Atlas Shrugged Non-Fiction
American small to mid-size businesses have gone into hibernation. They have all gone Galt in plain sight. I used to make a good living selling marketing services that captured markets and introduced new products to markets, got companies market exposure. For the last 5 years they have put EVERYTHING on hold. They are afraid of how much the looters will demand in capricious tributes. There is no ability to plan and so they have gone Galt in Plain Sight. GGIPS They cut all expenses, stopped advertising, cut inventories, closed stores and laid off unnecessary workers. They are on Strike. The question is, after 8 years will they ever be able to come out of hibernation? Has demand been so dialed back that margins will never be there to support recovery?
Even in the recession of '09, many people were out here finding customers and solving their problems.
The recession of '02 wasn't as deep, but hit me much harder because it was centered on tech.
Right now, though, the economy is in expansion mode.
I definitely have seen some cases over the years of red tape, from large corporations and the gov't, getting in the way of getting things done.
This notion that suddenly in the past five years everything changed is nonsense. There are plenty of people out there doing an amazing job finding serving customers and getting rich doing it. I know many of them. The idea that all small- and medium-sized businesses are shut down is beyond hyperbole, metaphor, or figure of speech. It's opposite of what's actually happening. Countless people consistently ignore the red tape of the world and all the reasons people say you'll fail and just go out there and try things until something works, and that hasn't changed in my adult life. Govt has major problems, some getting worse, some causing business models not to work, but this is no excuse for staying home and saying it's _impossible_ to succeed in business. People are free to strike if they like, but it's absurd to say it's _impossible_ to succeed if you wan to.