REMEMBER WHEN AMERICANS HAD THIS TYPE OF WORK ETHIC? Currently vacationing in Panama, a country with a current unemployment rate of 2.9% and a GDP approaching 10%, I encountered something absolutely refreshing the other day while riding on a public bus going from Coronado to Panama City. As unemployment compensation does not exist here and welfare of any type is kept to a minimum, most people find ways to earn a living or depend on friends and relatives to survive. As our bus, holding approximately 50 people, approached the heavily traveled roads of the city we were stuck in traffic and barely moving. A fellow passenger on the bus explained that for the next 15 minutes or so, the situation would remain unchanged and we would be crawling along until we got through the bottleneck. Suddenly, while we were at a dead stop, the front entry door to the bus opened and a guy came in carrying a large cardboard box. He walked up and down the aisle of the bus yelling Empanadas for sale $2.50. (Of course he yelled this in Spanish which I am not about to try) A bunch of people dug into their pockets and bought one or several of the delicious stuffed pastries. When he had completely worked the bus he left and walked back through the traffic to enter another bus also stuck in traffic. He was able to earn a living, I’m sure the bus driver got his share and a lot of hungry people satisfied their appetites while enduring this long ride. A definite win win for everyone involved. The question I have is why do we rarely see this type of entrepreneurship in our country anymore? The answer is simple, and here are just a few reasons: In the U.S the following rules and regulation would apply 1) The bus driver would probably be in a union and would not allow a non-union vendor aboard 2) The bus driver would also want a much larger piece of the action 3) The bus would have to be licensed as a restaurant requiring a license and board of health certification. 4) The vendor would have to take a course in restaurant management 5) The vendor would need an expensive business license 6) The vendor would also have to have his area of preparation (probably home) licensed and approved by the board of health requiring periodical inspections. 7) The cardboard box would have to be replaced by a heated, thermal lined, temperature controlled board of health approved one. 8) The vendor would have to carry some type of recording device to record each sale in order to assure that all sales taxes were collected and paid to the state. I’m sure I left out a lot of other rules and regs but I’m sure you get the idea. The motivation of course is that this vendor was able to earn some money without having to take an entry level minimum wage job which here in Panama is rather low. Subsequent to this event, I started to look around for other areas where people just jumped in and started little businesses unobstructed by the government or other licensing agencies. They are everywhere providing services that people want, while earning a living. The purpose of this post is to get you thinking about some of the real problems affecting our economy. Most of the economic problems we are currently experiencing are a result of government overreach in rules and regulations, as well the implementation of job crushing welfare programs which in my opinion destroy productivity, entrepreneurship etc. Has our country changed so much that we have passed the point of no return and will continue our slide down the economic scale on the world stage. We are being bypassed by many third world countries while we continue to beat our chest thinking everyone wants to be like us. Maybe it’s time to rethink our values.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:02:29 +0000
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