I live in Wisconsin. I feel confident saying that this is just an anomaly based on a strange summer weather pattern here in Wisconsin, not anything that indicates some kind of issue with international trade policy or structural issue with farming.
We have 68,500 farms in this state [1]. This summer was dry for a very long time, then it was very wet, and then it stayed very warm well into September. I suspect a lot of farmers had issues with moisture in their harvests. The thing about farming is you are taking a huge risk every year with what you invest, and farm equipment isn't cheap. If you make money, you make a decent amount of money. But if you can't make the payments on your machinery, you're basically done for.
I think this article was written with the intention of insinuating that this is somehow related to the Trump Trade war, and to be fair, I am sure that made or broke the profit margin for some farmers. But in general, I don't think that's what's going on here, and I think it's cheap journalism for them to play into that.
Somewhat related: Checkout "MN Millenial Farmer" on YouTube, it's some of the most relaxing content you'll find online. [2]
Same here in missouri. We had 2 dry summers in a row, then a wet harvest time this year.
Hay prices are up over double last year and last year was up from the previous year. Last year for example I would have been happy to buy $25 a 5x5 round bale. This year if you can find them, they're $90-$100. Small squares 2 years ago were $1.25, this year I happily paid $4.
Why would farmers extend themselves so much that one bad year breaks them? Why wouldn't they set aside some of that good money so in bad year they could still pay the bills?
The other thing I've noticed in Wisconsin, the kids don't want to take over the family farm. And quite frankly farmland is hard to sell unless it is for development. Sometimes a neighoring farmer would consolidate but it is low value land. The equipment is probably worth more in a lot of cases.
I agree with you. Here in central Michigan they've begun construction of a huge cheese plant will purchase 20-25% of the state's milk. Add to that the drastic slashing of the Canadian dairy tariff and people are cautiously optimistic.
For the Chapter 12s that fail, many of these farm owners will end up working the same lands in the same sorts of jobs. They just won't own the capital anymore, and the surplus value of their labor will accumulate in the factory farming companies. All but the largest organizations are currently struggling in America. This tendency towards monopolies needs to be curbed, it degrades food systems and reduces national resiliency. This is particularly dangerous giving the imminent threat of climate change.
Bankruptcy is an area of American law that is ripe for use for restructuring debtor-creditor relations to fight back against these trends. The entire Code, particularly Chapters 7 and 12, could and should do more to assist consumer and farmer debtors.
Sadly most interventions that western governments keep making in the name of the little guy keep benefiting the megacorps, whether by unintended side effects or from flaws in the policy-writing process (ie, countless small political-favours, lobbying, etc).
There have been countless policies since the 1950s intended to offset wealth disparity that have backfired and hurt the poor. For example, the rent control and other "tenant friendly" laws in Toronto and NYC in the 1970s resulted in decrepit urban ghettos littered with arsoned apartment buildings, because the only way a landlord could "renovate" was burn down their own building. Just look at pictures of Harlem in late 1970/1980s...
It also created a massive disincentive to invest in new low-income property, as the developers knew they'd make less money targeting the poor. So development went towards upper/middle class housing (resulting in an even worse lack of low-income housing in NYC and to a lesser extant Toronto by the 1990s).
Modern rent control laws have attempted to factor these "unintended side-effects" but there are a hundred similar examples in that book. It keeps happening and happening with every clever scheme concoted to help the poor.
The only winners of the massive growth in the US gov since the 1970s were consistently large firms, who had their competition wiped out or huge barriers of entry created in their markets in the name of 'progress'. And countless well-meaning socially conscious economic policies usually works for a small group while hurting a much larger group in the process, or works at the beginning then as the side-effects build up it becomes a net-negative...where it would have been better off to let the market function as is.
While unemployment and asset prices have recovered in the past decade, business starts have remained at historic lows. When these small businesses die they aren't being replaced by upstarts. I wish we knew why.
I'm worried the future will be a small handful of oligopolist mega-corps. You see this consolidation in every industry: banks have consolidated (there are fewer banks now than at any point in modern US history), a few leading tech firms, agriculture, energy, etc.
I'm in the process of shutting down my business, so anecdotally:
1) Globalization has made it almost completely impossible to make things in the US unless they are massively overpriced goods (ex. luxury items or niche specialty goods). Customers simply won't pay enough to cover your costs. And there's a good chance that if you are successful, someone will copy your stuff, make it in China, and sell it for half your price within 12 months.
