Would the Founding Fathers Promote Small Businesses?

The News:
- Generals instructed to prepare to withdraw from Iraq
- Closing Gitmo
- Restrictions on lobbyist revolving door in government
- Restoring transparency in an about-shift from the secrecy of the Bush admin
- Restoring the Freedom of Information Act

Some say Obama is a an unvetted empty suit. Some say he's a neocon in disguise. Some criticize the passion of his supporters. I'm always ready to criticize a politician but so far, these people are all missing the point -- we're only three days in but at this point "founding fathers" would be pleased. This openness is going to get interesting.

Ex-NSA employee Russell Tice: The NSA was monitoring all Americans communications and targeting journalists specifically.

"I started to investigate. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."

And then there's this, from the ABC News blog, "The Blotter":

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

The argument for monitoring all of our communications is that any of us could be terrorists but over and over again we hear stories about how this really isn't what it's being used for.




Obama sent a memo titled "Transparency and Open Government " to all heads of executive departments and agencies yesterday:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent....
Government should be participatory....
Government should be collaborative...

Goodbye to the secrecy of the coup that was Bush/Cheney.

We should never assume that our leaders have things under control or are serving our best interests. Too often we make the mistake of thinking this is the case and they end up playing the game of publicly acting like leaders and privately acting like pawns. If we all actively discuss ideas and solutions we can "culturalize" them and we are less likely to be victims of our government. Obama appears to agree. Let's get participatory!

Many Freedom of Information Requests were denied during the Bush administration. Start thinking about what you want to find out. This blog will be organizing freedom of information request drives in the near future.

In the meantime, let's talk about large and small businesses.


The car-makers had to get specific about their bailout requests but the banks were able to get away with not revealing where they spent the money. They didn't use it to free up credit -- the banks used it for mergers & acquisitions. Why does government cater so much to big businesses and not small businesses, and specific big businesses and industries but not others?

Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations -- including several that are receiving billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to finance their recovery -- have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying U.S. taxes on their profits...

Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hotspots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where they can move their income into tax-free accounts. Several of the companies are household names, including Pepsi, Exxon, Dell and Dow Chemical. In the list of 100 companies that GAO studied were 63 with major federal contracts, including Caterpillar, BearingPoint, Boeing, Merck & Co. and Kraft Foods.

The bailout recipients on the list include Bank of America, which received $45 billion; Citigroup, $45 billion; American Express, $3.4 billion; and Goldman Sachs, $10 billion, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense watchdog group.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/01/16/ST2009011603928.html

We are paying a lot to support big businesses.

People trust small businesses over big businesses and banks over the president. Hmm, well this survey was done pre-bailout.

Also, not all banks are created equal. My favorite large bank is here on the west coast: Wells Fargo -- one of the things they do is pay their employees to take a day off to do community service. They usually sit on top of surveys of favorite places to work.

In other news:

Despite billions, banks still teeter on the brink

Major Banks Foreclose on Builders With Perfect Records

Intel slashed prices and is closing five plants.

EBay missed analysts’ estimates

Seagate reported wider-than-expected loss

Japan exports plunge.

China growth slows.

Apple is out-pacing sales expectations.

U.S. children are prescribed antidepressants and stimulants at three or more times the rate of children in Europe, and antipsychotics at between 1.5 and 2.2 times the European rate. In the United States, more than 75 percent of psychotropic drugs were prescribed to children "off-label," for uses not approved by the FDA.

Study: Cleaner air adds 5 months to US life span

Reactions:

Obama is an empty suit.

Obama is unvetted.

Obama is a neocon.

Obamaniacs like Obama a lot.

Your Job:

The government gives preferential treatment to large businesses -- tax breaks, bailouts, even aiding them in finding tax shelters. Many argue that protecting large companies is important because they are either key to our infrastructure or they are allegedly more efficient than small businesses. At the very least they should pay taxes.

On the whole, it is the small and medium-size company that is driving competition by being more innovative and efficient relative to their size and foot-print. A healthy economy is one that fosters small and medium businesses. Obviously small and medium companies may become large companies and will then be pushed by any new competition that comes along.

As Farhad Manjoo writes:

It is a fairly well known fact in the business community that the majority of mergers and acquisitions are a failure when it comes to increasing shareholder value, benefiting customers or any of the other metrics that are used to judge the "success" of an acquisition. Whenever you read a news story about some startup being acquired or two large companies merging, there is a greater than 50% chance that the resulting product or company will be of less value to customers and shareholders than if the deal had never happened.

It's not always easier or less expensive to purchase goods and services from small businesses, but smaller businesses often offer more diverse and higher quality goods and services. They cost us less in terms of tax dollars and they often have less of a destructive footprint upon our world.

Today you can do two things:

1) Purchase goods and services from small and medium companies as much as possible, but at least one more time than you do now.
2) Let people know about your favorite small and medium businesses -- regardless of business type. Please post at least one in the Comments section below. Don't make me chase you down! :)

Thanks and have a great day 3!