In this article, by John Stossel on the Fox Business Network, he investigated what it would take to open up a lemonade stand in American. Sounds crazy, but lately little kids are having their side-of-the-road lemonade stands shut down by police. This was happening because police said they "weren't aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, and of what the lemonade was made with". So, because of this they shut the stands down. Kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America.
John Stossel decided he would try to open up his own little lemonade stand and follow all that goes into starting a small business. The findings were outrageous (in my opinion). What the outcome was that Mr. Stossel couldn't even finish the whole process. For him to open his little lemonade stand legally, it would take over 65 days.
John Stossel's point here is, Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules
every year. Local governments add more. There are so many
incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's
legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.
So interesting! Small business and entrepreneurship are suffering so much in this economy. Its almost impossible to survive in this economy if you run a small business. I remember an American Express commercial during the holidays that urged Americans to buy from small businesses on Black Friday, but still it didn't really provide improvements. It was called Small Business Saturday and the results were meager: http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-21/business/30543269_1_free-facebook-advertising-small-business-facebook-credits
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