2) In California at least, costs are pretty ridiculous for small businesses. Between state, county, and city taxes, high labor costs, ridiculous healthcare costs, rent, insurance costs, etc. etc. It is far more expensive to start a business today as a percentage of expected revenue than it was a few decades ago.
3) The US IP protection and regulatory systems are out of control. Fending off patent trolls, tiptoeing around trademarks, dealing with licensing systems specifically designed to be too burdensome for small companies to bear, spending time and money to deal with regulatory compliance, etc. puts small businesses at a massive disadvantage.
4) Unpopular opinion, but I think today's workers are less suited to small businesses than they used to be. Many younger workers say they want to work for startups, but what they really want is a venture-backed cushy office with catering and perks completely untied to actual business revenue. These types of businesses account for a tiny percentage of actual small business starts in the US, which are often not places today's workers want to work at, let alone stay loyal to.
completely anecdotal, but the reason from my perspective is that the system has been overwhelmingly rigged against being able to take economic risk.
I would have started my own business by now ... heck I'd probably have started and failed several by now if not for one thing. Well three:
1) you cannot afford prescription drugs in America unless you have good health insurance. At least in my state (Alabama), the federal health marketplace offers exactly one option from exactly one provider. It has a ridiculously high deductible and is (no shit) not accepted at nearly all doctor's offices in my town.
2) I cannot afford to lose my access to prescription medication and healthcare, because my wife has diabetes and I survived cancer a few years ago. We're in fine health now, but we DO have medical expenses ... things that should NOT be that expensive (yearly CT scans and insulin are hardly breaking technology), but have been SO inflated in price by a bogus, rigged third-party-payer system that we literally can't afford those things without "insurance".
3) I had kids early in life, and since my adult working career began, it has been an absolute baseline requirement that I be able to get them medical care and otherwise provide for them.
ok ... having kids early was my decision, and I'll accept that this decision limited my universe of personal options. Getting sick. Having a wife who got sick. These were not personal decisions. They are just things that happen to people.
Our system in America is designed to keep me at my desk, working for someone else, doing mostly meaningless work. Why? Because it'd be a complete nightmare for those at the top, if every last one of me out there in the workplace could afford to take a risk that might not work out.
There'd be a helluva lot more competition out there.
America is dying because of this. Not just our economy. But our society. The world would genuinely be a better place with the companies I would have started in it. And that is true for every other stymied inventor/would-be-entrepreneur in america.
There is always a downside to risk, and there is always a risk involved in starting a new Enterprise. But what we have right now is so far out of whack that taking even a minor risk, can straight up kill you or your kids for lack of access to proper medical care.
The average American has so little buying power that they have become absurdly price conscious. If a big player muscles into my business, they can undercut me and ruin me with no recourse. Why would I get into that?
Large businesses have long been more efficient than small ones on average but they often could not customize their products and services to cater to each locality or niche very well.
Advancing technology has enabled a greater economy of scale as well as mass customization beyond what was possible, thus increasing the competitiveness of large businesses.
Examples include customized shoes from big brands, e-commerce recommendation algorithms taking the roles of local shopkeepers, IT systems reducing the costs and increasing the effectiveness for managing far-flung enterprises.
no, seriously. I have family that ran busineses. I have run businesses. Most successful small business don't pay much better than driving for uber, and driving for uber is a lot less risk, a lot less effort. (there's also a lot less upside, but let's be honest here... making a small business that pays better than working for google that isn't just contracting, even when you have the same skills, is extremely difficult.) - if you drive for uber, at least the capital you blew is on something that is still useful after you quit the business. I know a lot of people with a bunch of branded cups and other junk from their previous failed ventures.
I mean, I had some pretty marketable skills when I started my own business, so I did better than the uber driver, but I worked hard and made like 1/4th of what I get working for other people.
The other thing is that unless you are in the business of getting funding, it's way easier to start a business when the economy is shit. In '09, nobody tried to undercut me. Now? I would not want to be in that market anymore, just 'cause there is so much competition that is willing to lose money to buy marketshare.
In '09, I was able to pick up good people who were temporarily unemployed as employees; now? if you wanna hire someone good, you are competing with people willing to pay netflix level money.
