Where is the stimulus for the people that need a first chance? Why is it all focused on those that need their second chance? Whether it’s a company or an individual that’s financially distressed, there are many more that are not and just need a push in the right direction to ensure success.
Facing reality
There has never been more uncertainty about the future and this has a profound impact on the moral of small business owners, entrepreneurs and students. If you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, how can you act with confidence today?
How can that aspiring business person hire their first employee if they think the world is about to collapse?
How can the young person with the aspiration to grasp a new skill afford an education if they don’t know what their job prospects will be?
How can the entrepreneur turn their idea in to a real product or company without clarity about how they will fit in to the economy?
The answer is that they can’t. None of these potential success stories has the opportunity to experience their first chance because the governments and biggest companies in the world have created a vacuum on the ground level by taking all of the bail outs in a “top down” oriented distribution scheme. The problem is that the capital has yet to trickle down from the top.
The real engine of America
Small businesses drive our economy. They hire more employees than medium or large businesses and create a larger percentage of gross national product (GDP) as well. We need to ensure that our most powerful resource, the American with an idea and the ambition to execute it, is not hampered by the mistakes of others.
Students are the brain trust of our country. If most people can not comfortably attain education then there will be a detrimental impact on our economy, scientific discoveries, medical advances and technological progress. Worst of all there will be an entire generation of disenfranchised Americans having the hope of a future robbed from them before they get their first chance.
Build from the basics
We need to give the ground level the stimulus through tax breaks, lending incentives, increased credit availability and other programs that focus on higher education and boosting small business growth. Our economy is in a fragile state, but our country is home to some of the most intelligent and hard working people on Earth.
America can pull herself out of this mess, but we all must collectively work to renew what made this country great in the first place. Innovation and education.