U.S. Small Businesses Face Extinction
![feature photo](http://blog.ml-implode.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/outofbiz-economy-small.jpg)
Posted originally at BullionBullsCanada.com.
On an individual level, the “middle class” has always been the “backbone” of any/every strong economy. Despite this fact, the U.S. government has been extremely effective (and utterly relentless) in destroying its middle-class in order to funnel all of their wealth into the hands of corporate Oligarchs and/or the ultra-wealthy.
On the business side, “small businesses” have (also) always been the backbone of any/every strong economy. Specifically, as any/every politician can tell you (but only when they are campaigning for your votes), small businesses are the big “job creators” in our economies. This is partly a function of the much greater numbers of such enterprises, but also a function of the fact that small businesses tend to be more labour-intensive than larger businesses.
Despite the importance of these small businesses to the U.S. economy (and job-creation in particular), the U.S. government has been equally relentless (and just as “successful”) in exterminating small businesses. The facts are unequivocal.
According to a CNN article, over the past 15 years, almost 2/3 of all net job creation in the U.S. has come from small business. With the various levels of U.S. government accounting for basically all of the rest of the new jobs in the U.S., this means that medium- and large-sized businesses have done nothing for the U.S. economy over the past 15 years.
Despite this glaring dichotomy where we see small businesses producing all of the positive business activity in the U.S. economy while mid-sized and large businesses have contributed nothing, U.S. tax policy is punitive in the extreme toward small businesses (and their owners).
I’m sure that most readers are totally confused about the U.S. government’s taxation policy towards business. Sometimes they hear reports of multinational corporate deadbeats, making $billions in profits every year, while paying little-or-no taxes at all. Sometimes they hear reports that (generally speaking) the U.S. has one of the highest “corporate tax rates” out of all Western economies.
In fact, both statements are true. Large corporations are the beneficiaries of $100’s of billions in corporate taxation welfare every year – massive taxation “loopholes” designed expressly for them in order to minimize the taxes of these corporate parasites. Thus the “tax rate” is irrelevant to these entities since their net taxes are negligible. Meanwhile, U.S. small businesses are almost completely shut-out from all this corporate taxation welfare – meaning they (and only they) pay full taxes on each/every dollar of profit they manage to eke-out.
The picture is very clear: U.S. small businesses are being forced to subsidize larger corporations by essentially being required to pay their taxes for them. If these large, corporate welfare-bums were cut off from their $100’s of billions of tax-welfare each year then the overall corporate tax rate would be much, much lower – and the tax bill for small businesses would be manageable (and fair).
Of course this is merely the beginning of the persecution which U.S. small businesses face at the hands of their own government. When the Wall Street Vampires were extorting their $15 trillion in hand-outs/loss-guarantees/tax-breaks from the U.S. government, as a “condition” for the most excessive corporate welfare in history they “promised” to increase their lending to individual Americans and businesses.
They lied.
In fact, virtually every month since they mooched their $trillions, the Wall Street Vampires have been reducing their lending. While banksters like JP Morgan have no interest in giving “loans” to U.S. small businesses, it is quite eager to enslave them with its “small business credit cards” – charging interest rates of up to 30% per year.
JP Morgan calls borrowing from the Federal Reserve at 0% and lending to small businesses at 30% “good business”. I call it “usury”.
It gets worse for the small business owner. Larger corporations can access markets (and customers) all over the world. Thus the same U.S. corporate welfare bums who are getting small businesses to subsidize them by paying their taxes for them, are then able to leverage those subsidies into fat profits in foreign markets – and creating jobs in those foreign markets.
This means that not only is the U.S. government actively conspiring against the only “job creators” in its entire economy, but it is (indirectly) using them to create jobs in other countries. However, being cut off of any reasonable access to credit, and facing extreme tax discrimination are far from the only problems of U.S. small businesses.
As I just mentioned, these enterprises are much more dependent upon domestic consumers/consumption than larger businesses. As I observed at the very beginning of this commentary, the U.S. government has been relentless in annihilating the customers of these small businesses: the U.S. middle-class. It is a comprehensive “strategy”, which (over time) can only lead to the literal “extinction” of the small business in the U.S. Put another way, one can only watch so many of their neighbours forced into bankruptcy before permanently abandoning the idea of personal enterprise.
Given this “eradication strategy” of the U.S. government toward small business, it is no surprise that the same CNN article which noted that small businesses were the jobs “engine” of the U.S. economy reported that over 80% of small businesses thought the U.S. government was “on the wrong track”. This makes this group the single demographic in the U.S. which is most opposed to the oppressive policies of the U.S.’s two-party dictatorship.
When these businesses were asked what they “wanted” from government, few even bothered to fantasize about actual “help” from the U.S. government, instead the overwhelming majority simply voiced a desire for the government to “get out of the way”.
