It is a pain in the ass to create any job these days, even easy stuff. The paperwork makes taking the chance prohibitive. Anyone starting a new business who is willing to put in a 17 hour day with a hard won investment will be turned off when the process is tied up for months getting all the approvals. Only the very rich can afford to hire the legal advice it takes to deal with all the regulations.

Loving Breitbart.

Both, probably.

It pays to be conservative with any capital investment these days, especially with the threatening perfect storm called ObamaCare just on the horizon.

I owned my own company for over 18 years, and saw my daily time sheet devoted to governmental issues go from just a few minutes at the beginning, to most of the morning towards the end. Since I sold materials to commercial contractors, and many government funded projects, the paperwork (and liability exposure) became more than I could bear. OSHA alone could make my life a nightmare....

Added to the Federal level of accounting, I had to deal with state regulations and tax collections. I was audited by the state for sales tax almost every 4th year.

What finally made me quit was when OSHA told me that I could be held accountable for any contractor's violations, even though I was only their offsite supplier.

I sold my business, and 'ran for the hills'. One of the saddest, and most satisfying, days of my life....

Real life is playing out just as Ayn wrote it. I have a front row seat, and glad to only be a ticket owner, and go for popcorn (or beer) without missing anything.

I started my business in 2003, so it doesn't exactly qualify as new. But to stay away from the host of regulations, taxes, etc., I'm not producing any more than I can build, by myself, in my basement. I have no employees: I'm president, CEO, VP of manufacturing, chief Engineer and janitor. My advertising consists of a website, on a server that I maintain (I guess that qualifies me as director of IT, too), also in my basement. I had dreams of growing the business, but I put them on "hold" in the fall of 2008.

excellent post, gw. I love good charts