Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
As much as I was rooting for Albus Brooks and would like to thank him for his service I believe Candi Cdebaca's heart is in a good place especially for those she will serve. I wouldn't anticipate much change overall.
It's at the state level that is more of a concern.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/n..._news_headline
On the surface there's nothing wrong with trying to make the world a better place. But with 454 bills passed, what could possibly go wrong? Let's go through them one by one... (hehe).
One of Colorado's strengths in being considered a business-friendly state has been to create an environment where small business thrived. Visualize a free market flowing with creativity and ingenuity. This is what Hickenlooper wanted. Conversely when you start heaping more and more responsibility and added costs onto small and medium size businesses you can stifle what makes for economic vibrancy. Too often things that sound good are no more than disguised ways of protecting the turf of special interests. This can dissuade and suppress opportunities for creative and entrepreneurial types. It can potentially discourage some from choosing Colorado to expand - although you may not even be aware of it other than you won't make people's short list as often. It might be a couple of particularly onerous requirements or it might just be "death by a thousand cuts." |
The "S" word has been in the news a lot recently, though its clear to me that there's not necessarily any real agreement on what it means, generically or in the context of America in 2019.
There's a tendency on the right to call any sort of government action that is aimed at protecting consumers, workers or the disadvantaged as "socialism", as if the Bolsheviks were at the gates ready to crown an American Stalin.
History swings, to and fro, and to many young people (and others), "business" has had the upper hand for decades to the detriment of the little guy. The American legacy of each generation improving economically over the prior generation seems to have died. The sharply rising wealth inequality and the emergence of the "mega corporations" with valuations that exceed the GDP of many of the world's countries seems like a throw back to the days of Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon, and Rockefeller.
Although this may not be your meaning, "good for business" can sometimes be short hand for gutting environmental regulations, ignoring global warming, designing the tax code to promote ever greater concentration of wealth in the 1 %, ripping additional holes in what is already the Western world's weakest safety net, empowering corporate money to "influence" elections, and rigging a voting system so that even majorities of people can't stop any of the foregoing.
Implicit in all of the "good for business" ratings is an assumption that's what's good for business, is always good for America. That assumption governed America in the late 19th Century and early 20th century until it became obvious that "business" doesn't always have the best interest of the country in mind and that government was a needed counterweight to regulate, control and limit the power of "business." That was true in 1919 and it's true in 2019.
Whether the particulars of this year's legislation are a net positive or a net negative, can be debated. But yea, the "S" word is losing its negative connotation to many people because of casual misuse. For many progressives, the response to claims that progressive policies are "socialism" will be "fine, then I'm a socialist."
Prev
Linear Mode
