Where Are We Going From Here? What Is The Future Of Small Business?

Small business owners are becoming an endangered species. The downturned economy is eliminating millions of small businesses. The government is piling massive additional expenses on small business owners, including additional taxes, health care support requirements, insurance requirements, licensing fees, and on it goes. Worse yet is the unfathomable burden of compliance with the ever-growing requirements for providing the government with information, forms, reports, etc.

It is too expensive, it requires massive paperwork and staffing to comply and it erodes any profits earned. We are killing the golden goose as small business provides the jobs in this country, not big business. If we kill this sector we are killing our workforce incubator and supplier. Small farms cannot exist and compete as they are not getting the subsidies the large farmers are receiving. Government regulations are putting small businesses out of business by requiring equipment, certification, testing, etc. that they cannot afford. There is no lending, credit cards are being shut down, the system is not working. Revenues are down, overhead is up, credit is gone, unemployment numbers are massive. This will end in catastrophe and then it may be too late—too late to save the current generation of small business owners who will be unable to fight the war and win.

However, capitalism is the base foundation of our economy and our way of life. New entrepreneurs growing up within the current system will see opportunity, find ways to finance their start-ups and will replace the jobs we are losing and the businesses we are killing with new businesses and new jobs. We have our problems, but nothing will quell the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great.

Trust the system. If the government remains far enough away, capitalism will rule the day. We will help ourselves and emerge successful—the next generation—as this one will drown so the next can emerge. It’s sad but true, uplifting and exciting. Two steps forward one step back, and with much loss, but we will emerge. The power of the entrepreneurial spirit is immense and it will seize the moment and break away with new ideas, new jobs, new businesses, new adventures. It will be painful, as we are experiencing now, but out of this catastrophe new ideas and new small business owners will arise and lead us to a better time.

Never stop thinking, daring and doing. It is the American way. We will prevail. Small business will prevail.