The decay of the American Dream

When will we wake up? The recession--let’s call it like it is--depression is forcing many small family owned business to close. These are the businesses that we need to focus on helping to succeed. Why are they closing? Top line revenue reductions, increasing taxation, and they can’t adjust fast enough to keep things afloat. By the way, many of those put out of work will not qualify for unemployment because they were the business owners, and you guessed it, are not employees. While they paid self-employment taxes, the government does not view this group as needing help and are not victims of an oppressive employer, therefore are in control of their own destiny and can afford to be without work.

The problem is that we have it all wrong. Businesses are looking to complete tasks and they hire people to accomplish those tasks. If those tasks repeat, they extend contracts aka make a person an employee. The government also forces the issue by requiring a company to hire people if they are used to complete tasks for a period longer than six months, or if the task can be reasonably described as an ongoing task that would be completed by an employee. Most employers, especially the family owned businesses, are careful about hiring people into the business and come to view all employees as family. It’s one of the mistakes made by these businesses, but also one of their key strengths. The value of these businesses is incalculable from a societal prospective. They show families how to work together, build communities, and keep customers happy. These form a strong foundation for economic and community growth.

The companies that are “too big to fail” are rooted in 15 countries and have no loyalty except to the investors. This is how it should be. But I still assert that no company is too big or important to fail. We need a better tax code, a focus on what is important, and frankly the only thing about health care that we need is to remove government from the managing equation. A group that can’t deliver the mail without losing billions is not someone I want to manage my health in any form. The loss of these businesses is a very good indicator as to how well we are managing our own financial responsibilities.

Obviously we are failing.