(I mean, all this, I think, is actually pretty great. But it is not so good for facilitating a small self-funded company)
I worked with a guy who freelanced for a while, and he had an interesting observation.
When the economy is shit, most large companies outsource a lot of work because they can't afford or don't have the workers for the amount of work they have. So if your a freelancer, business can be pretty good.
When the economy is great, those same businesses try to bring all those efforts in-house, so all those contracts dry up.
Not sure how it relates with entrepreneurship, but this guy had to quit freelancing and get a full-time gig (which is how I met him) because no one was handing out the contracts he wanted anymore.
Business startup by necessity has gone down. It's much easier to get hired by an international company in a niche field and work from home now, so people no longer are required to start a business to work in the field of their choice
It's more difficult to start something really innovative, related to the slowdown of Moore's Law
It's more difficult to start a business in an established field, as licensing laws have come to cover so much more of the landscape. You can no longer just decide to become a barber and hang out your shingle.
Health insurance costs and education savings. I'd like to hang out my shingle, but steady employment with health insurance is needed for my family of 4, along with savings for kids college and my retirement. It's all a risk mitigation.
My theory is returns to scale are much, much higher.
All this whiz-bang shit startups do like AI, machine learning, really even any kind of custom software or process innovation, just isn't possible when you're small. There's no scope for it.
The reason it's a bigger problem now is because we have bigger markets globally and better tools, both of which create winner-take-all effects.
20-30 years ago you might start an auto parts distribution or manufacturing business, or a niche software business, or something else. It's a lot different when you have to compete with the best of the best globally from day 1 without any of the advantages the incumbents (e.g. data, existing channels to market, established brand) can bring to bear.
>>* Entrepreneurship is dying in America and it should concern us all.*
One angle: A lot of stuff is moving online. Good luck with Google, Facebook, Amazon having their own interest$ etc being gateways to your site. Most people will not make it, so why even try? Risk vs reward.
The reward simply isn't worth the risk. Why compete against mega corp when you can invest that same money in their stock and get 10% gains? Plus, you can work normal hours, have healthcare and lower stress instead.
It's possible that capital isn't as readily available as it was before the great recession, as banks have tightened lending guidelines. Are there any correlations between business formations and capital availability?
I think what's endemic among business and societal trends is an erosion of middle ground. The smaller players stall small while the bigger players swallow the medium ones. It's not rocket science to figure out this will have various implications on society, as economics play a huge role in daily life.
The largest banks (JPMorgan, Citi, BoA, etc.) have decimated regional and mid-size banks while credit unions have essentially maintained the same role at the bottom. The big banks have more resources to invest in new technology and financial initiatives, thus having the ability to be market leaders and capture more money. In my opinion, digital also makes a huge difference. For example, JPMorgan is able to spend $10B on technology a year, which is more than the total assets of many small banks and credit unions. The banks that are midsize are in the hardest position because they don't have the capacity to outpace a big bank in R&D or IT, and are stuck in a position of being a lagging trend follower since they also can't spare a lot of risk tolerance. Further, it's hard to even leverage branch access and customer service as more individuals rely on digital banking to handle their finances, which actually pushes the big banks ahead in consumer satisfaction: https://assets.sourcemedia.com/dims4/default/0e422a4/2147483...
From a business side, it looks like we are headed down the path of oligopolist megacorps unless there's major changes. Money is the name of the game, and even in the startup world, the end-goal for investors is to pull off a lucrative exit (which usually means selling to a monopolistic megacorp) or IPO. Ask a megacorp CEO how much is "enough" for their business, and the goal will be to have as much as they possibly can.
I don't know if entrepreneurship is actually dying, but my speculation is it's getting tougher to build a reliable business to employ others and depend on for one's livelihood within the remaining territory left. So much has been taken over by huge companies, it's difficult to find a niche or market opportunity to feasibly "disrupt". It feels like the megacorps have already cleared the fields and claimed the land and the rest of us entrepreneurs have a choice of: i) work for the megacorp that owns everything, or, ii) try to find solace in the few options left.
