments you've made, considering that you sign off as a business owner. (Well, you sign off as President, but I assume you are also the owner, not a hired gun).
For example you say: > The false premise is that government is somehow supposed to stand aside from > involvement with business growth. It is -A- (not "the") role of government > to encourage small business development, even if that calls for an initial > short-term loss. Without such encouragement, we might soon only have large > businesses. And as we all know large businesses don't pay a lick of taxes, > so who would the government get its tax money from? :-) The poor, > overburdened taxpayer would pay an even larger portion! Mark Anderson reply: Are you saying that small business needs government to exist?? Does your business need government incentives to exist? I think it's just the opposite - government interference in the market almost always benefits large business. Probably not on purpose - but just because large businesses employ the bureaucracy and lobyists needed to cope with government regulatory power. I think the best way for government to benefit small business is to deregulate as much as possible. Certainly the loans to small businesses don't help much - as Michael states - the money will as likely as not be directing investment funds to the wrong place. About the only beneficial non-passive activity government could have for small business is to help create information. Perhaps training in business practices or markets. Then at least the government wouldn't be attempting to pick winners and losers. Bob says: > Large companies, backed by powerful lobbyists, receive abundant financial > incentives from government even in lean times. To deny mere low-interest > loan support to small businesses at the same time seems both unfair and > societally counterproductive. Today's small businesses are tomorrow's large > businesses. Mark replies: Good, you agree with me that large business benefits more than small business from government incentives. However, you want to level the playing field by giving (selective) small business benefits also. A much better way would be to remove the large business incentives. Your method simply benefits a small subset of small business in addition to large business. Bob says: > The private sector has a different set of goals than those of government -- > goals driven by short term profit rather than long term investment. It's > perfectly appropriate for government to support its own goals through > reasonable, prudent investments of its own. It's perfectly reasonable that > government's investment priorities would differ from those of banks. Mark replies: Bob - you run a small business? Do you expect it to be around in a couple of years? I can't believe that you believe business is driven by short term profit goals. No business will survive long with such an attitude. On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable for government to work on such short term agendas. Running out of money doesn't shut down the government - you just increase taxes. From what I see, government is driven much more by short term objectives than business is. Of course both business and government struggle with short-term vs long-term goals. Both politicians and business people tend to make noble sounding statements about how they're building for the future - but both are easier to judge on short term results. But I think it's usually easier for business owners to hold executives accountable to such statements than for voters to hold politicians accountable. Mark Anderson Bancroft _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
