Saratoga springs

“And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain…
At edish we did it ‘our way’ for over 25 years.
On July 15th we will be gone for good. Our shop is one that we hope you, our customers, will remember fondly.”

And at the bottom a chilling sentence: “One final note: if you know of job opportunities …, either in Salt Lake City or Houston, or beyond, please feel free to contact me.”

It’s everywhere, and it will get worse.

Reading what James said above: did you hear that GE just hired Mrs. Daschle?

I truly fear that the guiding theory of the current statist crowd is the age old dream that anything is possible if we only pray or wish for it hard enough.

I think their attitude toward any business that they cannot find a political use for, either as a major fund donor, or a populist rallying point to protest competition from evil corporations, is one of indifference.

And by indifference I mean the kind of attitude which says, “Well, this may make it tougher for some businesses to survive, but they’ll think of something, they always have before.”

Politicians have become to believe themselves to be similar to natural forces, akin to sunlight or rain—they’re just there, and must be reckoned with. The concept of changing their views or positions in the face of evidence they have created major problems for business groups that they didn’t understand or foresee is as alien to them as the idea of ordering the sun to come up in the west tomorrow.

Why, then, the pandering to other groups and “connected” corporations? All these guys know and understand is power. If it threatens them, they pander to it. If it is incoherent and disorganized, it is meaningless.

What must small and medium sized businesses do? Decide whether they wish to surrender and be squeezed dry, or form their own version of AARP and coordinate their efforts to present their case to those in power. They must become a threat that cannot be ignored.

If you don’t like being a herring, become a shark.

This Congress and this Administration, of course, don’t give a hoot in hell about what happens to this individual.

We are entering an era in which nothing will be permitted to exist unless it serves the interests of a large and well-organized voting block.

Remember Hillary Clinton’s comment: “I can’t be responsible for every undercapitalized small business in America.” Her point was that HillaryCare required an economy that was composed only of large employers.

These guys are not so much driven by a Nazi vision (I cannot truly make the argumentum ad hitlerum) as by a Fascist Italian / corporatist vision, or at best by a mid-20th century social democrat model that would have looked familiar to Clement Atlee, though he was a better and wiser man than this gang.

LG…”They do understand them. They want to destroy this class of enterprises and the kind of people who start them and run them”…I think you are correct, although in many cases the animosity is subconscious rather than fully-thought-out.

There’s a story about an English gentleman who visited the American West, sometime in the 1870s. After meeting a cowboy and talking with him a bit, the gentleman asked:

“And where is your master, my man?

Cowboy: “Son of a bitch ain’t been born yet.”

I think the core Obamaites are clearly on the side of the gentleman on this one–they are truly bothered by the idea of masterless men.

They do understand them. They want to destroy this class of enterprises and the kind of people who start them and run them.

Don’t make the liberal mistake of thinking that your enemy’s deadly attack is all the result of a misunderstanding, and that it would stop if they just got to know you better.

Assume the more likely case, that they know exactly who you are, they know exactly what they are doing to you, and they are trying to destroy you because that is their goal.

Why?

Because an economy based on initiative and innovation and risk-taking is poison to a centrally-planned, politically-directed, static, monitored and bureaucratic business sector. An all large-unit business sector will necessarily become the ally and servant and of big government.

The entrepreneurial sector is a threat to that model, so Obama / Pelosi / Reid want to destroy it.

One of my employees joked about the health care agenda the other day and I looked him in the eye and said to him (we as of now proivide health insurance for our full time employees) “if you think I am paying twice for your health insurance, you are insane”. That was the end of the conversation.

I am fortunate in that I work in an industry that flies very much under many folks radars but that can change in an instant. Bummer for me though, I bought the building that my business is located in a few years ago and now the city is absolutely killing me on property taxes. Our state income tax is set to go up by a staggering amount this year as well. We seem to get it from all angles.

I only have to last about another 20 years or so and it will be over, but I am loading in the Pepto for now.