Not just entrepreneurship, but even competition itself, in a world that has seen nothing but consolidation and centralization of power and wealth over the last 20+ years as ever fewer organizations have been gobbling up and devouring and squashing any notion of competition and entrepreneurship in its infancy. It is arguably the sole model of the technology sector, the pump and dump, setting a "startup" up to appear as appealing to one of the monopolistic behemoths or titans. It's even somewhat of a model in the smaller tech company sector as free money paid for by tax dollars is sloshing around and companies are consolidating and creating ever larger conglomerates that take ever more air our of the entrepreneurial landscape.
It's not healthy, and no matter what the consequences will be, I cannot envision an outcome where any of this leads to positive things. But maybe it's just my own "bias" that I have positive associations with not being a subject to a hive mind of centralized power and control.
Farming is harsh and without subsidies even more farms would go bankrupt. Prices for goods are low, manufacturing cost is high, margins are ridiculously low. Add the fact that maintaining a farm is hard work, both physically and mentally.
I worked on an alp in the mountains for a month, doing everything from cleaning the stables, milking cows, herding them on steep mountainous terrain, cooking, feeding the sick animals. I had a 16h work day; all while earning almost nothing (I did it to know what it means to work in tough situations). My boss and his family hardly had anything left when the month ended.
Also, Americans are used to paying subsidized, artificially low prices for agricultural products. I don't think many of us realize the actual cost of food production.
I'm interested in the question of: how would the global food supply/economy be affected if the US were to halt agri subsidies and let the farmers go bankrupt (it seems to be happening in a twisted way through this trade war anyways so ...).
We know the US produces way too much food than it needs. We know that US food is artificially kept cheap due to subsidies. Would higher food prices lead to more starvation in other countries? More hunger in the US? Or would farmers around the world step up and compensate for the deficit? Would it perhaps lead to farmers in lesser developed countries being better supported and lead to economic growth in those countries?
Why do we need to fix it? There's plenty of farms that do quite well. Just visit any organic farm that is near a city. There's a huge demand for locally sourced organic produce. We're just propping up the failing farms.
I don't think it's entirely surprising. Not to mention desertification without proper grazing and crop rotations. Competition from mega farms. And the practices of organizations like Tyson, where farmers are encouraged to take out huge growth loans "owning" everything that costs money, and not owning the product itself. Add to this what the likes of the farming equipment companies are doing to lock in maintenance costs and ever growing expenses.
I think the first thing(s) that should be done is eliminate farm aid to farms that own more than X acres, or are owned by parent companies owning more than X acres of land. Significantly roll back the DMCA. Third, would probably be to re-secure those loans on better terms. It's a national security issue at its' core.
Honestly the writing has been on the walls for quite some time now. I’ve argued this with a few applications to YC. Farming in America is about to have a hard pivot. I definitely see it going from large-scale, monocultural enterprises to small-scale, mostly independent, polycultural, bio-intensive, sustainable farms. (Sorry for all the buzzwords, not sure of a better all-encompassing term)
If you’re looking for something to invest in it’d be AgTech with a focus on these new farmers as users.
Historically speaking farming has been a bit of a gamble as far as occupation / running a business. Booms and busts abound.
There's a bit of a myth about how farming should be, or was, but it really just had some booms here and there and then busts rather than any real golden age that lasted very long.
Agriculture was the main driving force of the world economy for eons? It was a stable source of food and income for families and communities for generations. How is that not a golden-age?
As for boom and bust - agriculture is like investing. You may not make much in a year, and you may lose money in two or three, but over the course of your lifetime, you accumulate wealth (land) and prosper. The issue, at least in my area, is that property is just prohibitively expensive. I am by no means in a hot area of the country, but the price of an acre of land has almost tripled in the last 15 years.
Also - that so much of our food is produced by so few individuals is an incredibly recent development, like less than 40 years recent development.
I'm not really sure what all that adds up to, but I'm sure it's something.
Small solace it'll be but Chapter 12 bankruptcies are a lot more more flexible and the debtors more likely to complete their plans than the Chapter 13 and 11 option afforded the rest of us.
I’ve started, invested, and sold several startups and small buisnesses.
I was alurred into “stability” by staying with the corporation that aquired a startup I was working for. It was my decision, but now I regret it.
I’ve been working tirelessly to transition back into being independent, but now I too have a family to support and the current state of health care coverage in the US is one of the biggest risks I see.
