Why big talk about small business is wrong (economists say take away their perks and give to R&D)

North Jersey ^ | February 22, 2012 | BERNARD CONDON|AND MATTHEW CRAFT

[Cincinatus' Wife]

...Politicians like to say that small companies create two of every three jobs in a given year. That's less impressive when you consider that almost all the 6 million companies in the United States - 99.9 percent of them - are small businesses with fewer than 500 workers.

What's more, two-out-of-three masks the fact that most small businesses eliminate more jobs than they create in a given year, either through layoffs, closings or bankruptcy.

And many of the rest, the ones that don't shrink or shut down, don't offer much hope for the millions of Americans looking for jobs....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

As my mother taught me, figures don't lie but liars can figure.

This article suggests that 60% of small business are not helping the economy (no mention of the health care bill, minimum wage, etc hanging over their heads), but that they in fact actually lay people off and are a drag on the economy --- so incentives like loan guarantees and tax-write offs should be pulled and those "savings" be plowed into research and development to spur some "exploding new industry." (No doubt Solydra or elec cars or some other "green" liberal kick-back scheme).

[throwback]

Where do big businesses come from? It’s like saying I like big dogs, so lets kill the puppies.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It’s Leftist university research “thought” that has helped guide us to this cliff.

[GeronL]

um, a government policy of helping big business?

Look what it did to Japan Inc!

I guess they wouldn’t want people doing that.

[Oceander]

Uhmm, I hate to say it, but unpacking the data behind a conclusion doesn't ipso facto disprove that conclusion. It may very well be true that a lot of small businesses end up "destroying" more jobs than they create by folding, but that only makes it even more impressive that the ones that don't still manage to create enough new jobs to not only make up for those losses but to also create enough additional jobs in addition to making up that deficit that in the aggregate small businesses still manage to create 2 out of every 3 jobs in the US.

That makes the virtues of small business even more impressive than ever, not less impressive. The fact that anyone would take this as an indictment of small business is simply testament to the corrosive effects of allowing liberals to control education and to no longer teach American children basic logic.

[deoetdoctrinae]

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[BfloGuy]

In other words, the government should increase its role in the economy. They sure took a lot of words to say it.

[Portcall24]

That’s priceless!

I can hear the conversation now at ‘Ma & Pa Manufacturing’, “Well Ma, we only made $100K last year so let’s shut the doors and let the folks go stand in line for unemployment.” Small businesses are failing because the additional weight of the government is a burden too heavy carry when matched against reduce demand.

[expat2]

What perks? We run a small business and see no perks. No loan guarantees (those go to large green companies, it seems), no tax write-offs, only tax demands.

[refermech]

What do they expect in a climate that penalizes people that actually accomplish things?? There are 100 ways to get this economy going and the current administration is against almost all of them!!!

[willyd]

Well...you get to match everyone’s taxes including your own...and you can’t file for unemployment if your venture doesn’t work out...are those perks or features?

[DManA]

Reminds me of Hillary sniffing that she couldn’t be bothered about every rinky-dink undercapitalized business in the country.

[vbmoneyspender]

Perks?

If I operate my business at a loss, who do I turn to to pay me a minumum wage for all the hours I worked that I didn't get paid for?

[Darth Reardon]

I can’t really decide if the authors are liars using figures, or simply indicative of the sad state of our public education system. The sad part is that there are so many people who could read this and actually believe it.

[Darren McCarty]

Perks? I can create a lot more jobs if I didn’t have to pay both parts of FICA, personal property tax, income tax, license fees....get the picture?