Let me translate this “diplomatic” characterization of the issue by the mainstream media (in this case CNN) into plainer language, for those readers not yet adept at translating media-speak. U.S. small business owners are saying (or rather begging) for their government to stop actively conspiring against them, and to level the “corporate playing field” at least slightly – a playing field which (at the moment) is tilted at a near-90 degree extreme in favor of large corporations (like the parent of CNN).
In the conclusion to this commentary, I will go farther. I will offer a comprehensive strategy to restore health to U.S. small businesses, while at the same time reducing the overall insolvency of the U.S. economy.
Comment by Tom Lowe on 14 July 2011:
My small business has been facing extinction for 23 yewars now and I expect it will face extinction for another 30 years or so until it finally goes extinct.
Facing extinction is what small business is all about.
TBTF is what WORTHLESS LOSERS are all about.
Comment by admin on 14 July 2011:
Tom I admire your in-the-trenches attitude, but can you imagine a small business environment that’s vibrant enough where you don’t constantly feel you are merely “facing extinction” but are thriving and maybe growing?
23 is not long enough to pre-date the predatory, top-heavy government and corporate regime we have.
Comment by JeffNielson on 14 July 2011:
Tom, I’ll agree with “Admin” here: people in the U.S. (and Canada) have LIVED WITH SUCH ECONOMIC OPPRESSION for so long that we now (more-or-less) embrace it as “normal”.
While having those on TOP take from those on the BOTTOM certainly is “normal”, the SCALE of the plundering/theft/fraud taking place today goes beyond ANYTHING seen in hundreds of years.
It is MUCH preferable for ordinary people to “rise up” now – and rid themselves of this two-party dictatorship TODAY (while peaceful change is still possible), rather than following our historic pattern: waiting until complete collapse occurs, and then pulling out the guillotines…
Comment by Certified Tax Coach on 14 July 2011:
I empathize with Tom and understand how he feels. It is and has been difficult for years for any small businesses to get ahead. If they do start doing well start to grow they are penalized through all the regulations and laws for doing a good job and helping grow the economy. It is not fair.
I also agree with Jeff, we need to get rid of everyone in Washington and start with a clean slate of people who are down to earth, logical, fiscally responsible, and are not afraid to make the RIGHT decisions that will help small businesses, stabilize the economy, and bring back the middle class.
Comment by Liberty on 27 July 2011:
I agree with all of the above posts. Here is what is happening, our government was infiltrated by the international banking families around 1913. They got their people elected into office and began to take control of the US economy. They created the Federal Reserve and the IRS. Then they banned gold ownership and forced those who held gold to sell it to the government for Federal Reserve notes. Shortly after this was accomplished they engineered the Great Depression which financially destroyed many Americans. This was all done to rob the Americans of the time of their wealth. Our country was only allowed to recover while participating in the Second World War for an allowed period of temporary prosparity. And that was rapidly becoming a false wealth based on Federal Reserve notes that was back by gold until the 1970’s. At that time the notes became a fiat currency backed only by debt. Then in the 1980’s through today companies that have been infiltrated by these banking families started exporting the jobs out of the country which at first was only a few jobs but gradually became more and more. The government side of this was to make trade treaties with other countries that were one sided in order to help get jobs out of the country. The end result is that industry has been mostly destroyed. The few small companies that were not owned by the banking families were forced out of business by the unfair international competition. This left only service based jobs for Americans to get. And this is also shrinking as they too are being exported. As for the small business es that are hanging on barely, the laws that are in place are there to ensure that you do not succeed. All of this is to destroy the American economy and the nation as a whole, and usher in a one world currency and government. This is being played out in other countries around the world as well with the same goals in mind. This is only the tip of the ice berg of what they have planned.
As for the solution, the first thing that must be done is to return to God before anything else can be done. Without that there is no hope of turning this mess around. The next thing that must be done is for everyone to study this country’s history, constitution, previous constitution and why it was abandoned, and the banking history of the US government. Some other thins that would be of help would bed to know the warnins from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin as they apply today concerning the dire mess we are in. The next thing that would need to be done is have all Americans vote out all of the current rejects that are currently in office and vote in people who are not backed by the international banking families. This will be very difficult to do as most of the people who are running for office are backed by the baking families money. People must also realize that all of the political parties can not be trusted as they too are backed by the banking families. This means that everyone would have to vote for an independent candidate also making sure they are not backed by the banking families. This goes back to George Washington’s warning. The next thing that would need to be done is do the same house cleaning at the state levels and then force the newly elected people to hold a Convention in order to revise the constitution to make sure something like this never happens again. Also the Federal Reserve and the IRS would need to be abolished. Along with the other alphabet agencies as well.
The consequences of not doing any of this is quite serious. If you want to see where we are heading just have a look at the Argentina collaspe that occurred in 2002. Right now we resemble pre collapse Argentina.