Interestingly, I’ve seen more entrepreneurs lately from countries like Canada and Norway who have founders that aren’t as stressed when compared to here in the states. I don’t have any data points to prove my hypothesis, but I often wonder if we are doing a disservice to ourselves here in the US. I guess only time well tell.
my uneducated thought as a transplant to the midwest -
the need for farming hasn't dropped, it's the desire/ability/money to do it that is. Small farmers are going away and corporate farming is taking over.
I think I'm going to start learning Mandarin next semester
Not because China is more structurally sound, because its not, but the opportunities - partly because of the inefficiencies - seem massive on mainland and greater China
I just want to know what people think about anything, out there, from their perspective.
I was in Australia and a young blond woman in college was on her social justice kick, talking about how horrible the US must be, and it was funny to me because her perspective was so limited to civil rights abuses and valid healthcare and education inequalities.
I told her "yeah but none of that would apply to you".
Because she doesn't know about the socioeconomic component, and the heavy correlations to the demographics of socioeconomic brackets, and the history of those demographics, along with the accessibility and strength of legal defense, if you can afford it.
and I bet China is the same way or similar, especially if you come to the environment with a bankroll already.
The article says bankruptcies have "increased steadily" since 2014. It does mention China, and the trade war, but I think when they say "falling commodity prices" they are referring to a longer/broader issue. But it doesn't say why else commodity prices are falling, and I'm be happy if someone enlightened me.
Well, and "depressed prices on farm goods such as corn, dairy and soybeans are also likely leading to a spike in Chapter 12 filings, according to the report."
[+] [-] nickysielicki|7 years ago|reply
We have 68,500 farms in this state [1]. This summer was dry for a very long time, then it was very wet, and then it stayed very warm well into September. I suspect a lot of farmers had issues with moisture in their harvests. The thing about farming is you are taking a huge risk every year with what you invest, and farm equipment isn't cheap. If you make money, you make a decent amount of money. But if you can't make the payments on your machinery, you're basically done for.
I think this article was written with the intention of insinuating that this is somehow related to the Trump Trade war, and to be fair, I am sure that made or broke the profit margin for some farmers. But in general, I don't think that's what's going on here, and I think it's cheap journalism for them to play into that.
Somewhat related: Checkout "MN Millenial Farmer" on YouTube, it's some of the most relaxing content you'll find online. [2]
[1]: https://datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Publications/WIAgStatistics.aspx
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp0rRUsMDlJ1meYAQ6_37Dw
[+] [-] pmw2007|7 years ago|reply
Trust me when I say this is real.
There's been a massive over supply of agriculture products around the world for the past 3/4 years.
[+] [-] mitchell_h|7 years ago|reply
Hay prices are up over double last year and last year was up from the previous year. Last year for example I would have been happy to buy $25 a 5x5 round bale. This year if you can find them, they're $90-$100. Small squares 2 years ago were $1.25, this year I happily paid $4.
[+] [-] peteradio|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulie_a|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmason|7 years ago|reply
https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/20...
[+] [-] rcchyssser|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmw2007|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kevmo|7 years ago|reply
Bankruptcy is an area of American law that is ripe for use for restructuring debtor-creditor relations to fight back against these trends. The entire Code, particularly Chapters 7 and 12, could and should do more to assist consumer and farmer debtors.
[+] [-] dmix|7 years ago|reply
Thomas Sowell wrote a great book about this:
https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell...
There have been countless policies since the 1950s intended to offset wealth disparity that have backfired and hurt the poor. For example, the rent control and other "tenant friendly" laws in Toronto and NYC in the 1970s resulted in decrepit urban ghettos littered with arsoned apartment buildings, because the only way a landlord could "renovate" was burn down their own building. Just look at pictures of Harlem in late 1970/1980s...
It also created a massive disincentive to invest in new low-income property, as the developers knew they'd make less money targeting the poor. So development went towards upper/middle class housing (resulting in an even worse lack of low-income housing in NYC and to a lesser extant Toronto by the 1990s).
Modern rent control laws have attempted to factor these "unintended side-effects" but there are a hundred similar examples in that book. It keeps happening and happening with every clever scheme concoted to help the poor.
The only winners of the massive growth in the US gov since the 1970s were consistently large firms, who had their competition wiped out or huge barriers of entry created in their markets in the name of 'progress'. And countless well-meaning socially conscious economic policies usually works for a small group while hurting a much larger group in the process, or works at the beginning then as the side-effects build up it becomes a net-negative...where it would have been better off to let the market function as is.
