Trials and tribulations of a small business

Running a socially conscience, small business in America is not easy during a period of change and reorganization. There are certainly management and people challenges, and this is a normal part of any organization. However, in America, it is the regulatory and bureaucratic crap or our own construction is driving small business costs up. This absurd regulatory environment is providing incentives for small firms to drop out, to develop grey markets, markets that are outside of taxation and recorded GNP. Markets that look like the corrupt world of the drug trade.

America is on its way down the path leading towards a black market economy full of corruption, with lawyers, accountants, banks, and insurance companies sucking down all the profits from firms trying to do the right thing, while the SMEs and their employees are left holding the bag. Its a sad state of affairs when two guys in a pick up truck full of lawn mowing equipment, can make more money being paid cash, tax free, than working with a legit firm, with benefits, that are subject to all the rules and regulations.

We as a society do not have enough regulators or adequate systems to enforce all of the existing policy. (our jails are full of criminals now) If law abiding firms are broken by globalization regulation, and convert to micro firms that are so small and so numerous that they become like the fleas on the rats that caused the black plague, then we sink into the quagmire economies of Brazil, India, and the far East, where corruption rules. All across the nation, many of our MBA students are studying in Brazil, China, and the developing economies of the world, trying to find out how grey economics work. They know that it is impossible to exist on $2/day and are trying to figure out where the money is going. They are finding billions in unrecorded transactions, transactions which if recorded, could aid in development for many regions. These transactions are the grey economy, too small individually to matter and to large collectively to ignore any longer.

When the opportunities for legit small business in America are gone, we can thank our government( this means us), for allowing the tax, accounting, banking, legal, and medical establishment of our country for our demise. Hiding, lying, stealing are all OK, as long as you don't get caught. Get small enough and grey enough, and hide and lie enough, and you can be as bad as the law allows.