Wednesday, May 24, 2017
They Are Killing Small Business: The Number Of Self-Employed Americans Is Lower Than It Was In 1990
After eight long, bitter years under Obama, will things go better for entrepreneurs and small businesses now that Donald Trump is in the White House? Once upon a time, America was the best place in the world for those that wanted to work for themselves. Our free market capitalist system created an environment in which entrepreneurs and small businesses greatly thrived, but today they are being absolutely eviscerated by the control freak bureaucrats that dominate our political system. Year after year, leftist politicians just keep piling on more rules, more regulations, more red tape and more taxes. As a result, the number of self-employed Americans is now lower than it was in 1990…
In April 1990, 8.7 million Americans were self-employed, but today only 8.4 million Americans are self-employed.
Of course our population has grown much, much larger since that time. In 1990, there were 249 million people living in the United States, but today there are 321 million people living in this country.
What this means is that the percentage of the population that is self-employed is way down.
In fact, one study found that the percentage of Americans that are self-employed fell by more than 20 percent between 1991 and 2010.
And if you go back even farther, the numbers are even more depressing. It may be hard to believe, but the percentage of “new entrepreneurs and business owners” declined by a staggering 53 percent between 1977 and 2010.
Sometimes I like to watch a television show called Shark Tank, and on that show they make it seem like entrepreneurship in America is thriving.
But the exact opposite is actually the case. In a previous article, I discussed how the number of new businesses being created in the United States has been steadily falling over the years. According to economist Tim Kane, the number of startup jobs per one thousand Americans has been declining for several consecutive presidential administrations…
Bush Sr.: 11.3
Clinton: 11.2
Bush Jr.: 10.8
Obama: 7.8
So why is this happening?
As I mentioned at the top of this article, self-employed Americans are being absolutely strangled by oppressive rules, regulations and taxes.
To illustrate this point, I would like to share with you some quotes from an open letter that was authored by a small business owner named Don Chernoff…
#1 I work for myself and have to pay my own medical expenses. Before the “affordable care act” I was paying about $200 per month for a high deductible policy. It was far from perfect but it got so much worse under the “Affordable” care act.
I now pay over $400 a month, my deductible went from $5,000 to over $6,000 and my out of pocket costs for care have skyrocketed.
#2 I have to spend dozens of hours and thousands of dollars for a tax accountant each spring to prepare my taxes because I cannot possibly understand how to do it myself, and I have a master’s degree in engineering.
#3 Many years ago when I quit a perfectly good job to start my own small business, I was shocked to learn that I had to pay both my share and what had been my employer’s share of Social Security.
#4 Between state, federal and local taxes you’ve probably paid 50% or more of your income in taxes, but that’s not enough for politicians.
If you’ve been lucky enough to have created a business you can sell, now you’ll get to enjoy paying another tax on the capital gain from the sale.
This is another reason why we need a conservative revolution in Washington. We should demand that our members of Congress lower tax rates dramatically, completely eliminate the self-employment tax, greatly simplify the tax code and get rid of as many regulations on small business owners as possible.
In fact, if it was up to me I would abolish a number of federal agencies completely.
What we are doing right now is not working. Small businesses have traditionally been one of the main engines of economic growth in this country, but thanks to the left they are unable to play that role at the moment.
It isn’t an accident that over the last ten years the U.S. economy has grown at exactly the same rate as it did during the 1930s.
If we want our economy to be great again, we need to go back and start doing the things that made it great in the first place. If we continue to suffocate our economy, we will continue to get the same results.
And with each passing day, we get more signs that the economy is heading into another major downturn. For instance, we just learned that Sears is closing 30 more stores on top of the 150 that had already been announced…
Sears Holdings, which wasn’t shy when it announced at the start of the year that it is closing 150 underperforming stores, has quietly added at least 30 more to the list.Another 12 Sears stores and 18 Kmarts are among the locations that are closing, from Carson, Calif., to Hialeah, Fla., with most scheduled to shut their doors in July, based on calls to the stores, malls and confirmation in local media.At the start of the year, the retailer pinpointed the 150 stores it said it would close. But it declined this week to provide a list of additional locations that are slated to shut since then, saying that it update store counts each quarter.
In addition, we just learned that new home sales in April were 11.4 percent lower than they were in March…
If you’re surprised by the collapse in new home sales in April, then you’re not paying attention.The 11.4% MoM plunge in new home sales in April was 5 standard deviations below expectations and the biggest since March 2015.
Yes, the stock market is holding up for the moment, but for most Americans the “real economy” just continues to deteriorate. Just because we are at the end of a giant financial bubble does not mean that everything is going to be okay.
The numbers that I brought up in this article are just another example of our long-term economic decline. In a healthy economy, entrepreneurs and small businesses would be thriving. But instead, they are being systematically strangled out of existence by a political system that is wildly out of control.
Credit to Economic Collapse
May Warns "More Attacks Imminent"
In a televised statement from Downing Street, UK PM Theresa May said Britain has increased its security threat level to the highest possible "critical" from "severe", following Monday's suicide attack in Manchester that killed 22 people, and she also said members of the army would be positioned at key sites to free up police for patrols and military personnel might be deployed at public events such as concerts and sports events as a further attack was seen as potentially imminent.
“Members of the armed forces deployed in this way will be under the command of police officers,” May said, adding that "we cannot ignore that there is a wider group of individuals linked to Manchester attack".
The Prime Minister also said the independent body which sets the threat level had recommended it be raised from "severe" after a man named by police as Salman Abedi set off an improvised bomb on Monday night as crowds streamed out of a concert.
"It is now concluded on the basis of today's investigations that the threat level should be increased for the time being from severe to critical," she said in a televised statement following a meeting of the government's crisis response committee. This means that their assessment is not only that an attack remains highly likely but that a further attack may be imminent."
May continued: "I do not want the public to feel unduly alarmed. "We have faced a serious terror threat in our country for many years and the operational response I have just outlined is a proportionate and sensible response to the threat that our security experts judge we face.
"I ask everybody to be vigilant and to co-operate with and support the police as they go about their important work.
"I want to end by repeating the important message I gave in my statement earlier today. We will take every measure available to us and provide every additional resource we can to the police and the security services as they work to protect the public.
"And while we mourn the victims of last night's appalling attack, we stand defiant. The spirit of Manchester and the spirit of Britain is far mightier than the sick plots of depraved terrorists, that is why the terrorists will never win and we will prevail."
May, who is facing a national election in two weeks, said the man named by police as the attacker, Salman Abedi, was born and brought up in Britain and investigations into whether he was working alone were ongoing.
Full Statement:
* * *
Britain’s threat level has been at the “severe” level since 2014. It has only been at a “critical” level twice before, in 2006 and 2007 (see table below). May said the independent body which sets the threat level had recommended it be raised after a man named by police as Salman Abedi set off an improvised bomb on Monday night as crowds streamed out of a concert.
Credit to Zero Hedge
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