[+] [-] nostromo|7 years ago|reply
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/research-matters/2018/...
While unemployment and asset prices have recovered in the past decade, business starts have remained at historic lows. When these small businesses die they aren't being replaced by upstarts. I wish we knew why.
I'm worried the future will be a small handful of oligopolist mega-corps. You see this consolidation in every industry: banks have consolidated (there are fewer banks now than at any point in modern US history), a few leading tech firms, agriculture, energy, etc.
[+] [-] mdorazio|7 years ago|reply
1) Globalization has made it almost completely impossible to make things in the US unless they are massively overpriced goods (ex. luxury items or niche specialty goods). Customers simply won't pay enough to cover your costs. And there's a good chance that if you are successful, someone will copy your stuff, make it in China, and sell it for half your price within 12 months.
2) In California at least, costs are pretty ridiculous for small businesses. Between state, county, and city taxes, high labor costs, ridiculous healthcare costs, rent, insurance costs, etc. etc. It is far more expensive to start a business today as a percentage of expected revenue than it was a few decades ago.
3) The US IP protection and regulatory systems are out of control. Fending off patent trolls, tiptoeing around trademarks, dealing with licensing systems specifically designed to be too burdensome for small companies to bear, spending time and money to deal with regulatory compliance, etc. puts small businesses at a massive disadvantage.
4) Unpopular opinion, but I think today's workers are less suited to small businesses than they used to be. Many younger workers say they want to work for startups, but what they really want is a venture-backed cushy office with catering and perks completely untied to actual business revenue. These types of businesses account for a tiny percentage of actual small business starts in the US, which are often not places today's workers want to work at, let alone stay loyal to.
[+] [-] plurgid|7 years ago|reply
I would have started my own business by now ... heck I'd probably have started and failed several by now if not for one thing. Well three:
1) you cannot afford prescription drugs in America unless you have good health insurance. At least in my state (Alabama), the federal health marketplace offers exactly one option from exactly one provider. It has a ridiculously high deductible and is (no shit) not accepted at nearly all doctor's offices in my town.
2) I cannot afford to lose my access to prescription medication and healthcare, because my wife has diabetes and I survived cancer a few years ago. We're in fine health now, but we DO have medical expenses ... things that should NOT be that expensive (yearly CT scans and insulin are hardly breaking technology), but have been SO inflated in price by a bogus, rigged third-party-payer system that we literally can't afford those things without "insurance".
3) I had kids early in life, and since my adult working career began, it has been an absolute baseline requirement that I be able to get them medical care and otherwise provide for them.
ok ... having kids early was my decision, and I'll accept that this decision limited my universe of personal options. Getting sick. Having a wife who got sick. These were not personal decisions. They are just things that happen to people.
Our system in America is designed to keep me at my desk, working for someone else, doing mostly meaningless work. Why? Because it'd be a complete nightmare for those at the top, if every last one of me out there in the workplace could afford to take a risk that might not work out.
There'd be a helluva lot more competition out there.
America is dying because of this. Not just our economy. But our society. The world would genuinely be a better place with the companies I would have started in it. And that is true for every other stymied inventor/would-be-entrepreneur in america.
There is always a downside to risk, and there is always a risk involved in starting a new Enterprise. But what we have right now is so far out of whack that taking even a minor risk, can straight up kill you or your kids for lack of access to proper medical care.
[+] [-] mrguyorama|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nopinsight|7 years ago|reply
Advancing technology has enabled a greater economy of scale as well as mass customization beyond what was possible, thus increasing the competitiveness of large businesses.
Examples include customized shoes from big brands, e-commerce recommendation algorithms taking the roles of local shopkeepers, IT systems reducing the costs and increasing the effectiveness for managing far-flung enterprises.
[+] [-] lsc|7 years ago|reply
"the sharing economy"
no, seriously. I have family that ran busineses. I have run businesses. Most successful small business don't pay much better than driving for uber, and driving for uber is a lot less risk, a lot less effort. (there's also a lot less upside, but let's be honest here... making a small business that pays better than working for google that isn't just contracting, even when you have the same skills, is extremely difficult.) - if you drive for uber, at least the capital you blew is on something that is still useful after you quit the business. I know a lot of people with a bunch of branded cups and other junk from their previous failed ventures.
