tre wrote:My little brother owns his own small business. He does corporate refrigeration, electrical work (electrician) and Solar. He is very successful and has 2 employees currently. He works around 70-80 hours per week and has more work that he could ever take on. His biggest problem now is that he can't find good employees. He'd rather turn down work than hire employees that are lousy. He's had to fire many of them for drug use. He's had to fire many of them for not taking/passing the required written tests for certification(which my brother pays for). Since he doesn't want to work more than 70-80 hours per week and he can't find enough good employees, he has purposely stopped growth where it is at currently. If the government becomes any more restrictive and regulatory, he may have to cut his employees. Any increased risk from hiring employees (health care law, etc.) and he'll cut all employees, cut some of the jobs he takes on and do all the work himself.
My brother has created a successful business but it is NOT easy. It is hard work. It took him many, many years to build it up. His expertise at his craft and his work ethic are what has made it possible. The US Government makes it very hard to be successful n small business these days. If the government pushes any more restrictions/regulations, small business will become smaller or go out of business completely.
I am going to say a couple of things and you can feel free to correct me.
You're brother is experiencing what is really one of the biggest problems with our economy. There are not enough workers trained to do the basic things that make businesses function. We have too many lawyers, stock brokers and risk management specialist in Anglo society and not enough technicians which your brother requires.
Universally few people want to do hard work outdoors and many haven't learned a work ethic either; especially with their parents carting their children everywhere they go because they don't see the need to get a license and buy a car. I started to see this in the late 1990's, its only accelerated since.
When you speak of drugs I am going to assume you are speaking about Methamphetamines which has not gotten the media attention Crack Cocaine has and we know why -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNKBxHpWX2Y
Lower Middle Class and Whites from the Working Poor are being targeted by Right Wingers like Charles Murray and others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVwbVWQOG3s
For failing to make the grade -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/tw ... d=all&_r=0
This mirrors what House MD's friend has said about the White men she has available to in her local dating pool -
viewtopic.php?t=21380
It's that there's few real men left, we've become a nation of lazy boys that would rather kick back and play Modern Warfare 22: Electric Boogaloo than do anything becoming of a real man. She could find a dozen boys that want to marry her- there's one guy that smokes pot all day and stocks shelves for minimum wage, another guy who is more interested in watching TV and playing Magic: the Gathering than he is in sex, another one who is drunk 70% of his waking hours and is unemployed, etc. All she wants is a guy who basically runs the show, and no man is willing to step up and do what men have been doing for 10,000 years.
So I am not shocked your brother can't seem to find willing workers, who want to work, show up on-time and work as scheduled.
This is the middle, the majority of that 20% of the 80-20 rule that women, White women especially can't seem to find a reasonable man, despite the belly aching around here.
I do have to make a slight correction to your blanket blaming of the Government being hostile to small business. The truth is, its not hostile to small business otherwise there wouldn't be an SBA. The Chamber of Commerce and large businesses are very much anti-small business because its these new business that come up with the innovations that force older companies to comply or get crushed. Large businesses would rather keep the status quo and roll out improvements and updates when it suits them and not before.
They only like small business so they can start up new companies to take advantage of the loopholes created in the tax code to encourage small businesses.
Obamacare wasn't intended to be odious, it was written by former Baucus aid and Health Net Exec. Liz Fowler; IE the revolving door between private industry and the Federal Government.
It was written by and for the Health Care Industry not to give advantages to people like your brother it was to further stoke the flames of Class Warfare, while giving some who would normally fall through the cracks like me health care at the expense of the State.
At some point these issues will be addressed however, not sure when that happens, 5-10 years from now I would think.