Patience is passion tamed.
Lyman Abbott
The War On Child-Run Businesses Continues:
THUMBS DOWN!
A Rare Town With Common Sense: Chadrad, NE:
THUMBS UP!
I think nothing so perfectly illustrates the malaise of Big Government Obamanomics than the mindset of local governments run amok by preposterously treating residents, particularly children, running nominal income enterprises the same as full-fledged vendors. I'm aware of the self-righteous arguments of equal protection, and I'm aware that it's local police, not the Feds, busting individuals (at least at this time).
Why do I compare this mindset to Obamanomics? Look, for instance, at Sarbanes-Oxley. (Before I go further, I also realize Sarbanes-Oxley was passed under the Bush Administration. But it was one of the truly bipartisan pieces of legislation, passing with less than a handful of no votes in both chambers of Congress) What we have here is a regressive impact of the cost of regulations: large corporations have the economies of scale to absorb the costs of regulations better than smaller companies. The same high barrier of entry issue surfaces when you start requiring the same license fees, say, to operate a McDonald's as you do a residential lemonade stand. Most kids would working more to fill exploitative municipality coffers than to clear anything for themselves; that is morally unconscionable: I don't care whatever pathetic "rules are rules; no exceptions" rationalization exists: it is analogous to the concept of petty cash in a company, which involves a consideration of materiality, e.g., the cost of cutting a check for a certain expenditure is more than the disbursement amount itself. The amount of sales and profits of most resident enterprises is negligible.
The palpable hypocrisy and double standard are obvious when you consider, for instance, nearly half of American workers do not pay a penny of federal income tax: people with thousands of dollars of real income. Permits, licenses, etc., are a form of taxation: a taxation on business. When you impose these costs on a low-volume, low-margin enterprise, like most child-run businesses, these taxes or related penalties de facto constitute a form of government theft, because they force the enterprise to operate at a loss. No business (except government) can sustain operational losses. The net effect of imposing these morally inapplicable rules and regulations is to discourage business operations--which I believe is fundamentally anti-American and anti-competitive at its core.
I think perhaps the reason I am sensitive about this issue is because during high school I ran the prototypical child-run business: newspaper delivery. I cleared about $30/month for daily delivery (including Sundays) for roughly 90 newspapers. Do the arithmetic: I was making just over a penny a paper I threw. My folks didn't have resources to contribute to my college expenses; I had 6 younger siblings, my mom was a homemaker and my dad was drawing a NCO's pay (which at the time wasn't nearly as attractive as it is today). The company charged me for each paper; sometimes I got an extra paper or two in my bundle to lure new subscribers.
It's not as fun as it sounds. One had to manually collect every month, and I often had to come back multiple times. Delivering newspapers in South Texas at heat constantly around three digits wasn't fun. And the strap of my filled newspaper bag would often dig into my shoulder. It didn't rain that often but I had to deliver rain or shine. I'll never forget this one stormy Sunday morning I had just pedaled out of our family driveway when the back of my bicycle seat collapsed and I landed on my back. Icy cold water rushing towards the sewer was soaking my clothes, my rolled-up papers were strewn over the street, I hurt from the fall, and God knew the shape my bike was in. Every once in a while a customer would falsely complain I didn't deliver his paper (I always cross-footed my paper counts and had near photographic memory). If I did not have a promotional copy, I had to go down to the newsstand and buy a replacement copy at full price--which wiped out most of my profit for the customer that month. It's pathetic when you steal money from a kid.
Not meaning to go on with little horror stories (everyone has problems, I realize), but I'll never forget this one family with 3 teenage girls and mother/wife, all around 5'10" or so (a little taller than me; one of the girls was in junior high and two others attended my high school). I had never met the dad/husband, but he called me one day insisting I had not delivered his paper. I was usually very accurate with my paper throws, banging the front door, but this one I remember skipped into the middle of a rolled up garden hose at the top/back of the driveway, maybe 4 feet from the door. He would accept nothing short of my coming to his house (several blocks away) and hand-delivering the paper in person. So I pedaled over to his duplex house (all the time thinking what my grandfather grocer said: 'The customer is always right'), plucked the paper from exactly where I had told him it was, knocked on his door and tried to hand him his paper, but for some reason I can't recall (maybe he wanted to read me the riot act), he had me step up into his house. What I remember most of that incident besides what I've just written was that given a wife and 3 daughters near 6 feet tall, I had mentally pictured him as being a very tall man. Instead I was looking down at him. He was at best 5'5"--he looked somewhat like a short Sgt. Vince Carter from Gomer Pyle. (I guess it was possible that his wife was previously married to a tall man and these were his stepdaughters.) I went away from there thinking the guy had a Napoleon complex.
Most of my customers were in the enlisted section of the base; I had maybe 10 or so papers to deliver in two other places on base which required an elliptical detour; I had a few I delivered in a bachelor NCO barracks (what I particularly remember about that is they had a vending machine dispensing cans of beer; however, I wasn't interested in drinking beer). That was my last stop before pedaling a few hundred yards home. Mom never had soft drinks or ice cream except on special occasions when I lived at home (the youngest siblings: different story). So occasionally I would treat myself to a can of Fresca or whatever--which blew a third of my profits for the day.
There weren't a lot of other opportunities for earning money on base. I think at 16 you could apply to work at the commissary as a bagger and earn tips, but I graduated soon after turning 16. My dad wouldn't let me get a drivers license because his insurance agent found out I was taking drivers education at school and Dad couldn't afford to take a hit on his auto insurance. (I knew I didn't have money to buy and operate a car, but I wanted a license in hand whenever I could afford one. Dad wouldn't let me student drive, even in empty parking lots, once he was contacted by the insurance agent.)
Going back to the core discussion, there is an excellent post by the Freedom Center of Missouri summarizing numerous persecutions of child-run concessions, including small-scale lemonade stands, produce stands (e.g., pumpkins and organic vegetables), and Girl Scout cookies. (I mean, how miserable do you have to be to go after Girl Scout cookies? My little sisters used to sell them. What's more all-American than Girl Scout cookies?) A good graphical summary (with only two green--i.e., pro-child-run business--items) is available here.
Not all municipalities are run by mindless bureaucrats whom establish or enforce policies with the unintended consequences of crushing the spirit of future entrepreneurs. There are people whom still remember what America is really all about--including the land of opportunity and freedom--and exercise COMMON SENSE. So kudos to my new favorite city in Nebraska: Chadron:
City Clerk Donna Rust said although there is an ordinance regarding vendors, residents of the City are exempt [including lemonade stands]...The City would more than likely encourage young people who have the initiative to start up a lemonade stand to try to make some money for themselves over the summer. A vendor's permit is $10 per day, $25 per week, and $100 per year; if a child’s business endeavor was required to get one, it wouldn’t be worth the cost for the small enterprise...would not bring any profit for a small lemonade stand.Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And some good public servants, like Donna Rust, remember that the business of government is to serve us, not for us to serve the business of government.
Political Humor
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Bread, "Sweet Surrender"