I mean, I had some pretty marketable skills when I started my own business, so I did better than the uber driver, but I worked hard and made like 1/4th of what I get working for other people.
The other thing is that unless you are in the business of getting funding, it's way easier to start a business when the economy is shit. In '09, nobody tried to undercut me. Now? I would not want to be in that market anymore, just 'cause there is so much competition that is willing to lose money to buy marketshare.
In '09, I was able to pick up good people who were temporarily unemployed as employees; now? if you wanna hire someone good, you are competing with people willing to pay netflix level money.
(I mean, all this, I think, is actually pretty great. But it is not so good for facilitating a small self-funded company)
[+] [-] beckler|7 years ago|reply
When the economy is shit, most large companies outsource a lot of work because they can't afford or don't have the workers for the amount of work they have. So if your a freelancer, business can be pretty good.
When the economy is great, those same businesses try to bring all those efforts in-house, so all those contracts dry up.
Not sure how it relates with entrepreneurship, but this guy had to quit freelancing and get a full-time gig (which is how I met him) because no one was handing out the contracts he wanted anymore.
[+] [-] pochamago|7 years ago|reply
Business startup by necessity has gone down. It's much easier to get hired by an international company in a niche field and work from home now, so people no longer are required to start a business to work in the field of their choice
It's more difficult to start something really innovative, related to the slowdown of Moore's Law
It's more difficult to start a business in an established field, as licensing laws have come to cover so much more of the landscape. You can no longer just decide to become a barber and hang out your shingle.
[+] [-] madengr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eldavido|7 years ago|reply
All this whiz-bang shit startups do like AI, machine learning, really even any kind of custom software or process innovation, just isn't possible when you're small. There's no scope for it.
The reason it's a bigger problem now is because we have bigger markets globally and better tools, both of which create winner-take-all effects.
20-30 years ago you might start an auto parts distribution or manufacturing business, or a niche software business, or something else. It's a lot different when you have to compete with the best of the best globally from day 1 without any of the advantages the incumbents (e.g. data, existing channels to market, established brand) can bring to bear.
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|7 years ago|reply
One angle: A lot of stuff is moving online. Good luck with Google, Facebook, Amazon having their own interest$ etc being gateways to your site. Most people will not make it, so why even try? Risk vs reward.
[+] [-] snarf21|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bduerst|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cityzen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjg007|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siruncledrew|7 years ago|reply
Using banks as an example, look at the market share of total assets over the last 20 years: https://www.peakprosperity.com/sites/default/files/users/u31...
The largest banks (JPMorgan, Citi, BoA, etc.) have decimated regional and mid-size banks while credit unions have essentially maintained the same role at the bottom. The big banks have more resources to invest in new technology and financial initiatives, thus having the ability to be market leaders and capture more money. In my opinion, digital also makes a huge difference. For example, JPMorgan is able to spend $10B on technology a year, which is more than the total assets of many small banks and credit unions. The banks that are midsize are in the hardest position because they don't have the capacity to outpace a big bank in R&D or IT, and are stuck in a position of being a lagging trend follower since they also can't spare a lot of risk tolerance. Further, it's hard to even leverage branch access and customer service as more individuals rely on digital banking to handle their finances, which actually pushes the big banks ahead in consumer satisfaction: https://assets.sourcemedia.com/dims4/default/0e422a4/2147483...
From a business side, it looks like we are headed down the path of oligopolist megacorps unless there's major changes. Money is the name of the game, and even in the startup world, the end-goal for investors is to pull off a lucrative exit (which usually means selling to a monopolistic megacorp) or IPO. Ask a megacorp CEO how much is "enough" for their business, and the goal will be to have as much as they possibly can.
I don't know if entrepreneurship is actually dying, but my speculation is it's getting tougher to build a reliable business to employ others and depend on for one's livelihood within the remaining territory left. So much has been taken over by huge companies, it's difficult to find a niche or market opportunity to feasibly "disrupt". It feels like the megacorps have already cleared the fields and claimed the land and the rest of us entrepreneurs have a choice of: i) work for the megacorp that owns everything, or, ii) try to find solace in the few options left.
[+] [-] JohnWilcox|7 years ago|reply
It's not healthy, and no matter what the consequences will be, I cannot envision an outcome where any of this leads to positive things. But maybe it's just my own "bias" that I have positive associations with not being a subject to a hive mind of centralized power and control.
[+] [-] prolikewh0a|7 years ago|reply
I think we're already here, or closer than a lot of people realize.
[+] [-] mrleiter|7 years ago|reply
I worked on an alp in the mountains for a month, doing everything from cleaning the stables, milking cows, herding them on steep mountainous terrain, cooking, feeding the sick animals. I had a 16h work day; all while earning almost nothing (I did it to know what it means to work in tough situations). My boss and his family hardly had anything left when the month ended.
I don't know how to fix this, but it's important.
[+] [-] goplusplus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|7 years ago|reply
We know the US produces way too much food than it needs. We know that US food is artificially kept cheap due to subsidies. Would higher food prices lead to more starvation in other countries? More hunger in the US? Or would farmers around the world step up and compensate for the deficit? Would it perhaps lead to farmers in lesser developed countries being better supported and lead to economic growth in those countries?
[+] [-] adrr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracker1|7 years ago|reply
I think the first thing(s) that should be done is eliminate farm aid to farms that own more than X acres, or are owned by parent companies owning more than X acres of land. Significantly roll back the DMCA. Third, would probably be to re-secure those loans on better terms. It's a national security issue at its' core.
[+] [-] wcchandler|7 years ago|reply
If you’re looking for something to invest in it’d be AgTech with a focus on these new farmers as users.
[+] [-] duxup|7 years ago|reply
There's a bit of a myth about how farming should be, or was, but it really just had some booms here and there and then busts rather than any real golden age that lasted very long.
[+] [-] Loughla|7 years ago|reply
As for boom and bust - agriculture is like investing. You may not make much in a year, and you may lose money in two or three, but over the course of your lifetime, you accumulate wealth (land) and prosper. The issue, at least in my area, is that property is just prohibitively expensive. I am by no means in a hot area of the country, but the price of an acre of land has almost tripled in the last 15 years.
Also - that so much of our food is produced by so few individuals is an incredibly recent development, like less than 40 years recent development.
I'm not really sure what all that adds up to, but I'm sure it's something.
[+] [-] chabes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] howard941|7 years ago|reply
See http://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/bankruptcy/bankruptcy... for ex
[+] [-] adreamingsoul|7 years ago|reply
I was alurred into “stability” by staying with the corporation that aquired a startup I was working for. It was my decision, but now I regret it.
I’ve been working tirelessly to transition back into being independent, but now I too have a family to support and the current state of health care coverage in the US is one of the biggest risks I see.
Interestingly, I’ve seen more entrepreneurs lately from countries like Canada and Norway who have founders that aren’t as stressed when compared to here in the states. I don’t have any data points to prove my hypothesis, but I often wonder if we are doing a disservice to ourselves here in the US. I guess only time well tell.
[+] [-] blang|7 years ago|reply
http://dreamdirt.com/blog/iowa-farm-land-land-values-up-2-in...
[+] [-] stevehawk|7 years ago|reply
the need for farming hasn't dropped, it's the desire/ability/money to do it that is. Small farmers are going away and corporate farming is taking over.
[+] [-] mrleiter|7 years ago|reply
Who buys them? Maybe big agro? Or maybe convert it into building-approved land? Report doesn't exactly say as far as I can tell.
[+] [-] driverdan|7 years ago|reply
What percentage of farms are going bankrupt? 70 farms seems like a very small percentage.
How many new farms started?
[+] [-] gammateam|7 years ago|reply
Not because China is more structurally sound, because its not, but the opportunities - partly because of the inefficiencies - seem massive on mainland and greater China
I just want to know what people think about anything, out there, from their perspective.
I was in Australia and a young blond woman in college was on her social justice kick, talking about how horrible the US must be, and it was funny to me because her perspective was so limited to civil rights abuses and valid healthcare and education inequalities.
I told her "yeah but none of that would apply to you".
Because she doesn't know about the socioeconomic component, and the heavy correlations to the demographics of socioeconomic brackets, and the history of those demographics, along with the accessibility and strength of legal defense, if you can afford it.
and I bet China is the same way or similar, especially if you come to the environment with a bankroll already.
< End Tangent
[+] [-] Iamhisalt|7 years ago|reply
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